Puffy Eyes, Sneezing, Itching, Rash.. Help Please!

[Silvie4]

Hello all!

I used to be a very active member of this forum, but I have gone MIA for a few years. For any of you that remember, my name is Silvie. I have two rabbits named Phinn and Cleo.

This post is about my 6 year old dwarf lop, Phinn. We have had him since he was 8 weeks old. He has been extremely health up to this point.

A month or to ago, we noticed a scaly, yucky rash develop on his back. (near his neck). He had also been sneezing profusely. I'm talking sneeze attacks of 20 or more sneezes IN A ROW. He also had been itching his ears.
We rushed him to the vet and she believed it was ringworm. She also took a culture of the inside of his ears and noticed some bloody wax.

He was put on the antibiotic baytril and we put the ointment animax on his back and in his ears. The symptoms seemed to subside.

Then, the rash came back.
We put him on the medicines again. Once again, it went away.

Right now, his rash on his back is gone. But, he developed a new symptom of the rims of his eyes being swollen. They are not red, just swollen and some of the hair is gone from scratching.

The vet seems to have no answers and just wants to put him on all these different medicines, so I was wondering if anyone has had an issue with these symptoms in their rabbits? (sneezing, itching of ears and eyes, rash on back, puffy eyes...)

Thank you!

 

[Maureen Las]

I don't know of any specific syndrome that would include all thoses symptoms so I would speculate that he has multiple issues going on.
Usually a vet will not "assume" that a rabbit has ringworm but will do a culture of a skin scraping.

This is ringworm (GRAPHIC)

http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/Skin_diseases/Fungal/Fungal_en.htm

Often times fungal infections, mites, respiratory infections occur because the animal has a suppression of the immune system possibly from old age, stress, illness

Has the respiratory infection subsided ? Baytril is not a very potent drug and oftentimes an infection will return because the bacteria has already developed immunity

Bloody ears sounds like ear mites or possibly an ear infection and/ or both. (GRAPHIC PHOTOS)

http://medirabbit.com/EN/Skin_diseases/Parasitic/earmite/Psoroptes.htm



Puffy eyes :?

Has a blood panel been done on him to R/O an underlying illness ??

I would take this rabbit to another qualified rabbit vet and get a second opinion.

http://www.rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=11599&forum_id=9

Poor bunny sounds like he is having a very difficult time

 

[Silvie4]

Thank you for your help!
We took him back to the vet on Tuesday. It's confirmed, he has pasteurella. Our poor guys is not looking too good She also saw symptoms of pneumonia in his lungs, and an ear infection in his right ear.

He's going back to the vet tomorrow in the morning. We have been giving him penicillin injections, and we will probably need to continue to do those for atleast a month.

The good thing is that his organ functions are normal, and he still has an appetite. Only thing is, is that he is anemic.

ANY pasteurella advice would be great please!!!!

 

[LakeCondo]

What was the original antibiotic for? Ringworm is a fungal infection, so an antibiotic would do nothing for it. Was it for the ears, when the vet didn't know what the problem with them was? Antibiotics always mess up the probiotics in the digestive system.
I would echo the suggestion to get a 2nd opinion.