cat tooth removal

Question
Hello! I have two quick questions to ask. First of all, my cat is about 13-14 years old and one of his canine teeth is REALLY loose, like its barely hanging in there. I know it bothers my cat, but not to the point that he doesn't eat (He eats both soft and hard foods.)I was wondering if the tooth is going to fall out on its own or if I should have a vet remove it.(P.S. its only the one tooth that is bad, all of his other teeth are perfect.) Secondly, though I know its not recommended, if I decided to remove the tooth on my own, could I use oragel? I have liquid oragel and was thinking of dabbing a q-tip with an EXTREMELY small amount and lightly touching the gums around the tooth. If I shouldn't use oragel, could you at least tell me the reason why? (risks, side effects, etc.) I'll probably just take him to the vet to take the safest route possible, but was mostly just curious! Thank You So Much!!!!

Answer
I wouldn't use oragel in a cat's mouth. I don't have a tube of it in front of me but many human medications are extremely toxic to cats .

If the tooth is wobbly loose, it will just fall out on its own. Most of the time this is due to bone loss in the gums.

Cats and dogs don't use their canine teeth to eat. They use their canines to grab their prey and hang on to them while they suffocate them with their paws. Sounds like a cheetah and not a cat or dog doesn't it? That's because our domestic pets don't hunt and use their canines at all, except in fighting. Well, cats do and yes they do use their canines to grab those mice and birds!  

So it's not unusual to see this kind of tooth loss in an older cat. It's actually quite common.

I would take him to the vets as you don't want to mess around with a situation like this on an older cat. It's just too risky. The vet might just reach up there and pull on it and it will fall out, or tell you to leave it.

Regardless, a trip to the vet is warranted just to have it looked at.