ChinaBun
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- Joined
- Apr 23, 2005
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Hi all. I posted on here some time ago, but that post seems to be gone now. The problem was that I found a lump on my bunny's jaw. Online research, especially here, showed me that it probably was an abscess. Two of my pet-loving students and I took Qingqing ("cheeng-cheeng") around two days trying to find a vet who knew rabbits. We failed. So I followed the advice of people on this forum to give her penicillin shots. For about four weeks she got shots every other day of Benzathene Benzyl Penicillin. My student had to go to pharmacy that had a doctor attached to it, tell the doc that she wanted to buy Penicillin for a rabbit, then get a prescription! Then we took Qingqing across the street to a little clinic and persuaded the young doctor to give my rabbit shots. He had trouble the first time, since he gave it to her in the hip, but after advice on here, I showed him how to give the shots under the skin and we had no more problems. BTW, his fee for giving the shots was US 12 cents! Actually, he never asked for money, but I plan to give him a very large fee.
After one week of the shots, the lump was a little smaller, but after that there was no improvement, and it may have even slowly grown. I tried doubling the dose, in case it was too low, but that made my bunny lay around the apartment all the next day. I did this twice, then decided that the medicine wasn't working, so I would see how she felt if I stopped the shots. She had been getting either 30 IU or 300 IU each time, then I doubled it twice. I'm not sure of the dosage because my students weren't sure of the unit of measurement. She got 1/4th of the bottle for the first three weeks. I came up with that amount by reading a website provided here that gave dosage recommendations for rabbits.
Another reason I stopped the Penicillin was that she got so scared every time she went for her shot. She was hard to catch, and had learned that when I got out the little cage and two or three of my students were calling her name, that meant a visit outside. She was shaking the whole time she was out, but at least she sat still on my lap when she got her shot. Of course, one student (university sophomores or juniors) was on one side covering her eyes and one student was helping me hold her hindquarters down so she couldn't move during the shot. It took her being back home for about 20 minutes before the shaking stopped and she would eat again. I figured that since the shots weren't helping and she was so scared, that I would stop the shots.
It's been three weeks since she has had a shot and she has neither gotten better nor worse. She is still eating OK and pooping OK. She lays around the place a lot during the day, but that's normal behavior! She's never been a playful bunny. In the last week it appears that the lump has grown a little. She shows no sign of pain, not even when I feel the lump.
Do you recommend that I continue with no treatment, try the Penicillin again, or try Zithromax? Feel free to PM me if you are worried about legal issues by giving medical advice. Keep in mind that I can get no rabbit-savvy medical advice here where I live.
Thanks for reading this!
Nancy in Xi'an, China, home of the Terracotta Warriors
After one week of the shots, the lump was a little smaller, but after that there was no improvement, and it may have even slowly grown. I tried doubling the dose, in case it was too low, but that made my bunny lay around the apartment all the next day. I did this twice, then decided that the medicine wasn't working, so I would see how she felt if I stopped the shots. She had been getting either 30 IU or 300 IU each time, then I doubled it twice. I'm not sure of the dosage because my students weren't sure of the unit of measurement. She got 1/4th of the bottle for the first three weeks. I came up with that amount by reading a website provided here that gave dosage recommendations for rabbits.
Another reason I stopped the Penicillin was that she got so scared every time she went for her shot. She was hard to catch, and had learned that when I got out the little cage and two or three of my students were calling her name, that meant a visit outside. She was shaking the whole time she was out, but at least she sat still on my lap when she got her shot. Of course, one student (university sophomores or juniors) was on one side covering her eyes and one student was helping me hold her hindquarters down so she couldn't move during the shot. It took her being back home for about 20 minutes before the shaking stopped and she would eat again. I figured that since the shots weren't helping and she was so scared, that I would stop the shots.
It's been three weeks since she has had a shot and she has neither gotten better nor worse. She is still eating OK and pooping OK. She lays around the place a lot during the day, but that's normal behavior! She's never been a playful bunny. In the last week it appears that the lump has grown a little. She shows no sign of pain, not even when I feel the lump.
Do you recommend that I continue with no treatment, try the Penicillin again, or try Zithromax? Feel free to PM me if you are worried about legal issues by giving medical advice. Keep in mind that I can get no rabbit-savvy medical advice here where I live.
Thanks for reading this!
Nancy in Xi'an, China, home of the Terracotta Warriors
