Nostril Won’t Stop Running?

[Waffle65]

My 9 year old Dutch rabbit has had a runny nose for over a month now, but only his right nostril is running. No sneezing, no runny eyes, no changed in behavior. The snot has looked clear, although the fur underneath his nose is white, so it could be milky. Originally the vet said it sounded like a slight upper respiratory infection, and gave him two weeks worth of Baytril. At his two week checkup, the vet said his breathing sounded fine, and his nose was no longer running constantly, but on and off throughout the day. She told me that it can take awhile for all the snot to dry up, and to bring him back if it was still happening after two weeks. While off the Baytril, his right nostril continued running off and on so we went back to the vet last week. She said his breathing was good and they tried flushing his right tear duct with saline. She said some milky snot came out, and a clump of dried snot as well. She gave me two weeks work of Cipro drops for his right eye/tear duct and two weeks worth of SMZ TMP to take orally. It’s been eight days of this new treatment, and I don’t think that’s he’s really improving. His right nostril is still running on and off. I thought that it might have slowed down some yesterday, but it’s seems to have picked back up today, just like it has been all week.

I’m getting very concerned now that something could be seriously wrong with him. If there was fur/hay stuck up his nose, you would think the saline flush would have removed it correct? He has been shedding a lot and getting his winter fur in. I haven’t changed anything new in my house or switch to a different type of litter. He is scheduled for a follow up appointment in one week. What should be the next step to figuring this out? Should I request a culture be taken from the vet?

I do know that he has 3 or 4 teeth with minor points on them we planned on having filed down. I know those teeth are all upper teeth right next to each other, but for the life of me I can’t remember if they are on his left or right side. Is it possible those teeth could be causing the problem? Any advice would be appreciated, I just hate to keep guessing and trying all these different antibiotics. It’s not good for him, and I’m worried about any side effects from trying all of these.

[Mikey]

It is possible for his teeth to be causing the running. Will they be able to file those teeth down during the next appointment?

[Waffle65]

Thank you Mikey! He is scheduled to have his teeth filed down on December 14th. Each vet in the office does ‘surgeries’ one specific day of the week, and Kiwi’s vet, who happens to be the dental specialist in the office, only does procedures on Wednesdays. When I set his teeth filing appointment up weeks ago, she was already pretty booked up, so I don’t think that we will be able to move this appointment up at all. Fortunately he is not having any trouble eating or drinking anything. When he goes back for his checkup next week, I will definitely ask about his teeth. We’ll see if maybe he needs an x-ray done. It does seem odd to me that he began having nose issues right when he developed these teeth points. The vet also said usually with infections you don’t only have one nostril running. But like I said, I don’t remember which side of his mouth has the overgrown teeth, so I can’t be sure those are on his right side.

[Waffle65]

UPDATE: I was home all day today, so I was able to keep a close eye on him. His nose seemed pretty much dry today, so that’s good. It seems that when he runs around a lot and gets really excited, his nose runs the most, and it was dry even after he was getting excited. However, probably 5-10 minutes after I gave him his Cipro drops in his right eye, he had a huge, kind of milky, snotty glob come out of his right eye. Throughout that last six weeks I have never seen his eyes running at all. Obviously he’s had his usual little eye goos in the corners, but nothing like this. I wiped it away, and it was incredibly wet and runny, so I’m not sure how much of it was actual snot, and how much was just some of the eye drops mixed in. We’ll see if his nose stays dry tomorrow or not, and if he gets any huge eye globs again. Still haven’t heard him sneeze at all. I don’t know, I think he’s officially stumped me.

[Azerane]

I would also be following up with his teeth, not just the points, but the roots as well as they can overgrow internally which can put pressure on the sinuses etc and cause runny nose and eyes.

[Waffle65]

Thank you Azerane! I definitely agree with you. It seems to me that if the three different antibiotics he’s been on, which all treat a fairly broad range of infections, haven’t worked that it’s time to start looking into other causes. It also seems a bit odd to me that he’s not acting like he feels ill at all. No loss of energy and he’s still eating and playing like usual. I would think that an infections would make him not feel quite like himself. The vet has not x-rayed his teeth, but I will definitely bring it up on Thursday. At this point, I would feel much better if they went ahead and did one. I would hate for him to be put under to have his teeth filed down only to find out afterwards there’s another dental problem, and put him under again.

