Babette is off azithromycin (this is long)

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Maureen Las

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As some of you know ,Babette, my 7 yr old mini-lop has had recurring and increasingly severe lower respiratory infections within the past several yrs. She has been treated with first baytril thenciprofloxicin and just recently azithromycin.
After examining the meds that she has received in the past I have been really alarmed to find that she has probably been underdosed on most of the meds. Early on I placed more trust in the vet than I should have and sometimes did not calculate the oral doses that he gave memyself. The previous meds worked for awhile but she seems to have grown resistant to everything but azithromycin.

Several months ago when she was initally placed on azithromycin (I talked the vet intoit as he had never used it on a bun before)I was aware that he was prescribing a dose that was too low; he was not willing to increase the dosage and did not feel that he needed to talk to Randy.

Ihave been upsetthe past few months because (until recently) there was nothing I could do as I had the oral azithromycin with a refill every 2 weeks and because of that had to stick with the lower dosage which did keep her symptoms in check.

I have recently decided to treat her myself with bicillin when she relapses because I am able to buy it at Farm and fleet.
I did pm Randy about this.
It really is not a good option to treat on one's own and I know this but I do not have a rabbit saavy vet even remotely near me.I do have a medical backgound so I feel that I can do it safely but I am still nervous.
I read all the articles and reviewed how to do a sub Q injection ..also calculated the dosage for her weight. I ordered b-comples injectable over the internet and also sterile water for injection.

The smallest size needle I can get at farm and fleet is 21 gauge ; I am unsure as to whether this is a good size for injection but I cannot get access to smaller gauge other than the insulin syringes that one vet gave me for injectable baytril
I am posting this because when she relapses I hope that everyone here will help me with this because I know that when she exhibits symptoms that I am going to get very upset
Hopefully she will remain well for at least a little while. I did increase the azithromycin the last refill because I knew that it was the end of the refills anyway and thought it would be better to give her a larger dosage for less days which I did.
Anyway... thats all for now
 
I don't know anything about medicine so I can't help you in anyway. But I do hope all this works out for Babette and I hope she gets better soon. :pray:

Goodluck!
 
You will need a larger bore needle if injecting bicillin as it is very thick and will either plug up the needle or blow it off when you start to push.

Off the top of y head I think the smallest we've used for that is 23 1/4? Sorry if this isn't right I know the color of the package mroe than the size ;)
 
We use 25 x 5/8. The vet gave us either 17s or 21s before and they were horrible. (I'm sorry I don't remember which) Just too big, so its too hard to make the puncture. Our Penny just wouldn't have it.

Here is a tip with the thinner needles such as 25s. After every time you extract bicillin through the rubber cap, wipe off the top of the cap clean, so that next time your needle doesn't have to go through dried bicillin. This way the needle won't get clogged.
 
Thanks a lot !!

I can get bigger than a 21 but I can't get a smaller needle than that. Because they are from the farm store and used for farm animals they probably don't stock smaller ones.
I plan to dilute the bicillin with sterile water so I would guess that would thin it out some.

I'm going to get different size needles so I can experiement and also will remember to wipe the top of the bottle off with alcohol after I draw it up.

I have never used any penicillin products before for my rabbits so any tips from people with experience is more than helpful.


Babette really looks beat up.

Since she was on the azithromycin she has lost 0.5 lbs. in about 3 months.

She still eats OK so I am not too worried about it. Her companion ,Beau has teeth issues that are chronic. Every night I mix their pellets with critical care and make a sloppy gruel. Sometimes I put pumkin in it. Babette really loves this mess.
I can tell that something is wrong when she either refuses her gruel or refuses her bene-bac laced piece of banana in the AM.

So far she has no symptoms


 
Try getting some needles at a medical supply store. I had to purchase some for a school project a couple months ago, so we went to a pharmacy and they pointed us in the direction of a pharaceutical supply store.

--Dawn
 
Ask next time you go a pharmacy, they should be able to tell you if you need a presciption or not. I needed them for a school project, and we just went to the medical supply store and got some. They didn't have a problem with it at all.

You might be able to get some like I did. It never hurts to ask around.

--Dawn
 
I just checked the on-linemedical supply companywhere I ordered the sterile water for injection . I can also order any size needle and/or any size butterfly infusion set without a prescription. I didn't look at it because I thought I could get the needles at farm and fleet.

Is needle size something that is a personal preference? For ex..some people are more comfortable with a smaller gauge and some people are more comfortable with a larger gauge. ?

I can see that it would be easier to get thick medicine out of alarger gauge and harder to inject it with a smaller gauge.
Since I probably would be ordering a box is there any size that I can't go wrong with?-- has anyone but Randy used the butterflies?

Ialso plan to mix it with sterile water so it won't be as thick or create an abscess at the site.
 
We've been going PenG shots for well over a year with 25ga needle and the only time we ran into a problem was that crust that dried PenG makes on top of the rubber lid. (This was before we realized why the needle kept getting clogged). Other than that absolutely no problem. The difference is day and night, in how easy it is to puncture when using a thinner needle.
 
Just my thoughts here....I use a 21g needlefor all sub-q injectionson everything including the baby squirrels, cottontails, opossums and birds. I usewinged "butterfly" catheters with a luer lock syringefornearly all sub-q injections to help prevent a skin tear if the rabbit movesunexpectedly. I use 29g or 30ginsulin syringes for most IM injections. Over the years, I have found this to work perfectly for me.

Randy
 
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