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Forum HOUSE RABBIT Q & A Advice needed on bunny pain relief and abscesses

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    • OreoBunny
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        Hi everyone, I could really use some advice on a variety of things. 

        So, a few days ago my bunny got a scratch on his front leg which turned into an abscess. I took him to the vet, and the vet said he would not drain it because that was not necessary. He gave him an injection of antibiotics and gave me Clavamox (amoxicillin) tablets to hide in his food so he would take them. To make a long story short, I realized after giving him 3 of these tablets that they were harming him and stopped immediately. He is now not doing very well. He still has the swollen bump on his leg (which hinders his mobility and seems very painful)has also been sick because of the amoxicillin.  Now he is eating baby food, water, and Pedialyte, as well as taking bene bac and Baytril. 

        So now for the questions. 

        I have read that bunnies can take <g class="gr_ gr_1426 gr-alert gr_gramm Grammar only-ins doubleReplace replaceWithoutSep" id="1426" data-gr-id="1426">baby</g> aspirin in small amounts to relieve pain and swelling. He does seem to be in quite a bit of pain and his leg is certainly swollen. Should I give him some? If so, how much is recommended? He weighs about 6.5 pounds if that helps.&nbsp;</p>

        Can his abscess heal without being cut open? The vet said to allow it to dry out and fall off on its own which it appears to be doing.

        My main concern is that he no longer wants to eat much solid food. He will eat his baby food but isn’t interested in greens, pellets, or other things he used to love. I am thinking this is because his leg is hurting quite a bit.  That’s why I’m wondering if I should give him any pain medicine. He is also acting extremely lethargic.

        Also please note that he cannot go back to the vet because the vet apparently does not understand rabbits at all. First he gave him a deadly antibiotic and then told me to give him yogurt to cure that which was also harmful I later found out. 

        So, any home treatment or remedies, or advice about that has worked for anyone in the past would be greatly appreciated. 

        Thank you.


      • Bam
        Moderator
        16838 posts Send Private Message

          You should ask your vet for a pain-killer. Metacam (meloxicam) is most commonly used in rabbits. It comes in drops and most rabbits like the taste. Aspirin can cause GI trouble and you don’t want that with a rabbit that has an upset tummy from getting the wrong kind of oral antibiotics. As you seem well aware of, pain relief is very important, a bunny in pain often stops eating and becomes lethargic, and that is very dangerous for them.

          Whatever he eats now is good. Rabbits must never have empty tummies. If you can’t get him to eat solid foods, you should give him Critical Care, perhaps mized with baby food, canned pumpkin (plain, no sugar) or mashed banana. He needs his strength. If you can’t get Critical Care, you can use mashed up pellets/pellet slurry. If he won’t eat on his own, you need to syringe the food. Also make sure he keeps warm. Sick bunnys often get hypothermic, which adds to the lethargy. You can provide a hot water bottle wrapped in a blankie (but he must have enough space so he can move away from it he wants to) or sit him in your lap with a blankie on him.

          I have never heard of a bunny abcess drying up and falling off of itself, but that means nothing, I’m not a vet. I’m of course a little suspicious of your vet since he prescribed the oral amoxicillin. I’ll try to look into rabbit abcesses.

          Edit: I did some checking up on rabbit abcesses. Most websites like Medirabbit says an isolated abscess should be surgically removed with all of the capsule, like it were a tumor, with great care taken not to rupture the capsule. If that’s not possible it should be opened and drained and carefully debrided, then open-wound healing should ensue or the abscess will return. Long term antibiotic treatment is often needed.

          This doesn’t mean your vet is wrong, I can’t say if he’s wrong because I don’t have the knowledge to do so, but if the abcess keeps growing and is causing your bunny significant pain (not all abscesses are painful to a rabbit), I’d try to find another vet. Abcesses in rabbits are different from abscesses in dogs and cats and can’t just be opened and drained, so in that, your vet was right not to open it up.

           

          Here are some articles on rabbit abscesses that I read:

          http://www.rabbitadvocates.org/newsletters/Spring_13.pdf

          This one has some nasty pictures of facial abscesses, but it’s Medirabbit so I include it anyway, Medirabbit is a trusted source:

          http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/Skin_diseases/Bacterial/Abscess/skin_abscess.htm

          Here’s another one that speaks of surgery:

          http://www.sawneeanimalclinic.com/downloads/abscesses_in_rabbits.pdf&nbsp;


        • OreoBunny
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            Thank you for the information!

            His appetite and lethargy have improved greatly. He now eats solid food as well as baby food. He also looks more alert. I am thinking his stomach issues are on the mend, and beginning to return to normal and now his injured leg must be dealt with. 

            Surgery will not be an option for him since there is only one vet around here and he has almost killed my bunny twice with his misinformation. Thank you for the suggestion of the meloxicam, I may check into that. 

            It does not seem like it has gotten any bigger, and the outside of it has a big area of dark scab like skin. Whenever I clean it or mess with it he does seem very uneasy. He does have a lot of trouble walking on it which i think is because he is trying not to walk on it. He also sits sort of weird so he doesn’t have to put pressure on it. I know he can put it down and walk/stand on it, it just seems like he refuses to, and when I try to help him sit or walk properly with it down he begins to grind his teeth. 

             I have been washing it with peroxide and applying triple antibiotic ointment to it. He also gets a daily dose of Baytril. I have been told that using water with dissolved salt in it to clean it would work better to dry the scabby part out and get it to come off.

            Is that anything you have heard of? I’m hesitant to try and drain it because I am worried that will cause him a lot of pain/kill him.


          • Rhian
            Participant
            51 posts Send Private Message

              Abscesses really need a good savvy vet to take care of it. Is your vet primarily a dog/cat vet? I ask because the treatment plan they offered you sounds incredibly similar to how some of my cats were treated in the past and I can tell you, it isn’t enough for rabbits. In my experience an abscess is either treated surgically (going in and cleaning everything out, often times using special antibiotic beads in the wound) or drained and require you to continuously clean it several times a day every single day. Leaving it alone will often just make it a much more costly (and potentially fatal) problem.

              How often are you getting the penicillin injections done? Do you have an oral antibiotic as well? Have any cultures been done?

              I’m not sure what advice to give, I personally wouldn’t feel comfortable draining an abscess that hasn’t burst. I wouldn’t mess around with it too much either, just in case it did burst. Are you sure there are no other small animal vets within your area? I have to drive at least an hour to to find any kind of small animal vet where I live, so I know it can be a pain going back and forth, especially with such easily stressed animals but it really is necessary to find a good vet especially if anything were to happen in the future.

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          Forum HOUSE RABBIT Q & A Advice needed on bunny pain relief and abscesses