Snuffles, URI or something else?

[stargazerLily]

I have a 4 month old english lop buck who seems to have fallen ill. Wednesday night I noticed that he was sneezing. Because I was a couple days late on cleaning his cage, I chalked it up to a dirty cage. Thursday morning I cleaned his cage and then decided to just move him to a bigger, airy cage (a NIC cage). By Thursday night I noticed he just wasn't acting himself and his ears felt very hot. I did a pen-g injection on Thursday due to his fever and sneezing (there was nasal discharge out of one nostril). I consulted with my vet on Friday when I got to work, and we agreed that a course of pen-g injections would be a good thing to start on. When I got home Friday evening, I noticed that he had not really touched his food (he ate the oats off his pellets), but was still munching on hay and drinking a bit of water. He had also managed to escape from his cage and was running lose in the house, so I knew his fever was gone. Once I did my feeding, watering and haying rounds, I noticed that one side of his face looked swollen. I palpated his face, bone structure, and head and felt 2 good sized lumps that felt like abscesses. Because he had had enough of being handled, I let him back in his cage and left him for the night. This morning I was able to burrito wrap him to examine his face further and noticed a scabbed over sore over one of the lumps. The lumps are soft and squishy, and feel just like abscesses.

I have given him two pen-g injections, and he is acting better, but still really hasn't started eating again, besides hay. He is still pooping and peeing, no fever. There is slight nasal drainage from the nostril on the swollen side of his face, but the nasal discharge is not as much, and he's not sneezing near as much. I am not as familiar with the signs of snuffles as I would like to be, as it's been a couple years since I have been involved with day to day care of rabbits in the vet world and all my house bunnies have been the picture of health.

Do you think it is snuffles? An upper respiratory infection? Or is it possible the lumps really are abscesses and they are putting pressure on his nasal cavity, causing the drainage? I am in constant communication with my vet during this, but I don't want to stress the bunny out too much until I have to.

 

[JBun]

It looks like you are dealing with an infection that is spreading and involves much more that a simple URI. At this point taking your bun to the vet would be a good idea. There could be a possible tooth infection that would be important to check for. You will probably need head xrays to see what is really going on in there.

 

[stargazerLily]

We're going to head to the vet on Monday, but I wanted to get an idea before I headed there.

 

[BlueMoods]

Snuffles is a generic term of any condition in a rabbit that causes a runny nose and/or sneezing that is not simple, temporary irritation so, that's a symptom. With the swollen face, my first gues is a tooth infection that is abscessing and, a vet is definitely in order. Pen G may not be enough to handle that.

 

[stargazerLily]

Consulted with both my vet and an exotic specialist vet that I used to work for. The exotics vet told me I did good dosing the rabbit with pen-g over the weekend (I used to work for her for 5 years, so I figured I did things right). Bravo will be going under anesthetic tomorrow to lance the abscess, examine his teeth and take care of any sharp points or teeth that may be causing problems. Since starting the antibiotics he has drastically improved and is back to eating, drinking, and acting like a 5 month old bunny. Keeping finger crossed all goes well during surgery.