Not Again!!! )=

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Okay, I'm going to rant.

There are so many biologist and veterinarians out there so focused onother animals. They can treat and curedogs and catsand horses for just about anything. But when it comes torabbits, little has been accomplished. We have pasteurellathat has yet to be cured and can only be treated. A simplerespiratory infection that cannot be cured??? Noexcuse.

Then there is poor little Iszy. Maybe she is the firstrabbit to be diagnosed with this bacteria, but one would think thatbiologists and vets would be eager to figure out what this is and whyit is in my rabbit.

I truly feel some bias. There is so much more that could bedone if the proper research, tests and studies were done.Pasteurella could be cured by now! But why hasn'tit? My opinion....because the experts haven't done theirhomework.

I feel completely immobile. There is this bacteria in my babyand nobody knows how or why. I kind of get the feeling thatthey just don't care. If Iszy were a cat or a dog or a horse,I believe they would have come to a conclusion by now.
 
Understand your rant and upset completely,Lissa. My hope is that as more people take on rabbits aspets, they will get bumped up in the line of priority.

-Carolyn
 
Lissa: I completely agree with yourrant. Unfortunately the study of exotics is still sonew. I have a friend who is going through the same problemwith a tortoise. She has this nasty, continual respiratoryinfection and they can't seem to figure out why. She too isdealing with some biologists somewhere.

The ownership of exotics is growing very quickly, so hopefully along with that, research will start to happen.

Jen
 
Iszy's vet finally called me back. Sheinstructed me to keep Iszy off the anti-biotics until Saturday when shecomes in for a culture. I will have to once again take Iszyout of the bunny room. :( After the culture comesback, we will decide whether or not to take her to Madison.

I feel like I'm going to burst.
 
Oh Lissa, that is such a huge bummer. I'm sosorry to hear about all of the troubles with Iszy. Did the vet do morethan one culture on her in the first place? Tests can be wrong, thesample can be compromised, it happens more often than you would think.I sure hope they are able to figure all of this out and the Iszy is onthe track to healthiness real soon!
 
Okay ..first I want to apologize ... I dont knowhow I didnt see or comment on this thread before ... my prayers andthoughts go out to you and Izsy!!

Okay from the reading I have done this is what I have gathered..

as stated before this is really only a bacteria you catch if it issomehow purposelyintroduced into your bloodstream, or thosewith a compromised immune system (nursing home patients seemed to bethe most common)

This bacterium is EXTREMELY resilient to treatment and may requiretrials of different antibiotics. It apparently has a very high mutationrate in which it becomes tolerant of the drug youre trying to kill itwith.

It is most common in the form of a lower respiratory infection and isoften confused with pneumonia before proper cutures are done.

one study I read, this bacteria is harbored in Sheep/Pasture/CastorTicks (Ixodes ricinus) so it may be a possibility that while outsideIzsy may have been bitten and this would be the direct introductioninto her bloodstream and rule out a compromised immune system.

Available antibiotics to treat this particular bacteria are (keep inmind this is for ppl so I dont know if it will help with Izsy, but atleast you will know the classes of drugs that kill it and your vet canpossibly relate this to an approved drug for animals):Meropenem (known as carbapenems),Fluoroquinolones(such as Cipro or Levaquin), Mezlocillin (aform of penecillin), and lastly super strong class of antibiotics knownas aminoglycosides .. they are usually injected directly into the siteif infection.

oh yeah and if it helps you vet, let them know it is a gram negative bacillus ..better help in deciding treatments.

hope this helps some !!
 
Freddysmom....:hug:That is the most usefulinformation I've received yet. Thank you so much!!!I will print it off and bring it into my vet. Just out ofcuriosity, where did you find this information?
 
No doubt, FreddysMom - ROCKS!

:elvis:

-Carolyn
 
Lissa,

I too agree with your rant. Alot more is know about dogs, cats, andhorses. This will probably not change until pet rabbits become morepopular. But its not because vets don't care about Izzy or otherrabbits. Just like everything else in our world, vetrinary medicine isdriven by demand. There simply aren't enough pet rabbits around to makein depth study of rabbit health cost productive. Its sad, but it is thetruth. Meanwhile, advances are being made. Just look at how much saferrabbit anesthesia is and how much safer spays and neuters are.

Bunnydude
 
Lissa wrote:
Freddysmom....:hug:That is the most useful information I'vereceived yet. Thank you so much!!! I will print itoff and bring it into my vet. Just out of curiosity, wheredid you find this information?
super science dork ... research articles and a quick phone call to friend in a microbiology dept.

here are two of the articles that helped me gather some info...bearwith them theyre a bit wordy and full of medical mumbo-jumbo ..but youcan PM me if you find anything a lil confusing.

This first one, make sure you keep scrolling down .. there is a middlesection that is all links but after that there is tons more info.

http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic678.htm

this article is the one about the ticks ..it is PDF format so i dontknow if that will be a prob. for anyone to read. it also states thatpasturella is carried by those ticks! a very interesting read!

http://www.aaem.pl/pdf/11319.pdf
 
Lissa wrote:
Thank you so much. :)

What does gram-negative mean?
It refers to the make up of the cell wall of the bacteria...gram negative bacteria are usually the ones that make everyonesick...by saying something is gram negative itimmediatelyallows you to point to a direction of aclassofdrugs to kill it ...
 
In other words, enterbacter is contagious?

Another question I have is: I have to keep Iszy off hermedication until Saturday. Is there a chance that somethingbad will happen between now and then (infection, etc.)?
 
most bacteria are contagious ... but in thiscase the bacteria you are dealing with ... you can only catch it ifyoure already sick from something else or under severe stress or it isdirectly introduced to your blood stream... in any case i would stillkeep Iszy separated from Pristine ...b/c with Pristine still beingyoung her system may not be working at top notch

I really couldnt say Lissa. I am not familiar with this... how long after she stopped the baytril did her symptoms come back?
 
She was off the Baytril for 3 days before the symptoms came back.
 
it sounds like all the baytril did was keep itin check...so maybe if you can put her back on it until like wednight/thurs morning it will keep it suppressed but then come backenough for her culture on saturday.
 
The vet wanted at least a week off the anti-biotics before the culture. :?
 

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