Medical Mystery Bun – Advice Please!

[WhiskerB]

I had posted here a few years ago when my lionhead rabbit
developed mouth/lip sores that my vet was unable to treat. He has continued to
stump the second vet I’ve brought him to and I’m totally at a loss. I don’t
know what else to do.

This is the whole story:

Issue #1

My male indoor rabbit developed scabs/scaly sores around his
lips. I took him to my vet (who was recommended for rabbits) and she did every
test imaginable, including a biopsy. Nothing explained the sores. She finally
started to wonder if he had an allergy and recommended Benadryl, which had no
effect. Several weeks later both he and my other rabbit developed a very bad
case of ear mites. Both were treated with an Ivermectin shot and all was well
for a while. Then the mouth sores came back. He was treated again with Ivermectin.
And they came back.

I had a bill of $2000 and a very grumpy bun so I had to take
a break. I started to notice that the sores were sporadic. They would flare up
very badly and then disappear completely. When they’re at their worst they’re
very thick, crusty and greenish with a tinge of black. If you remove them, his
skin in very pink and bloody in spots. Sometimes they’re just flaky and white.
They’re nowhere else on his body.

He doesn’t spend a lot of time grooming his face or rubbing
it on anything. He will let me touch them. He didn’t always have them – it was
about a year after I got him that they developed. In that time, his diet and
environment was the same.  

Issue #2

About five months ago he started peeing outside the litter
box. He was perfectly litter trained. It started with once or twice, a few
weeks apart. Once it started to increase, I took him to a new vet. She tested
him and found he had crystals in his urine and gave him medication and wanted
to increase his fluid intake.

I took both buns off
the small amount of pellets they got with their daily greens and hay and switched
to a lettuce/greens/hay only diet. Neither bun drinks from the water bottle – I
think the water content of the lettuce keeps them hydrated? I tried to give him
apple juice flavored water but he hated it. When I took him back in his levels
were still high so the vet recommended another round of medicine. When she
tested him a third time she still thought his levels were high. She suggested feeding
him a slice or two of orange every day. While he enjoyed that, it didn’t help.

I’ve given him another litter box. I tried changing the
boxes twice a day instead of once. I moved his food to the second floor of the
cage once he started to pee on his food. That ended that behavior but he now
pees and poops all over the bottom floor of the cage…yet I still see him use the
litter box. The urine varies in color. Sometimes it is pale yellow/clear and
other times it’s a darker yellow. The one positive is that he never ever pees
when he’s outside the cage.

The new vet also looked at the sores, treated him again with
Ivermectin and studied the scabs under a microscope. She was also at a loss and
eventually suggested allergies.  I try to
rotate his greens. I went to lettuce/hay/no greens for a week with no
improvement. I changed the hay to orchard grass. No change in symptoms. I’m not
positive but darker greens seem to cause a flare but it’s not consistent. I
can’t think of anything in his environment that would cause it.

So here we are: $3000, a lot of time, a lot of medicine, a
lot of tests and I have a bun with terrible sores who now pees like it’s his
job. Just not in the right place.

I’m incredibly frustrated and I feel like I’ve failed him.
If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, I would appreciate it.

 

[MK]

Oh my…I have never heard of that. The only two pieces of advice I have are:

1. DEFINITELY use a water crock. they get much better hydration, and maybe that is why his lips are flaking and drying.
2. He may have an intolerance for veggies. try limiting his to maybe half or a quarter of what he usually gets and see if that helps.

 I think the peeing will go away when his problems do. Also, make sure his environment is CLEAN. If you think that something in his environment could be the cause, I would put them in an unused cage in another room for a few hours, and really clean. I’m talking dismantling the cage as far as you can and scrubbing that, washing walls and floors, or if you have carpet vacuum really well, etc. 

if you can’t do that or don’t think it needs it, are they housed by any sort of vent, AC, or cooler? It may be bringing something in from outside that he is having a reaction to.

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

I cannot recall but I have definitely heard at least one owner on here, who had persistent mouth sores. I’ll try to search, likely other members recall who are better at searching and can find the threads.

Can you let us know specifically what was ruled out with the testing-and/or what tests were done?

The one thing that comes to mind is syphilis virus-not sure if you had that ruled that out. But hopefully others will have some thoughts-meanwhile maybe do a search of the forum posts here as well, because definitely I recall it coming up

{{Healing Vibes}}

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

I’m going to link some threads I found with mouth sores-they may be issues you’ve ruled out but worth a read!

https://binkybunny.com/FORUM/tabid/54/aft/107849/Default.aspx

https://binkybunny.com/FORUM/tabid/54/aft/126225/Default.aspx In this one I don’t think they found the cause, but Pen-G shots cleared it up.

https://binkybunny.com/FORUM/tabid/54/aft/119066/Default.aspx

[LBJ10]

Little Cotton had sores on his mouth that would not go away. Bunnytowne was having a hard time with it and the vet seemed to be clueless as to what it was. She did her own research and decided it was vent disease (syphilis). She wanted her vet to prescribe pen-G shots, but the vet kept refusing. If I remember right, she somehow got pen-G shots for him (sorry, can’t remember the details) and it finally cured his mouth sores. I think it took her a very long time and a lot of back and forth though. It was a terrible ordeal.

[WhiskerB]

Thank you all for the input!

I will try a crock. As for cleaning, I’m on top of that. I don’t think cage location is a cause. We’ve moved twice since the sores occurred and there hasn’t been a change.

I read through the suggested posts and the photos are exactly his sores. Both vets insisted it was not syphilis but it’s dead on in the pictures. I’ll absolutely try the shots.

[Author]

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