Fighting pasteurella and fleas.

Crixus was diagnosed with pasteurella back in July. He had a very slight runny nose, frequent sneezing, and a puffy eye so I got him in right away. The vet said although he has pasteurella, there was not a crazy amount in his culture. He was on metacam (for the eye) and baytril to fight the infection.

The metacam was only for a couple of days until his eye went down, but we kept him on baytril for 2 weeks. His symptoms nearly disappeared and he was acting much more like the lively Crixus I know.

His symptoms started to show again recently, so last week I called and refilled his baytril and started treating him again. I did not see much improvement. So I got another refill for the following week. The second week will end this Friday, the vet did make a note on the bottle and asked to see him when he next needs his medication.

However, I am worried because I have seen no improvements. Before, his sneezing was frequent but it was by no means sneezing attacks, now he is definitely just having full on sneezing attacks. I knew that he would eventually build up resistance to the antibiotic but I did not expect it to only last two two week treatments? Is this a sign of him building resistance?

I plan on getting him in this week because of the lack of improvement, and also because I have noticed he has fleas. Could the fleas be irritating him and stressing him out causing worse attacks? Can I treat for fleas and pasteurella at the same time?

And is there any effective antibiotics besides baytril that could help him? My vet is awesome and very rabbit savvy so I am sure she will answer most of these questions, I just always like getting input here first because I like to know what to expect before I go in.

Also, just in general, is this pasteurella going to shorten his life drastically? I am guessing it kind of just depends on the severity of the case. Have any of you had rabbits who lived long relatively healthy lives with this disease? I just want as much time with him as possible:/
As usual, thanks guys!

I'd recommend a culture and sensitivity. The baytril may have been working at first and killed off almost all of the bacteria, leaving a few resistant ones behind that multiplied when you stopped treatment after just 2 weeks. I recently dealt with respiratory infections in my buns and after 5 months on antibiotics that we knew her bacteria were sensitive to, we finally just took Cricket off antibiotics. She's still sneezing occasionally but that's her only symptom so we're trying no antibiotics and seeing if she doesn't get worse.

As for the fleas, there are rabbit-safe flea treatments. Personally I like revlolution (selamectin) which is prescription only but advantage (imidicloprid) is also considered rabbit-safe. Your vet can definitely make a recommendation and I would treat for them because having external parasites is no fun.

Talk with your vet, there is a pill that your bunny can have, I don't remember the full name but it starts with Cap, it kills all the live adult fleas then there is a liquid similar to frontline that you can get from the vet to kill the eggs and prevent more fleas. Doing that worked on my bunny

Capstar (Nitenpyram)

I've never used it in rabbits personally, but I've seen it do wonders in dogs and cats.

missyscove, that is what it is called. I've used it both with my bunny and with my 2 dogs and cat, and it worked wonders. My cat had given fleas to every animal and I had just gotten hopper like a week then the cat gave every pet fleas. that pill saved us. I crushed it and out it in some jelly that hopper likes, that is what the vet said to do.

The flea problem should be relatively easy to control with Revolution (a single dose of Capstar can be helpful, too, but unlikely to do much for the rest of the fleas at home). As for the Pasteurella, I already discussed the problem with doing culture and sensitivities on nasal infections in rabbits... one might recover Pasteurella from nasal discharge, but there is nothing that says that is the bug causing the problem... Most Pasteurellas are pretty sensitive organisms, rarely developing resistance to the antimicrobials most commonly used against them (usually P multocida is the Pasteurella in question). Which, by the way, Baytril is NOT considered one of the ideal anti-Pasteurella meds... Penicillins on the other hand are... resistance to Penicillins is rare, so if your bunny is being infected by that organism, that might be a better choice for your rabbit's treatment... if however, the Pasteurella recovered is NOT the main problem bug, then you are sort of back to square one... Penicillin is still a good choice to start with, and Trimethoprim Sulfa might be a best second guess, with maybe a third option would be the Baytril or Doxycylcine or Chloramphenical.

Pasturella is a immunlogical illness... if the animal is stressed then the pasturella can become more obvious (this is generally speaking).

Get rid of the fleas. You can use diatomaceous earth (not sure on spelling), ivermectin, and whatever else (I know there are other things but I'm short on sleep and can't think of them). Get rid of the fleas and your bunny will hopefully feel strong enough to fight against his Pasturella problem.

Wow. Thanks for all the information. Our appointment is for Friday at 6. I will let you guys know how things go! Thank you all for the input. And Geoff, that is very interesting. If the nasal cultures can be faulty, are there other means for searching for other bugs?