My boy Daisy (took a long time to figure out he was male when we got him!) is 6 1/2 years old. He seems to be in perfect health except that one cheek hangs normally and the other cheek does not. I took him to the Vet to investigate what might be wrong with him. I thought he had an absess on his face. It turned out that the side that hangs down is normal and the side that doesn't has been affected with nerve damage or something, from the infection. He eats fine and he runs and jumps and plays and seems to have no problems. When the vet looked in his ears he found gobs and gobs of white pus.
His x-rays show that this infection has eaten away his ear canal. When the vet flushed his ears the first time he was amazed at the amount of pus that came out, and it was coming out of places that it shouldn't have, meaning that it's eating through his skin. He has developed absesses on both sides of his head which we have been cleaning out over the past couple of months. We considered surgery but the vet feels that because this infection is so deep and all throughout his head that he would not recover well, if at all. This pus has been cultured and it is definitely Staphylococcus Aureus. And we have decided that since he seems to be fine we really don't want to put him through a surgery that he most likely could not recover from. The vet feels that we cannot cure this.
Our vet is very experienced with rabbits. He's listed on many rabbit websites as a rabbit savvy vet, and he has never seen this to this extent in a rabbit, especially with no symptoms.
Right now Daisy is on a regimen of Sulfatrim Suspension and Baytril eardrops, twice a day. Since he has never shown any symptoms of this infection, he continues to act normal and seems to be happy.
Has anyone ever heard of this happening? We have no idea how he might have developed this infection. Since he has no symptoms we do not know how long he has had it. And the fact that he has not developed head tilt or anything is very lucky. Unfortunately, we are basically just trying to maintain him until his time comes and we are hoping that it will be as painless as possible. I guess eventually this will reach his brain. It's very hard to deal with since on the outside he seems so normal. He's basically a ticking time bomb ready to go off any moment.
I would just like to hear from anyone who has heard of a rabbit with a staph infection and if it was ever cured or how it affected their rabbit. I can't find much information at all. All I can find is Pasteurella information. Thanks for any info.
Sharon
His x-rays show that this infection has eaten away his ear canal. When the vet flushed his ears the first time he was amazed at the amount of pus that came out, and it was coming out of places that it shouldn't have, meaning that it's eating through his skin. He has developed absesses on both sides of his head which we have been cleaning out over the past couple of months. We considered surgery but the vet feels that because this infection is so deep and all throughout his head that he would not recover well, if at all. This pus has been cultured and it is definitely Staphylococcus Aureus. And we have decided that since he seems to be fine we really don't want to put him through a surgery that he most likely could not recover from. The vet feels that we cannot cure this.
Our vet is very experienced with rabbits. He's listed on many rabbit websites as a rabbit savvy vet, and he has never seen this to this extent in a rabbit, especially with no symptoms.
Right now Daisy is on a regimen of Sulfatrim Suspension and Baytril eardrops, twice a day. Since he has never shown any symptoms of this infection, he continues to act normal and seems to be happy.
Has anyone ever heard of this happening? We have no idea how he might have developed this infection. Since he has no symptoms we do not know how long he has had it. And the fact that he has not developed head tilt or anything is very lucky. Unfortunately, we are basically just trying to maintain him until his time comes and we are hoping that it will be as painless as possible. I guess eventually this will reach his brain. It's very hard to deal with since on the outside he seems so normal. He's basically a ticking time bomb ready to go off any moment.
I would just like to hear from anyone who has heard of a rabbit with a staph infection and if it was ever cured or how it affected their rabbit. I can't find much information at all. All I can find is Pasteurella information. Thanks for any info.
Sharon
It's worth asking about though.
