need advice for my sick bunny

[usersam]

hello i am new here so hope i am doing this posting thing right. i have a 7-8 year old bunny who was diagnosed with psuedomonas, she has had some bad problems within last year. it started with constant runny poop, snuffles, sneezing and a very bad ear infection. this progressed to an infection in her nipples in which she had to have2 of them partially removed. we biopsied the lump and found out it was psuedomonas. she can not take just any type of meds because she gets the runs easily so she has been on baytril off and on. this past month i noticed that she was getting sick so she went on the baytril for several weeks, she got soft stool so i took her off, within a fit few days she was very sick again so she went back on. she is at the point that she feels sick off of baytril but gets runny poop when she is on. i just dont know what to do anymore for her. i have read on some sights that it may be best to take her off meds and hope for the best. someone please help i dont want to loose her

 

[Maureen Las]

I happened on these in all experts.; Dana Krempels is a reliable source

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Rabbits-703/2008/2/chronic-nasal-pseudomonas.htm

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Rabbits-703/2008/12/rabbit-trouble.htm

you need to see a vet is that very experienced with rabbits. Your rabbit 's age is probably contributing to her immunefunction being lower , however, baytril is just not an effective or strong enough drug to help with this bacteria and most rabbits are resistant to this drug at this point anyway.

You can give her a probiotic like benebac to help stabilize her gut and increase the positive GI flora and you can also give much stronger injectable medication like bicillin which will minimize the GI upsets.

The ideal would be a combo of several meds ..possibly an oral med like zithromax and an injectable drug like bicillin to kill this bacteria.
I have never personally dealt with pseudomonas so hopefully someone who has experienced this can add some info but i do know that baytril is not the right drug for this.
I am moving this to the Infirmary

 

[Boz]

Hi there! I do not have any advice but I'm sending good vibes your way for you and your bun!

 

[usersam]

thanks so much for the advice, my vet is very rabbit savvy but he is afraid of giving her other antibiotics since she has had very bad diarrea on penacilin and bicilin before, this case is difficult because she checks out okay otherwise, her teeth are in great shape, she does eat well and has no other issues except the chronic psuedomonas infections that flare up from time to time. i have decided to try and take her off all meds, i have been giving her critical care mixed with 2 drops of echinacae extract to boost her immune system, i think some of the problem is that when she does not feel well she does not want to eat her hay so much, she does want her pellets and veggies but this makes her poopy soft. so i amgiving her critical care 2-3 times a day to suppliment her lack of hay in diet. i noticed this morning that her soft stool was not as bad. thanks again for your help i really appreciate it

 

[tonyshuman]

I agree with Angieluv that a different type of antibiotic is needed. Penicillin should be given injected beneath the skin, and there are usually very few GI issues when penicillin is given that way.

Other options you might want to discuss are zithromax, chloramphenicol, and Convenia. You really need to try all the antibiotic options and get the pseudomonas infection under control.

Also, probiotics need to be added to help her when she's on the antibiotics. They need to be given several hours apart from the antibiotic, and some good options are BeneBac, ProBios and human acidophilus capsules (NOT milk-based).