Candida in ears

[Maureen Las]

My 6 yr old chinchilla rabbit, Brett , was shaking his head back and forth this AM so I immediately got him into his vet suspecting an ear infection The tech swabbed some gook from his right ear and it turns out he has a fungal infection in his ear called candida. The vet says this is sometimes difficult to treat but at least for now she put him on miconazole topical which is exactly what women use for vaginal yeast infections. She doesn't want me to clean his ears now although I am somewhat concerned re. placing cream in his ears but am following her plan. If this doesn't work he could be placed on an oral drug.
I have been dealing with rabbits for years now and this is the first time I have had one with a fungal rather than bacterial ear infection. I am just wondering if anyone else has had this same issue with a bun, and if so, how was it treated and what was the outcome .
PS There is a prescription miconazole lotion ( drops) which is sold for cats/dogs but has high alcohol content so I assume that is why she did not prescribe it
Thanks a lot!!
Maureen

 

[JBun]

I haven't ever had to deal with this, but it does seem like an odd thing to occur. I would think that it would more likely accompany a bacterial infection as well, or that it would occur because a rabbit was already on antibiotics and this killed off any bacteria allowing the candida to grow.

Sorry I can't be more helpful. There is this one link on candida in rabbits, though I don't know if it will prove helpful at all.
http://wildpro.twycrosszoo.org/S/00dis/FungalAlgal/Candidiasis.htm