Found a large tumour on her dewlap

[Liung]

@Popsicles the teeth in her mouth are fine, it's the tooth root that we're suspecting. I'm not sure how filing down the tooth in her mouth would help the fact that the tooth root is likely pressing against her tear duct.

And the way the vet explained it to me (and which makes sense considering what I was taught about dentition in my program), full extraction is much harder in rabbits than it would be in a cat or dog, because of their continually erupting nature, they're much more solidly rooted. My vet trims Lahi's tooth spurs on a regular basis, that's not the issue, he just doesn't have the equipment for a full extraction. Lahi had a tooth pulled after his abscess was gone, the tooth that had caused it wasn't rooted in anything, and became very loose. He still has some loose teeth at the back but that one was barely hanging on and needed to come out. But since it was already mostly out, it wasn't too hard for him to extract it.

And, having fairly recently gotten my wisdom teeth pulled... holy crap was that painful. I'm not going to put Delilah through that if all that's wrong is a watery eye that I can care for myself. The very moment it seems like she's in pain, or having difficulties, you can bet I'll be banging on the clinic door... but until then, yeah, that's a pretty major surgery with an agonizing recovery for something that isn't life-threatening. Especially with the insinuation that it would hurt her even more than my wisdom teeth hurt me.

 

[Liung]

In the meantime... EXCELLENT NEWS!!

I got my vet to check the prices on the OVC, because Histovet says outright on their website that they specialize in dogs and cats, and are a small lab, whereas the ladies at the OVC assured me that whoever examined the tumour would be someone who specializes in rabbits, and my vet agreed that the OVC would be a much higher quality testing. To both our surprise, the OVC price was only $10 more than Histovet! $175 later, and today he emailed me pictures of the report. Conclusion: benign trichoblastoma that was completely excised and is unlikely to ever reoccur!

YESSSS!!! Literally crying right now from happiness.




Also super proud of myself for understanding probably about 80% of the report without googling anything. I got a little lost when they started describing the makeup of the tumour in detail, but otherwise followed along pretty well.

Now my only concern is... if it's a completely benign tumour usually found as a single solitary nodule... where'd the one on her back come from??

 

[Popsicles]

With regards to her teeth: as they are constantly growing, they need to be grinding down at the same rate as the growth. In this case, the teeth aren’t grinding enough, but keep growing.. the only direction that extra growth can go is towards the roots, which is why the tooth roots are overgrown. Yes rabbit teeth extractions are more difficult, but certainly not impossible and I’ve known them to be done. With the appropriate pain relief, of course. The watery eye is a side effect of a condition that is certainly painful, even if you can’t tell. Rabbits are naturally stoic animals which don’t show pain readily, but if this continues she will be in enough pain to stop eating eventually. Once you notice she is in pain, it will be worse than you think it is, and it will be too late for much to be done by then. Tooth root overgrowth is sadly very common and also often poorly managed. If it was me I would definitely be looking into dental surgery, but unfortunately even that is rarely successful. A proper exotics vet would be where I would go now, to do whatever you can as quickly as possible before we risk osteomyelitis and even more pain.

That is, however, fantastic news about the tumour!! I bet you feel so relieved! The photo is a bit blurry to read but I bet it’s really interesting was the one on her back tested then? It might be just a warty type thing, or it could just be another benign, unrelated, trichoblastoma as they are fairly common and she is obviously prone to them. Brilliant though, what good news

 

[Liung]

My understanding for tooth roots is simply that even as they grow down into the mouth, they also grow up into the jaw, the tooth getting longer at both ends. So as they age, they're simply more prone to problems with tooth roots. Delilah has never had any tooth problems ever, thankfully, though Lahi needs his teeth trimmed roughly once a year. When Lahi was seven years old, he developed his retrobulbar abscess, which later turned out to have been caused by his tooth when it became loose and needed to be pulled after the abscess was cured. And I was given the tooth and marvelled at how much was below the gun line!

Weirdly, though Lahi is down a tooth and we were worried about his bottom molar growing unchecked without the matching upper molar to grind against... he must have adjusted how he chews or something, because ever since he's had fewer tooth spurs at all!

So with Delilah having just turned seven... I'm not particularly surprised that she's showing tooth root problems now too. What's making me want to beat my head against the wall is that the year Lahi turned seven he was developing an new and interesting health problem every month.

January: tooth spur
February: conjunctivitis
March: retrobulbar abscess
April: GI stasis
May: choking episode
June: sore hocks

There was more but I'd have to look it up.

So Delilah turned seven and then already this year has had a blocked tear duct and a skin tumour...

