Stupid Baytril didn't work.

[SablePoint]

Last week, I took Mr. Bun Bun to the vet for his constant sneezing. I was put on baytril and he was doing well. Last night was the last his last dosage. I thought it was cured!

Well, I'll be ****, He had a sneezing session just a minute ago. His eye even got a tiny bit watery too!

This doesn't make any sense. How could he get a respiratory infection again? I haven't done any thing to make him sick again! How he got sick in the first place already a mystery - but the vet(who's a savvy) said that he had a respiratory infection. Bun Bun had a respiratory infection in the past. He was prescribed to baytril and it worked - why didn't it work this time?

I still do sometimes smoke in my room, sometimes around him cause he's near my bed and my ash tray sits on top of a mat that's on top of his cage but the smoke is blown away from him. I don't smoke alot at all and it's only at night, and my room is well ventilated, so my room isn't smokey, yellowed, or stinky at all. My room is also well dusted and rabbit cages are cleaned every week.

I honestly can't see how the smoking could be a problem. I've been smoking for a long time. Why would the smoke bother him now? Koga, Brinca(both former rabbits) and Rocko(new baby bunny) never had sneezing sessions like Bun Bun has.

Anyways, I'm seriously confused. I feel like my vet was just being lazy or something. He said his lungs were fine when he heard them, but I'm REALLY P.O. by him. I spent every last cent on Bun Bun's vet trip(he also needed pain meds for his arthritis.). Now it's hopeless.

Does any one at least know what could be wrong with him? Do you think the medication is taking longer to work or was that sneezing just a sneeze and not his problem reacurring? Anything else? I'm so frustrated that I'm crying.

Please help me and Mr. Bun Bun out! All I want is an answer - not another vet trip where the stupid exam costs $45 dollars!

Regards,

SablePoint

 

[tamsin]

If he improved on the antibiotics then it may just mean he needs a longer course.

Rabbits catch infections the same way we do. It can also depend on their immune system, the same way some people seem to never catch a cold and others always get what's going around.

I would really advise against smoking in your room, even if it's well ventilated. Passive smoking (inhaling smoke from other people) has all the same effects on animals as it would a young child, including increasing the risk of respiratory infections. Smoking is cumulative, the more he (and you) breath in the more it effects the lung function so the amount of effect is greater the longer he's exposed to it.

Once he has the respiratory infection then the smoke is going to have more of an impact than in a 100% healthy rabbit, because then there are two things effecting his lung function.

 

[missyscove]

While sneezing is often a sign of a respiratory infection, it can also have other causes and not all respiratory infections can be cured by baytril. Baytril is, in my opinion, overused and many bacteria are resistant to it. It's possible that he does have a bacterial infection but just needs a different antibiotic. Would you say that his symptoms were gone between the two instances where baytril was prescribed for a respiratory infection? It's possible that the baytril killed off most of the bacteria the first round and the resistant ones survived and caused the second infection.
He may also have a sensitivity to something in the environment - his litter, hay dust, etc. Smoking certainly won't help his respiratory health (nor yours).

Finally, sometimes rabbits, like humans, just sneeze. The real way to tell the difference between an occasional sneeze and a real problem is to look for discharge. Rabbits are clean animals so you won't often find in on their faces but rather on the insides of their wrists where they'll wipe it off.

My Fiona sneezed all 4 years that we had her. She was on baytril, twice, and also on another drug for allergies but we never saw any real improvement in her symptoms. Her quality of life wasn't really affected by the sneezing - although she eventually succumbed to mammary cancer the respiratory issues didn't prevent her from an active lifestyle.

 

[Maureen Las]

I have had rabbits become even sicker while while on baytril.

Some other drug options to discuss with your vet are >

Zithromax/azithromycin oral

Zeniquen (oral)


subqutaneous injections of bicillin

Chlorampenical oral

As already posted rabbit bacteria have become immune to baytril because of overuse and frequency of use

 

[tonyshuman]

tamsin wrote:

If he improved on the antibiotics then it may just mean he needs a longer course.

