Panacur dosing

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warminwisco

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We have 2 new rabbits 9 months old. Snoopy is a brute muscling into everything, bandit is more a free spirited energetic follower of his brother.

We took em out for a walk in the lawn and low and behold Bandit has a head tilt 3 days later(slightly noticable when sitting 30 degrees when we pick him up and his muscles are more lax it is a cervical torticollis for sure). Could Bandit they have picked something up from the lawn? He has plenty of energy but is a bit solitary but still pretty active/happy with his brother like before.

Got him to the vet 3 days after the tile appeared and was prescribed .3ml of 100mg/ml panacur for 28 days. He weighs 3.6 lbs.

He looked in his ears said the inner ear really cannot be seen and no pus is evident in the outer ear. He prescribed SMZ-TMP for the possible ear infection 240 mg/5ml 1 ml twice daily both meds for 28 days.

New vet real personable real fair pricing the neuter 95 bucks plus pain meds went smooth the guys did not even need pain meds and office visit is 25 bucks, 10 bucks for each of the meds.

He is a real nice guy, does this treatment plan seem sound? Bandit thanks you he is lucky to have such support here on this forum.

We know all about e cuniculi from when we accidently dehydrated our last bun Sammy and it was catch up on his health from then on in.
 
In cases of head tilt, vets will often treat for both an ear infection and e. cuniculi, just to cover both possibilities. It makes more sense to me then just treating for one, later to find out that it was the other thing causing the head tilt.

For the panacur dosage it is 20mg/kg, so a more accurate dosage for your rabbit would be 0.32-0.33, which can be measured out using a 1cc syringe. I don't know if that little bit matters all that much, but when it comes to battling EC, I wouldn't want to be under dosing at all, if it were me. You may also want to ask your vet about giving metacam to deal with the inflammation that might be involved, if your rabbit isn't showing any signs of kidney problems. With EC, the erupting spores cause inflammation which causes the symptoms that you see. You want to reduce the inflammation to try and minimize the chances of permanent damage being caused from it.

Here's also some extra reading you can do on head tilt if you are interested.
http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/Neurology/Otit/otitis.htm
http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/tilt.html
 
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Thanks so much, I will bounce the metcam off him as I have to get the rest of the dose of Panacur from him Monday. Is the SMZ-TMP a good choice for an antibiotic? What would be another choice for an antibiotic? Thanks the lil guys thank you!!!
 
Could he have picked it up on the lawn and had such effects so quickly? Are you really best off to just keep "house" rabbits in the house? Or spread out a large blanket in a penned off area?
 
I'm not sure about that antibiotic. In the medirabbit link it mentions that it might not be the best antibiotic to use as the effect doesn't last very long. If your rabbits condition worsens or doesn't improve after several days, it would certainly be good to bring it up with your vet.

How your rabbit got this depends on whether this is EC or an ear infection. Without additional testing, you may not ever find out for sure which it is. With EC, rabbits can actually have it from birth(passed from its mother). Many rabbits already carry e. cuniculi but it just lays dormant and may never affect them. It's possible that it was picked up from being outside, but it's also possible your rabbit already had it and some sort of stressor caused it to emerge(that's if your rabbit does in fact have EC). These UK links explain EC pretty well.
http://www.rabbitwelfare.co.uk/resources/content/info-sheets/ecuniculi.htm
http://www.gwexotics.com/library/3-rabbits/
 
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Got the Metacam so thank you. A torticollis like this is of some magnitude. The whole upper forth of his spine is tweeked as he just hauled but past me exploring as he has plenty of energy. I would say he is looking better though, wishful thinking?, slowly. YA know with 2 rabbits you sure fell an obligation to attend to the lil guys for one another.

Lets see for reference Panacur 10 bucks, antibiotic 10 bucks Metacam 38 bucks for 28 day supply vet 25 bucks.
 
Thanks JBUN! Guess we will never know if it was an ear infection or e cuniculi rearing its ugly head! He started to improved 4-5 days into treatment and all better as he races back and forth this early am throwing binkies as we speak! We will follow thru with the 28 day TX plan.
 
That's such great news! I'm so glad he's doing better. It's always great to hear of a successful recovery from head tilt. And he sounds pretty happy :)

Yeah, you do want to keep up with the meds, even though he's feeling better. The panacur has to be done for the full 28 days, I think for the antibiotics they're supposed to be continued two weeks past the last sign of symptoms. The metacam can probably be stopped soon though, if the symptoms are completely gone. It is only to reduce the inflammation causing symptoms, and if there aren't any symptoms anymore, there shouldn't be a need to continue it, especially as it can sometimes be hard on the kidneys. You could ask your vet if you aren't sure.
 
Thanks again I will check with the vet. YA know the head tilt was really a severe torticollis with like a 30-35 degree sway of his whole cervical spine. It has relaxed completely. HAving had to deal with e cuniculi with my last lil guy glad this resolved but I had him to the vet within 3 - 4 days of seeing the tilt
 
Bandit is cruising so thanks again JB head is like a swivel. Would I ever want to give them panacur every year, its only 10 bucks? Side effects versus if there is a prophylaxis benefit?
 
The latest position taken by most rabbit veterinary experts is now that E canuliculi is an extremely unlikely cause of head tilt in rabbits, as the area affected (inner ear) is a very rare (extremely rare) location for E canuliculi to end up. By far the most likely cause for head tilt/torticolis now seems to be inner ear infection for whatever reason (dental diseases are high on the list with bacterial infections ascending the sinuses and eustacean tubes or spreading via the blood stream etc.). So taking Panacur for a head tilt is not a treatment likely to result directly in an improvement... still, plenty of rabbits improve while on a long term treatment with Panacur and related antiparasiticals... and these specialists usually attribute this to the rabbit resolving the neurologic problem on its own (or from concomitant treatment with antibiotics). But either way, there is not really ANY likelihood of acquiring E canuliculi from a lawn exposure and showing up with neurologic symptoms days later. .... weeks or months later maybe.
 
Having been thru the EC battle with Fuzzy I can say she did not develop a head tilt. Her big "tell" was her hind limbs would suddenly quit working and she would seem paralyzed. She would shake her head but they could never find any infection or other ear issue.
 
Yes we had a rabbit get dehydrated and EC developeand he needed a lil hind torso carriage LOL then passed quickly. Panacur is, I think, an acceptable risk/versus side effects to keep EC covered as early as possible. I could be wrong maybe its unneeded?
 
Fenbendazole is pretty safe, with no side effects, at least that's been our experience. We use Safeguard, but it's the same thing as panacur. The only thing about not doing the titers to test for an active infection is you won't know for sure if they had active EC.
 
$10 for panacur!! Don't know how long ago you bought it. on March 23 I bought 100cc for a price of $90. The vet I deal with only had the packages and I had to take them to a compounding pharmacy. that took another 2 hours! To say I was irate is understating it. The vet I had before sold me the same size bottle for $21.95 about 4 years ago and the local vet hospital sells it for $51.95. My vet certainly got an earful from me.
 
Here in the states it is sold at pretty much every feed store and livestock supply shop for a very small price

Also this thread is quite old. Usually mods will say to check the dates before you post
 
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