My Pirate Bunny (Rabbit enucleation)

[OhMommaButterGrits]

okay so first things first please be patient with the way this post looks. im typing this on a cell. okay so its been a really really long time since i have been on bb and since then my one bun sesame seed bunbuns has had surgery to remove an abscess under her eye and that was about a year ago.

my boyfriend and i have been in the process of moving out of apartment and into new place due to bedbug infestation and so all our buns have been under a good deal of stress for the past couple weeks which im sure has contributed to the present problem.

a couple of days ago i noticed my bunbuns eye had some pus around it and was red. i i used a warm compress and washed it with saline solution. the next morning i went to the vet and they gave me a poly bac creme for the eye. the next day it was way worse but my vet was closed on sunday and none of the emergency clinics in my area would take rabbits. so on monday the third eyelid was protruding as was most of the eye when my boyfriend went to the vet. the vet saw it and refered us to a specialist about an hour away and yesterday i took bunbuns there.

the vet that saw her basically said she was going to lose the eye probably and that they really werent sure if it was an abscess causing the protruding or a possible tumor. they decided to keep her overnight and administer antibiotics and steroids to see if that brought down the swelling .

i called this morning and after a more thourough examinatiion and after the medicine wasnt working as well as needed the vet told me that it was best to remove the eye. i just got a call saying that she made it through surgery and that she was already eating. the dr is going to call back and give me more specifics within the hour. it turned out it was an abscess…which personally given tumor or abscess i prefer abscess.

 

wow sorry this psot is turning out so long but basically my questions are

 

 

[OhMommaButterGrits]

Woops sorry my phone accidently posted.

Questions:
Has anyone dealt with recurring abscesses anything I can do to help with immune system? I don’t think Imentioned it but the abscess this time was on the same side as her abscess from a year ago

And biggest question has anyone had a one eyed bunny and is there anything I need to do differently now?

Thank you so much!

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

wow that happened quickly! I don’t think you need to do anything differently if the other eye has full vision Sending vibes for recovery, and hoping that the abscess won’t recur. I would ask lots of questions when you pick her up, to see what they think caused it (i.e. teeth maybe) or if there is anything you can do.

[peppypoo]

Oh no, I’m so sorry that you and your bunny have to go through this! I agree with K&K – since the eye loss is (presumably) due to an infection and not an underlying systemic disease process, just make sure the healing process goes well and you shouldn’t have to make too many changes to care.

[OhMommaButterGrits]

Thanks for the responses and all the healing vibes!

After the vet called me I got more of an idea of what’s going on.

Once the doctor removed the eye he found a ton of pus which he said was preferable to a tumor, but concerned him just because of the amount. He said he got everything he could and that he flushed it and also packed it with antibiotics. He apparently called an opthamologist and consulted with him to see whether or not to close the eye after surgery.

The opthamologist said because it was in the eye not to put a drain in it and to close it. My doctor did do this but said he was going to do some more research into it just because he wants to do everything possible to keep the abscess from returning.

Apparently because of where the abscess was located it makes it tough to completely eradicate it. I know you can’t ever say with certainty that one isn’t going to reoccur
,but it’s even more likely due to location.

He also decided to change her antibiotics to bicillin injectables saying that she’ll have to be on them for a couple of months. He said though that it’s only like a 2 times a week that she has to be injected and that most rabbits seem to not be bothered by this shot and it doesn’t really affect the injection site to much.

He is in contact with a apparently highly respected exotic specialist out of Canada that he has been to seminars for and calls regurally and apparently at this point the bicillin is one of the best treatments for recurring abscesses and the specialist as well as my vet have had success using it, since I guess as my vet said the baytril seems to becoming less effective.

He also took a swab of.abscess and is getting it cultured.

The other thing that I thought was pretty cool is when I got to pick up sesame seed bunbuns we are going to talk about possible natural ways of boosting her immune system to use in conjunction with long term bicillin.

Its the fourth of July today so the vet clinic is closed , but he told me that he was taking her home with him to monitor and that I can pick her up on Friday and we will go over how to do the injectables and everything else.

Oh and it’s not the teeth that caused it which I guess is why they thought originally it might be a tumor since these abscesses are caused by root molars a lot . She apparently has some rather perfect teeth. Lol

I guess I’m just really worried that.she is gonna have to go through this again. Her first abscess was on the same side of her face and that was just like a year ago. In that abscess they kept it open and literally half her face was gone and now she is missing the eye on that side. Hoepfully the long term antibiotics will help because last time my normal vet only gave me orbax. I flushed the abscess twice a day with bentadine and put on neosporin and it got better but just worried that this new abscess was somehow related to the older one.