:yeahthat:

14 days is minimum for an antibiotics course. It can take a while for an infection to clear up but as long as there is consistent improvement, just continue with the medicine.

 

[golfdiva]

Hershey got an URI and was put on antibiotics for 5 days. The URI came back. He was on antibiotics for 8 days. The URI came back. He was on antibiotic for 2 weeks, so far, no more URI.

Maybe Bun Bun just needs to be on the antibiotic longer. When you call the vet, tell them this is a reoccuring thing. I told the vet this and they didn't change me full price.

 

[sickbunny]

Bella was on baytril for a month and never stopped sneezing. The second vet put her on baytril for 2 weeks but he also gave her nosedrops, and they stopped the sneezing completely... until they ran out, so he put her back on them again and she stopped sneezing right after she started the nosedrops again last week. You could call your vet and explain, and ask if he could prescribe them for you to try, and then you wouldn't have to pay for an office call, you could just go in and pick them up.

I have a hard time reading tiny print on the bottle of nosedrops, but it looks like:

neomycin and polymyxis b sulfates and dexsmethasome opthalmic suspension


and if that doesn't work, and you don't feel comfortable with your vet, try a different vet.

my rabbits sneezing problems turned out to be pasteurella, pseudomonas, and e-cuniculi. it has been horribly expensive testing and treating to find out what was wrong, but worth it to find out what the real problem is, and not waste money on meds that wouldn't work and treat it with the right ones.

you can read about my bunnies sneezing problems here:
http://www.rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=64444&forum_id=16

 

[tonyshuman]

I wouldn't use nose drops to be honest. I would think the bunny would just sneeze them out!

 

[CCWelch]

I had good luck with a product called Vet RX for rabbits. It is a nose drop and helped my rabbit that got over a respiratory infection but then had allergies for the rest of her life.

 

[Maureen Las]

CCWelch wrote:

I had good luck with a product called Vet RX for rabbits. It is a nose drop and helped my rabbit that got over a respiratory infection but then had allergies for the rest of her life.

http://www.pbsanimalhealth.com/details/Vet-Rx-Rabbit-Remedy/250-5.html

This product is not actually an antibiotic but really appears to be a symptom reliever ; I am surprised that you had good luck with this if there was actually bacteria present ; you are lucky

 

[cindyrads]

I think the smoking is a part of the problem. Even if your room is well ventilated and you blow the smoke away from him it is still hanging in the room. If you are a smoker you don't notice how much smoke is still lingering around. Being a non smoker I can tell you that it does. If I am outside with someone that is smoking the smoke still bothers me and you can't get any more ventilated then that.

It may be bothering him now because he has been breathing in the smoke for so long and it is finally affecting him or he could just have a sensitive upper respiratory tract to begin with which makes him more sensitive to the smoke.

I wouldn't smoke around him anymore because no matter what the cause is, the smoke is going to just aggravate it.

 

[SablePoint]

Thanks for the replies guys! I barely smoke in my room now. But after studying Bun Bun, it seems his timothy hay is the problem. He has an allergic reaction to another type of hay that I had to deal with in the past, but I have yet to hear of a rabbit allergic to timothy hay!

When I didn't give it to him that day, he didn't sneeze any. It's been about 2 weeks without hay now and I've only seen him have a sneeze session(which are very short now) a few times.

How could a rabbit, at almost 9 years old, all of a sudden develope an allergic reaction? Esp. to something it eats?

 

[feather78]

I don't know anything about allergic reactions, but it seems like you also stopped smoking in the room about two weeks ago, so maybe that's why he stopped sneezing so much. If you still do occasionally, that could be why he is still sneezing a bit.

 

[CCWelch]

Humans suddenly get allergies after years of none, why not rabbits?
Allergic to hay? Poor bunny. I had one that was allergic to wood chips and sawdust. She started acting like she had snuffles, the vet even thought she did. After treating her for a few days I cleaned out her cage and switched her to straw bedding and amazingly she was fine the next day. We have not had a recurrence and none of my other bunnies showed any signs of problems even after being exposed to her.