[Waffle65]

UPDATE: Took Kiwi back to the vet for his two week checkup. Needless to say, the medicine did not work. The vet was actually able to file his teeth down today, along with taking a dental x-ray and trying to flush his tear duct out again. They also did blood work, which came back normal. His x-ray was also normal, and absolutely nothing is pushing on his sinuses. She said when she tried to flush his right eye out, it was definitely blocked. His eye actually began poping out when she was trying to get the saline through. She said that she has absolutely no idea what could be blocking it, but she is very concerned about any damage it could cause to his eye or tear duct. They told me that they do not have the tools or tests necessary to figure out exactly what is up there in the vets office, so she referred me to a few specialists who I will be calling tomorrow.

[Azerane]

I’m sorry to hear that you still don’t know what’s causing the issue, but at least you’ve ruled a few things out and teeth issues is a great one to have avoided I hope all goes well with the specialist and they can tell you what’s causing the blockage.

[Waffle65]

UPDATE: We saw the specialist today. He thinks that Kiwi may naturally have a more narrow duct, and with him being 9 years old it may just be something we have to deal with now. He also said that even though his teeth x-ray looked fine, it’s possible that the points on his teeth still irritated everything, exasperating the problem. This vet has much smaller tools than Kiwi’s regular vet, so he was able to flush his tear duct out, although not as well as he would like. They directly put some steroids in his tear duct, and gave me some to put in his eye every few hours. He’s hoping that those will help with the inflammation. He’s also scheduled to come back on Saturday and Sunday to have his tear duct flushed again. We’re hoping that this will be enough to clear everything out finally. It’s unfortunate that this specialist is 1.5 hours one way, but he seemed very optomistic that this was not a big deal, and he should be back to normal in no time.

[Azerane]

Hooray! That’s good news and I’m glad the vet is very positive about his recovery

[Waffle65]

Unfortunately the vet couldn’t flush much out again today. We cancelled his appointment tomorrow and will try flushing it out in a week, and hopefully over the next week the steroid drops will have enough time to take care of the inflammation. The vet didn’t seem concerned about it though, which is good. He said he gets bunny and guinea pig referrals for this all the time and with enough time he almost always gets their tear ducts cleared out.

[LittlePuffyTail]

Wishing your bun lots of luck at next weeks apt!

[Waffle65]

Today we had to make the heartbreaking decision to let Kiwi go. Yesterday he developed some runny poop and was hardly eating. He was not running around and playing at all. I thought he was developing GI Stasis, so we took him to his regular vet. He absolutely freaked out there, and was having a lot of trouble breathing. After oxygen they did two x-rays. He had a mass in his chest, a small mass on his spine, along with advancing arthritis. They told me he was in a lot of pain, and would need an MRI/CT scan to figure out what was up. We brought him home with medication and critical care. He spit everything out. This morning he continued not moving around, and seemed worse. By this afternoon he could not stand up on his own. I could tell he felt awful. We went to the vet, and she said that his neurological problems were too far gone, and even with proper testing and treatment things would not be good. I feel terrible, this all came on very suddenly, and in the past few days his nose was almost back to normal. Afterwards the vet told me that she was able to pull a ton of fluid out of his chest, so she said we made the best decision for him. Thank you all for the support these past few weeks. This is very difficult for me, but I take comfort in the fact that he is no longer in pain. Although it’s hard for me not to blame myself, like if I would’ve instisted on more tests being done he may have been ok.

[Dee]

I am so sorry, I was reading this and did not expect this ending, as I know you did not ?. Please don’t blame yourself, you followed up in everything and were awesome about Kiwi’s care- I was admiring your dedication to him throughout this thread. You gave him a wonderful life and he was obviously very loved and happy and lively right up until his last days, which is pretty awesome for a 9 year old bunny ?. And you gave him the final, most selfless gift of all- to release him from suffering and let him go peacefully. The whole situation reminded me so much of my BunBun. He also had a treatable problem that we were pretty confident would be taken care of- he had a infiltrative lipoma so it was more complex, but certainly not fatal. We were planning surgery to remove it as it was causing him to limp. Right before the day of surgery, he developed runny poop and just started declining rapidly. We rushed him to Angell Memorial in Boston and they did a CT scan to check out the lipoma, which revealed several masses in his chest ?. Just like with your Kiwi, completely unexpected. No time to prepare at all- suddenly need to make the decision to do the kindest thing possible and say goodbye.

Again, I’m so sorry.

[Author]

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