Sorry another long post but just figured Id update. Thanks again everyone!

[LittlePuffyTail]

I’m sorry to hear Bunbun had to have an eye removed. But am glad to hear she made it through the surgery. I hope the culture will give you some results that you can treat to prevent further problems. ((((((Bunbun)))))

[Sarita]

I have to say it sounds like you are in VERY GOOD hands with this vet and he is taking very good care of her. Continued vibes for your bunbun.

[OhMommaButterGrits]

Thank you all for the vibes! I’m really upset about her having to lose the eye since I went to the vet as soon as I noticed something was off. My normal vet, dr.scott who referred me to dr.landess wasn’t there when I originally went and I’m not sure if he would of done the same thing that the other vet did or would of referred me from the beginning. Sigh if he had we might of been able to save the eye.
Well the big thing is that she is not in as much pain so and she is alive.
I can’t wait to get her tomorrow!

[hannaroo]

It sounds like the abscess was already pretty bad when you noticed it so I wouldn’t give yourself a hard time. I’m really sorry your bun and you had to go through this but I hope she continues to heal well and there’s no further issues!

[OhMommaButterGrits]

So I got Sesame home and the next day I noticed that she seemed to have blood around her stitches I cleaned them and put on some antibiotic cream and the like an hour later I looked over and she had like a milky pink fluid coming from the stitches. I cleaned it again and then called the vet. My vet wasn’t there but they got in contact with me the next day and had me bring her in yesterday. I hadn’t noticed or maybe I was in denial but her closed eye socket had swollen and so today they are doing surgery again to flush the cavity.

I’m trying my best to be positive. The doctor is going to call me afterwards,but apparently the culture came back and nothing grew? I’m not sure this was what the vet tech told me.

I’m awaiting the vet to call me. Please keep sesame seed bunbuns in your prayers again and send out healing energies.

[Sarita]

Oh poor Sesame Seeds – continued vibes. Yes, be sure to get more info from the vet – I’ve found that sometimes vet techs don’t tell you 100% the right information (not that they don’t try). I would ask the vet if the culture was negative if he had any other possibilities what it could be.

[OhMommaButterGrits]

Okay so Sesame Seed is up and out of surgery. She is apparently being fed critical care because her weight has dropped since the last visit. The vet told me that they mixed in some applesauce with critical care and she is like in heaven with it right now. Sooo that’s good. I mean
I had no doubt that my bunny is a champ when it comes to food but my vet takes it as a very good sign that almost immediatly upon waking she is up and noming.

My vet explained the whole culture thing he had an aerobic culture done and not also an anerobic so since nothing grew on the aerobic it’s most likely anerobic meaning it doesn’t need oxygen to grow.

The antibiotics he is using he is confident is the best for the abscess, but he says this is to be done long term.

I asked him if he thinks the abscess is in the bone and he told me that though its close there is no sort of damage to the bone like what he has seen in jaw abscesses so that is positive.

They are going to keep her for the next 3 days and this time they put a drain in so that they can flush it 3 times a day with…I can’t really remember what they are flushing it with but something to kill and break up the gunk that might come back in there.
If she does fine then I can pick her up and they will show me how to flush it at home….that should be interesting.

I also asked him about antibiotic beads that you apparently leave in there and then remove after a couple of months. He said that that approach was “the thing to do” not to long ago, but that it seems that the long term bicillin systematic approach works better for head abscess and that a lot of his colleagues are going for that versus the beads. I don’t know I trust him and personally I think the antibiotics and the flushing is probably the best bet.

Thank you everyone for the healing vibes. I’ll keep everyone updated. I just have to say I am so glad that I have this outlet to open up to because most people look at me and think I’m crazy to be wasting my time,money, and worry on “just a rabbit”.

Thank you all again! And if Sesame Seed Bunbuns could I’m positive she would jump up and give you all sorts of bunny love…especially if you just so happened to make a treat bag crinkle =)

[Sarita]

Have you asked him if pen-g injections might work?

[OhMommaButterGrits]

I think i just realized throughout these posts I’ve been writing bicillin,but that’s actually not what he is giving her. He is giving her injectable dualcillin which is pen g benzathine and pen g procaine. I’m pretty sure that’s what they are called.

