Fur Mites/Respiratory issues

[Luvr of Wabbits and Polar Bears]

He's on Meds for the URI.

The tilt is old news. He developed that in Oct of 07 and recovered wonderfully with only a small tilt but he can hold his head up pretty good.
This is a photo of him taken earlier in the week.

 

[Maureen Las]

I do so many posts I sometimes get mixed up :?
sorry
however
Istill will say that 2 weeks is not very long to treat a URI
How is Fluffy doing?
If a respiratory infection is not treated with strong medication for a lenghty period of time then itoften returns
that is the big debate that we had previously
if you treat it with stronger meds for a longer time much less chance of it returning.

but if it did return it still is treatable

 

[Maureen Las]

Luvr of Wabbits and Polar Bears wrote:

He's on Meds for the URI.

The tilt is old news. He developed that in Oct of 07 and recovered wonderfully with only a small tilt but he can hold his head up pretty good.
This is a photo of him taken earlier in the week.

Forgot to say that he is a stunningly handsome fellow

 

[Luvr of Wabbits and Polar Bears]

He's still active and eating and drinking but I just picked me up and i didn't like what i heard. But when he's on the ground he sounds fine. I'll see if I can make an apt with a different vet in town before we are to go back to U of S and get a second opinion he needs his teeth clipped anyways.

And Yes Fluffy is an adorable boy. It's ok u got things mixed up. I don't think i posted when we got his head tilt so u probably weren't aware of it.

Rebecca

angieluv wrote:

I do so many posts I sometimes get mixed up :?
sorry
however
Istill will say that 2 weeks is not very long to treat a URI
How is Fluffy doing?
If a respiratory infection is not treated with strong medication for a lenghty period of time then itoften returns
that is the big debate that we had previously
if you treat it with stronger meds for a longer time much less chance of it returning.

but if it did return it still is treatable

 

[Maureen Las]

if he's still congested at all it's not finished
maybe you could get a culture done...
Ihad bun with a recurring respiratory problem ( not discharge but congestion in her throat)
it cleared up initially with baytril ...

then it reoccured maybe 6- 8 months later and cleared up again with baytril

cleared up several more times with baytril
finally maybe after several years it would not respond to baytril anymore

Italked the vet into azithromycin (zithromax) and he wouldn't let me use it until we tried a 6 week course of baytril which didn't work

surprisingly the zithromax didn't work either long -term

and at that point I learned to do sub qutaneous injections of bicillin (from Randy)

and it did clear up once and for all
i don't have good vets where I live and I don't advocate self-treatment at all unless absolutely necessary
I guess what i am telling you is that treatment is available one way or another

 

[Luvr of Wabbits and Polar Bears]

I wouldn't try and self treat my bun. I would like to say we have good vets here but I'm not in love with resident/intern at the U of S where we usually go. So I'll try 1 of the other vets in town that we have seen in past if i can get him in before his apt on the 26th.

 

[AngelnSnuffy]

Is he still doing [suP]okay[/suP]?

 

[Luvr of Wabbits and Polar Bears]

Update: Today Fluffy sounds really good and is being a good boy friend to Monsters as she needs all the loving she can get.
He has sneezed a few times but no more discharge We still have a check up on Monday for both of them.

 

[Luvr of Wabbits and Polar Bears]

Just gotback from the vet. Fluffy has lost weight as well he's 2.25kg and was 2.67three weeks ago. Fluffy sounded better today the vet didn't notice anything to bad. There is less discarge so we didn't continue any meds.

For the mites prblem we didn't treat him again as his skin and hair looked really good and wasn't scratching.

 

[Maureen Las]

I don't think your vet treated Fluffy long enough for the respiratory infection so I would watch for a reoccurence.............:?

 

[tonyshuman]

That's a pretty substantial weight loss. Hope he regains it! Maybe try some Nutri-Cal.

 

[Luvr of Wabbits and Polar Bears]

I will defiantly keep an eye on him.

angieluv wrote:

I don't think your vet treated Fluffy long enough for the respiratory infection so I would watch for a reoccurence.............:?

 

[Luvr of Wabbits and Polar Bears]

Fluffy as started Whistling while he rest. So I made an appointment with a different vet to have a look at him. His appointment is Wed am. I'll let yah know what the vet says when we get back.

 

[Maureen Las]

he needs stronger meds for a much longer period of time....
let us know....

 

[Luvr of Wabbits and Polar Bears]

What med would you suggest? And for how long?

 

[tonyshuman]

I think Bicillin is pretty good subcutaneously with an on/off treatment of 3-4 days each (?). Someone please reaffirm this--I'll go check elsewhere too.

 

[tonyshuman]

Ok, the best thing to do is to have a culture and sensitivity test. The vet will swab the mucus on a petri dish and see which antibiotics he can kill it with on a dish.
http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/culture.html

Antibiotic treatment should be for two weeks at the least. Baytril is a pretty mild catch-all antibiotic, but I am concerned that the bacteria are now resistant to it since they had a week's treatment but returned. This is why a short treatment is not good--what you end up doing is killing all of the bacteria except a few that are slightly resistant to the antibiotic. Those few stick around (even though another week of antibiotic could probably finish them off) and multiply, so that the infection is solely the Baytril-resistant antibiotic.

The best choice is to get a stronger antibiotic, preferably one that the vet can determine that the bacteria is resistant to with the culture and sensitivity test, and give it for 2-3 weeks. I'm having a hard time finding exact names of what antibiotic you should use, but if the vet does the test they should know.

 

[Maureen Las]

Bicillin (as Claire said) is a great drug as is chlorampenical and zithromax.

in my rabbit Babette's case she did not have discharge so the only way to culture was to do a tracheal wash which required anesthesia. I didnot want to sedate her so Iopted out.
Because of my past experience with this I would say at least 4 weeks (although I am not a vet)

you may want to pm Randy as he may suggest 2 drugs at once ..not sure for this particular problem

 

[Luvr of Wabbits and Polar Bears]

Ok back from the Vet. This vet was really nice haven't seen her for any real medical problems but she was good. Fluffy wasn't showing an symptioms this morning (go figure) We are treating Fluffy for his URI with Baytril for 2 weeks twice a day by injection. She said if i'm having problems with the injections I can give it to him orally with juice. But if it does come to that i'll just send to my Parents place and mom can do them.

If that doesn't clear it up we will try something else. I think this drug was mentioned chlorampenical <-- is this one a white drug if so thats is the orther one if not then it's something else starting with a C. and also bicillin I asked about that one maybe being harded to inject...

I didn't a swab done 'cause there was no discharge on his face this morning. She offerd to do X-Rays as well but he's not showing an systems this morning. So I just left with the drugs and nice $90 bill.

 

[Maureen Las]

Randy has said that injectable baytril is more effective than oral. For whatever reason I have found that to be true myself as I have used it a lot. I have give it intramuscularly which is a little trickier than sq.

Chloramphenical and bicillin are great drugs. Chloramphenical opthalmic salve is what cured Beau's eye infection.
Chloramphenical has the ability to penetrate infection in areas that are particularly difficult for some antibiotics to reach and since rabbits oten wall off infection it is particuarly good for abscesses and/or other rabbit infections in general.
You need to use some precautions when using chloramphencial as in rare instances it can cause health problems with people if it gets on skin.

Sounds like this vet is right on ............

sounds like you have a plan