DELILAH PLEASE DON'T COPY HIM!! I really don't want to run the gamut of every rabbit health problem on existence, this is not some kind of medical bingo!!

I'll type out what it said on the report, it's pretty blurry for me too (he sent me pictures of the report, since I'm in Guelph right now) but I think I can make it out alright

 

[Liung]

Also, re: vet,

When choosing my vet I did a TON of research, called up all the vets in my area to quiz them with questions, of the 30+ vets in the area only about 5 said they took rabbits, but even if they said they didn't take rabbits I would ask who they reccomend and keep track of how many reccomendations a particular clinic got...

Of the 5, only three got rabbit patients regularly, and only two did rabbit surgeries regularly. One of those clinics was a clinic associated with a zoo, and the other was my current clinic. They were second in reccomendations and their prices were about half that of the zoo clinic. I've never had cause to be unhappy with them, and my vet is very experienced with exotics. In particular, I trust him a lot to be honest with me because he can and has admitted when he has never seen a weird problem I've brought him before and gone to fetch the vet textbook, opened it up on the counter in front of me, and shown me exactly what he thinks it could be and why.

I'm moving to Guelph soon and honestly if it weren't for the fact that bunnies hate car rides I would absolutely be commuting back with them to continue to have him as my vet, because that clinic has fostered such a bond of trust and good will with me (even as the price goes up they consistently give me discounts so I'm paying the same for dental work as I did the first time, on surgeries and expensive treatments they regularly discount a hundred dollars or more for being a long-term customer who brings my animals in regularly, when Lahi had laboured breathing and I was panicking but he didn't show any signs during examination they kept him in the clinic for observation for the day no charge—found out later the "laboured breathing" was snoring, derp)

But since they don't handle car rides well, I am going to have to find a new vet. But, Guelph is pretty much the centre of veterinary medicine in Ontario, being the hometown of the Ontario Veterinary College, so I'm sure I'll be able to find a good rabbit vet here. The prices are going to SUCK ASSSSSSSS but I'll definitely be able to find someone who can do full tooth extractions to take a look.

If I'm very lucky I'll find a professor who wants to have interesting case studies for their students to observe and not have to sacrifice my soul to pay for it. Sigh.

In the meantime, my vet says he doesn't feel like he has the equipment for a full extraction, I'm gonna take him at his word. Delilah's not exhibiting any signs of pain, shipping her out to Guelph to see a specialist can wait until we're in Guelph and I'm looking for a vet anyway.

Don't worry about me not noticing if she's in pain! When I worked in Guelph for my field placement my actual job was to assess research animals for signs of pain and illness, primarily mice and rats. Everyone at the facility commented how good I was at catching even the smallest of signs—my years of paranoid hovering over my bunnies has actually become an employable skill! For example I could catch developing dermatitis long before they had any hair loss or lesions, because I could recognize the itchy head twitch they got.

(PS animals living in—biomedical! I doubt makeup testing facilities and such are held to the same standards—research facilities receive the best care it is possible for an animal to receive, in Canada at least. If I found a mouse showing the slightest amount of discomfort the vet was in there treating it within an hour or two. Ethics of using animals for research aside, the standard of care they receive is above reproach. And that was my job, assessing the animals to ensure the highest standard of care.)

I feel like when people say "prey animals hide their pain, they don't show when they're ill", that's really inaccurate. They just have different symptoms than predator species. Those symptoms are just as noticeable if you know what to look for. The big challenge for prey animals is simply that some of those symptoms don't mean anything in certain contexts. So the one mouse room I was in charge of, one set of mice normally displayed ataxia and piloerection, because it was an old age study and these mice were literally two years old. Some had cataracts, some were going grey, the males were FAAAAT. If I saw those symptoms in a young mouse that'd be a red flag. Another set of mice were super spasmodic and twitchy in a way that in other mice might mean seizures, but in these mice was just a typical characteristic of the breed.

Anyway I digress, I'm keeping an extremely sharp eye on her for complications but in the meantime I'm not going to worry about looking for a tooth root when it doesn't seem to bother her right now and we're imminently moving to vet specialist central.

 

[Popsicles]

You’re incorrect about tooth growth - growth towards the jaw is pathological and should not occur in a healthy rabbit, particularly one who is still young at 7. I appreciate your struggle to find a good exotics vet. I also fully understand how prey animals show pain, and just simplified their pain response as I wasn’t aware of your training. I personally wouldn’t leave this issue until pain DOES occur, which is inevitable, because by then it is too late. However, I do understand your stance, and I hope you find a good exotics vet when you move. Good luck!