I’m sorry I think I’ve just been reading too many like rabbit case studies and vet medicine info online and I’ve been thinking its bicillin which I guess is kind of similar just different brand name? Sorry again I think my brain is fried .

[Sarita]

Okay, got it – those are generally very good for abscesses. How often are you doing the injections?

[OhMommaButterGrits]

Um well before we brought her back I only gave her one of the injections we are doing it every 48 hours…so like every other day and its .4 ml and then it was going to go to twice a week after like 5 times of the 48 hours but now I’m not sure if he will change that up.

[Sarita]

That’s pretty standard for pen-g shots.

Maybe send Dana Krempels an email and see her advice  – here is a link to ask her questions:

http://www.allexperts.com/user.cgi

She’s extremely knowledgeable.

[OhMommaButterGrits]

So everyone I just wanted to give you all an update on how Sesame Seed BunBuns is doing.

So last thing I told you guys was that she was going to be staying for about 3 days and then I would be able to get her, but unfortunately that is not what happened. She apparently consistently had so much pus coming out that the doctor decided to keep her there until he felt it was more manageable for me to do at home. I live about an hour and a half away from the vet so I agreed it was probably for the best that she stayed so that they could continue to monitor her just incase something were to happen. They were also still regurally giving her fluids and I can’t do that so it just worked out for the best that she stayed. They were great though and on my two days off last week they let me come and visit her and have a room to myself with her for about an hour each time!

Finally last Friday I got to go in and pick her up because although stuff was still coming out when they were flushing the eye it no longer was smelling of infection and the doctor said it was just dead tissue and part of the healing process. I was so excited and I brought her home and after flushing her eye once that night she had succesfully pulled the drain out of her eye. I called back and was back at the vet on Saturday and they reattached the drain and gave me a cone so she didn’t pull out the drain again. Apparently at the vet she never messed with the drain, but of course the moment she got home she had to take it out.

 

I just came back from a recheck visit with the vet and she is doing great. Unfortunately she has lost weight since the last time she was there. She use to weight almost 6 lbs and when I first brought her in she was 4.14 lbs and they maintained that and now she dropped to 4.07 lbs. They were concerned with that so they gave me a half a bag of critical care and told me to order some and to keep her on that until she starts regurally eating hay again. That’s the other thing I have given her timothy,botanical,orchard, and even alfalfa hay and although she seems to be excited and might nibble a bit here and there it seems to lose it’s interest and she won’t eat it. Do you guys have any ideas?  I talked to the vet about it and he had just gotten some new “coastal blend” hay that is like really thin and soft and he gave me like a trash bags worth of it and I’m going to try that next. I don’t know…she will eat pellets,greens,treats,but  no hay.

She is acting pretty much like herself jumping up on me while I’m laying on the couch which although is adorable she seems to do it right after she eats and has food stuck to her collar….so I always end up with a bunch of food on me lol

Anway I have a couple of pictures from the whole ordeal the first two can kind of be sort of hard to stomach, but I figured that when I was online trying to find hope and something to relate to I couldn’t find anything that looked like what my bunny had so maybe it’ll help someone else? (I’m not trying to be gruesome or inappropriate so if it is just let me know.) If you don’t want to see don’t go to the links.  My sister came with me to the first doctor’s appt. and I was rather beside myself and didn’t even know she had taken pictures until she sent them to me the other day.  So here are two pictures of Sesame Seed BunBuns the first day she went to the exotic specialist vet I had taken her to my general vet twice before and tried to get her to a animal hospital in the area I didn’t just let it get like this and it started as just a weepy type eye and looked like this in like a 3 or 4 day time period….sooo moral of the story if anything is wrong with rabbit even if you think you are being overly careful it generally doesn’t hurt to have it checked out….and as I learned rabbit savvy vets ARE A MUST!

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p128/fugmobeast/bunseye_zpsbf9bfe06.jpg

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p128/fugmobeast/bunseyeside_zps0ec7fe7c.jpg

 

These are when they let me visit her I brought her a toy and some treats and she was playing with them. I hadn’t seen her in so long and was afraid she wouldn’t remember me but she did and I just can’t thank the team that worked on Buns enough for them letting me come and visit her.  You can also see the drain that I use to flush the eye twice a day pretty clearly here…she is not only a pirate bunny she got the nickname of “robobunny” at the vet too.

