nemo's eye infection

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timetowaste

timetowaste

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Aug 4, 2007
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Scottsdale, Arizona, USA
you guys, it's just not a good day. nemo's eye is still pussing often. i see it is coming out of the corner of his eye. when we went to the vet, they told me there is nothing wrong with his eye, and it may be a tooth problem. if it is, they said not to worry about it now, because he is not bothered by it.

now i'm thinking i really need a second opinion here. clearly.

that was a month ago. and his eye. is still. pussing. it has been since the day i rescued his butt. so every night i comb through the hair by his eye. it looks horrid, and it appears to be thinning out because of all the combing and dried puss that powders up in his fur around his eye (right in the corner behind his nose). well today i was picking it out, and i must have picked a tiny scab from all these nights of combing out that area, and a few drops of blood came out of a small little dot in that same area.

i was so upset, i don't want him to hurt. my poor little bun. i'm very unhappy about this. what do you guys think of the advice the veterinarian gave me? i'm a college student, so i'm insanely broke right now. but i just want his eye to be okay, and i mean, he doesn't even flinch when i touch the area or anything so he is not in pain. but, i can't bear to see him with an infection anymore. his other eye is perfect.

feedback?
 
I would say a second opinion is a must. I am attaching a picture of one of the worst ocular infections we have ever seen. This is Danny....you can read his story in our blog. He had infections all over his body when he came here. He was one sick little bunny. We used the normal antibiotics that 99% of the vets prescribe without doing proper cultures. This is an example of a resistant bacteria. This is a strain of pasteurella multocida....one of the primary pathogens in rabbits. It was totally resistant to all the sulfa drugs and baytril. This was one of the first cases we used huge amounts of zithromax. This infection continued for months as we researched what was going on. He developed a massive corneal ulcer.....which was very painful when combined with the general infection. He nearly lost his eye. After months of treatment, we found a fix for Danny's situation and he still has his eye and is happy and healthy. A second opinion and appropriate treatment is in order to prevent something like this from happening. And it doesn't really have to be an eye infection...possibly a dental issue or a head abscess could have caused this to happen. Danny's problem just happened to be totally in his eye.
DanEye.jpg


Randy
 
oh my GOD THAT'S HORRIBLE!

okay. first thing on the agenda tomorrow: call a different vet and make an appt for as soon as possible, before the holidays clog up days i can bring nemo in.

thank you for your opinion, both of you.

i am going to go take care of this asap, have cultures done, and an x ray if need be. this is horrid.

thank you again.

tracy and nemo
 
time to :bumpthis thread up again!

nemo went to the vet today finally. i have been so financially strapped for money, but i finally saved up enough and knew i could afford to spend it on a nice trip to a great rabbit savvy vet. and man, i got one alright. dr. donald holmes was WONDERFUL. he did a full physical for nemo and ::drumroll please::...

nemo has conjunctivitus. that's right, basically, pink eye, in a nutshell. apparently it is pus coming from his tear duct that is watered down from the tears. and the ointments i've tried haven't worked because its hard for the ointment to actually penetrate the tear duct. so now, i have medicated eye drops (tobramycin) to give him 3 times a day for 2 weeks, and then dr. holmes says we will touch base tues the 22nd (cause that monday is martin luther king day!).

WONDERFUL vet, very reassuring. the only thing he mentioned was that nemo should gain a few extra ounces, so he told me to make sure nemo gets his full 1/8 cup of pellets every day, which will be easy now that i finally found a pellet nemo will actually eat!

i'm SO relieved, really. and the best part is (which also makes me look like an idiot), it only cost $54. i wish i would have done this so much sooner, but dr. holmes said he is definitely not in any sort of pain anyway so i feel slightly less guilty about being an idiot.

i'm just so glad that this is going to go away, and if it doesn't with the eyedrops, i have an educated veterinarian who has other options in mind!

tracy
:group:
 
well frustrating news here. tobramycin didn't do the trick 3 times a day. so we are now up to .5 mL of a banana flavored liquid antibiotic twice a day. been doing this since last thursday, jan 17th. my poor little boy...i am so unhappy about this.

as of today, his eye is no longer consistently solid little strands of pus, but is now leaking what look like tears but are a milky, cloudy color in the tear liquid. so i believe (and hope!) that the infection is slowly but surely draining out in that form.

randy? any observations?

dr. holmes called me to check up on nemo last wednesday and suggested this, then saying that if this doesn't work, he will need to be put under anesthesia and have his tear duct cleaned out manually.

oh please make this go away. i'm so worried for him. my poor little BABY...

tracy
 
Bruno had mild conjunctivitis aftera bite during bondingto one of his eyes. He was prescribed ChlorPalm 1 1/2cc and Pentamycetin 1% (ointment). This cleared it up very nicely and in no time, although I didn't use the ointment much, since Bruno didn't like it and the ChlorPalm was already doing a great job clearing it up!

I hope Nemo's eye clears up!
 
Hi Tracy,

Most likely the banana flavored med is Baytril and thatmight not work. It has been the drug of choice for rabbits for many years but is losing it's effectiveness....and I don't use it much now.Several of the exotics vets I know don't use it now either. I am not a vet....but if I were, I would suspect it is most likely pasteurella (a culture and sensitivity would be the way to know for sure what it is and how to treat it). And if I were a vet and I had some degree of confidence that it is pasteurella, I would use Gentamicin eye drops and Zithromax orally for at least 14 days. Both of these drugs are very effective against most gram negative bacteria. I would flush the eye to remove the gunkevery few hours and administer an eye gel in-between antibiotic drops to keep the eye properly lubricated and soothed.