And then this is her being the princess that she is and chilling on my couch on top of a pillow…right after she got done eating notice the mash of pellets on her cone…that ultimately ended up on the pillow before I got a chance to clean it off. Sorry about random coloring on photo…my super white leg was in the shot.

 

Anyway thank you guys all for everything and all the healing vibes! My bunny is such a trooper and even with the daily flushings and twice a week injections of dualcillin she is just such a light. I couldn’t have gotten through this without this forum and am still using it to keep on keeping on with it. Again if anyone has any ideas to make the hay more appealing I’m so open to suggestions. Thanks again!

 

[LittlePuffyTail]

I’m so glad she is doing well, the little trooper. That must be very difficult seeing your bunny like that. She is lucky to have a Mom who loves her enough to do all this for her.

As for the hay, is she wearing the cone constantly? Is she able to eat hay with it on? If she’s not eating enough hay, you will definitely have to be subbing with Critical Care. Force feeding is a real pain but she really needs fiber to help her recover.

She’s such a cutie.

[Sarita]

Thank you for the update – so glad she is doing well. It sounds like you have both had quite an ordeal. Continued vibes

[OhMommaButterGrits]

Thanks you guys! It is a relief that she is home and it is a lot of work, but so worth it. The worst thing is that I feel like I’m neglecting my other two babies because of just how much time and attention Buns needs.

I can tell Mugsly is a little upset because he tends to get …I guess the only way to describe it is “butthurt”…he has definitely been making me work a lot more for his attention that’s for sure.

LittlePuffyTail- She does have the collar on full time. I agree that force feeding is tough,but luckily she loves the critical care and eats it herself…in fact she LOVES it! I tried grinding up hay with water and banana and she seems to like that ,but I’m not sure if that’s enough since the hay is blended and like smaller not long strands?

Sarita-Thanks for the continued support!

[OhMommaButterGrits]

So guys I am sitting here in the vet’s waiting room again. Buns stopped eating greens and treats over the last couple days and would only like lick at them and I thought maybe it might just be that her teeth were overgrowing from not grinding hay.
I called today and got in the doctor looked at the teeth and
said that they looked a bit long and then while he was feeling around he noticed a slight swelling on her jaw. He poked at it with a needle and pulled out a little pus…

Sigh…it looks like she might have a jaw abscess now.

They went back to trim the teeth and look at her more closely.

Please keep Sesame Seed BunBuns in your thoughts. Thanks.

[Sarita]

Oh no, poor Sesame Seed – more vibes coming your way.

[OhMommaButterGrits]

So we are both finally home and Buns seems to be in some pain. She is snuggled up to me and won’t leave my side.

Okay so the vet took her back and actually instead of just doing the dental trim he actually put her under and drained the abscess on her jawline. He said it was very tiny but to up my bicillin injections to 3 times a week for the next two weeks and then we will bring it back down to twice a week.

He also found when he was doing the dental trimming that her mouth didn’t open as much as normal rabbits mouths do and it seemed like that it might be caused from scar tissue.

I told him about how much of her face was exposed in her first abscess over a year ago and he said that it could of healed stiff from lots of scar tissue and so the little bit of overgrown teeth on her probably effected her more than a rabbit who had full range in her mouth.

They took out the drain in her eye because it was so clean and just had to heal right where the drain was at…he packed that and the flushed jaw abscess with an antibiotic gel.

So good news is that she at a bit of pineapple,banana, and apple when she got home. She seemed like a little in pain ,but that’s definitely a good sign. =)

Thank you for healing vibes

[LittlePuffyTail]

Sorry you are dealing with further problems with your bunny. Hopefully, now that her mouth feels better she can heal up and get healthy.

(((((More Recovery Vibes))))))))

[OhMommaButterGrits]

Thank you for the healing vibes. I really hope she gets better now too.

Its really tough I was telling my sister and my dad about the second abscess and both their reactions were,” you need to put her down.” I really just wanted to explode at them….but I just tried to explain to them that abscesses are pretty common and that if she didn’t have the will to live and was miserable I could understand, but that’s not the case.

She still comes running when she hears a treat bag she stands on her hind legs when she wants something to eat and runs in love circles around me.

I’m just so completely grateful to have this resource where everyone understands bunny love.

[OhMommaButterGrits]

Back to the vet today that little abscess is now quite a sizeable lump on jaw….I wonder if there is any other drug I should ask for since I’m not sure if the bicillin injectables are working…sigh

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