We have cleaned tear ducts without sedation if the bunny is docile enough. That is very interesting. It doesn't appear to be painful but most likely a different feeling. Would not be a bad idea to do. I would leave the sedation call up to whatyour doctor is comfortable with. Another plus with being sedated....a really good exam can be made under the eyelid and the tissues surrounding the eyes for any issues related to this problem.

We treated Danny's infection with Baytril and Sulfatrim for months. Within 48 hours of his first dose of Zithromax, his eye opened on it's own for the first time in months. Within 96 hours, no discharge was present. I kept him on Zithromax for 28 days. It took some convincing to talk my doctor into using Zithromax. It is another of the very effective treatments that have not made it main stream yet. We use it quite a bit here and it has been a very effective treatment against pasteurella.

Next time you disuss Nemo or visit your vet, pull up this thread and let your doctor read it and see Danny's situation. We were planning on removing his eye. We also sedated him to check for anything and everything. He also developed a corneal ulcer....and I have a fix for that too. Keep us posted.

Randy
 
thank you randy, i will definitely pull this up for dr. holmes to see. i believe he will call either tomorrow or friday and i am sure he will want nemo to come back in and we will decide what to do from there. pasturella sounds terrifying -- i just don't want nemo to hurt over something that can be easily fixed. i wish i could just snap my fingers and make it go away -- but i'm sure you and every pet owner (and parent!) can relate to that feeling.

the banana flavored liquid medication is called enrofloxacin, and he gets a half a mL twice a day (morning and night). is that baytril?

ugh. thank you so much for the advice, and thank you everyone for your support. i will definitely keep you updated on this situation -- and if danny's eye was good to go afterward, i can't imagine nemo's eye being in a worse condition. definitely not thick pus like danny's. nemo's is small little thin strands of white pus. and now, of course, the cloudy tears.

thanks again!

tracy

EDIT: i looked it up, and it is the generic baytril. oh boy. well, looks like nemo needs new meds!
 
Well I spoke with Dr. Holmes today....

Nemo is scheduled to go under anesthesia on Monday, February 18th...Presidents Day. He is going to have his tear duct flushed out. The Dr. said that while he has used Zithromax in the past, he prefers Nemo to go under so they can get a culture of the infection and see what type of antibiotic can best kill the infection. If something could be better than Zithromax, why use the Zithromax is the way he put it.

My baby....:( I'm so worried. AND it's going to be in the realm of $250. My heart is just breaking right now. UGH.

Tracy
 
nemo had his tear duct cleansed today. both of them, actually, even though it was only one side. he is doing okay now, pretty out of it from the anesthesia, but okay. he is chowing down on some romaine lettuce, so i know he is okay.

well, as it turns out...nemo has a birth defect.

when they flushed his duct on the non infected eye, it should have all just come out through his nostril on that side (the left side). and, it did. all the saline came right out.

when they flushed the infected side...nothing came out through his nostril. not a drop. it all came back up through the tear duct. turns out that nemo's nose is not fully open on that side...and it was probably from birth. i feel really bad for the guy...i didn't even know he had an issue. it's going to probably be chronic, and no antibiotic will cut it for him. it's just something he will be living with.

i emailed the girl who i adopted him from, who told me she had gotten him last april from a breeder in payson (up north from me in arizona, but not quite as north as amy) when he was only 6 weeks old. i feel so bad...poor little guy...only 6 weeks old. ugh. and apparently, he had this infection when she took him and the breeder said that it would probably only last a day.

what lies that was.

wish nimmers the best everyone!

~ Tracy
 
Awww, poor Nemo :(Glad to hear he's recovering well from the surgery though...

What can they do for him, if antibiotics wont help? Does he have to keep having it flushed regularly?

Give him lots of nose rubs and hugs from me! :D

Jen xx
 
:hug:I'm sorry I missed this, I've been so busy with school lately.

Have you contacted the breeder? Might let him/her know incase they're having similar problems in their line-up.

Poor Nemo, but at least he has an awesome mom who's willing to take care of him even with the problem!
 
That's okay Katie, I understand.

Thank you mouse_chalk, I wish I got back to you sooner but it's been a rough week!

Nemo is going to be okay. I don't know who the breeder is unfortunately, but the next time I hear back from Gabby (the girl who I adopted Nemo from after she got him from the breeder), I will ask her that question. I just know where he is located, about an hour north of me.

I think this is just going to be a lifelong thing, and his eye IS draining by itself and it wasn't pus coming out of his eye, and Dr. Holmes says Nemo is not in any pain whatsoever...so I think this is just going to have to sit for the rest of his life. Poor Nemo...6 weeks old when he was adopted. He isn't even a year old until March at some point!

Nemo is back to perfect normal shape. He doesn't even know he has a problem. I almost compare it to a cleft pallette, but much less visible since it is up his nose. It's okay. I love that bunny no matter what, even if he is short-bus bunny :)

Tracy
 
Hey, that's no problem- I'm the same! Or I always think I've replied and then I realise I haven't lol... :)

I'm glad to hear he's doing ok, and even though it might be a lifelong problem, it's good that he's not in any pain or discomfort, and also that he has such a dedicated bunny mum to look after him! :D

And he willreward you for such loving care by sharing his tasty cecal snacks... LOL!

Sorry, couldn't resist! :p
 
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