Eye problem....Is management acceptable?

Chane has had severe conjunctivitis in both his eyes. It did not respond to Tiacil and he is now on a combination of Fucithalmic in his eyes and Baytril in his water as apparently Tiacil is not effective against some bacteria.

There is improvement but his eyes are still weeping. This will be one week of treatment tomorrow.

He has known molar problems but these are currently OK. He may have tooth root issues and X-rays will be the next step.

My question is, one, if it is tooth roots then the only option is extraction right? and molar extraction is a horrid procedure which can lead to the rabbits jaw being broken? Plus if the root is not totally pulled the tooth may grow back.

Two, is it acceptable to manage an eye condition with medication by keeping it clean and treating when necessary? Is it painful to the rabbit or just irritating?

Sooz22 said:

Two, is it acceptable to manage an eye condition with medication by keeping it clean and treating when necessary? Is it painful to the rabbit or just irritating?

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I'm afraid I can't comment on the tooth issue, however as you may know Bobbin has had weepy eyes on an off since he's been with me. He's due to be neutered in the new year and at the same time have a skull x-ray to see if it's teeth.

Moving on, whenever his eye starts to weep (it's only clear, not gunky) I leave it one day to assess it, then if it's the same after a day I give him an eye bath. This is not ideal for him because obviously it's slightly distressing, however it clears it up and generally it doesn't reoccur for at least a month.

He was prescribed Fucithalmic but it just made it more gunky and an eye bath was necessary anyway.

I use cooled boiled water and cotton wool pads. Dipping them in and wiping his eye gently whilst he's in trance. I use the cotton wool once then get a new one.

One of the main issues I've found is that the fur crusts a little with the tears, I've found that it's important to soak the fur around the eye quite a lot to soak the crustiness away. If I didn't do this he would not be able to un-knot it on his own and I fear he may pull the fur out.

It does not appear completely better again for a couple of days, but after that it's completely back to normal. It seems that this occasional distress is worth it in the long run, I can tell he's much happier when it's not weepy.

Sorry for the looooong post! :lol:

So do you think its acceptable not to pull the teeth and roots and have runny eyes evry now and then instead?

I had a rescue bun come in who lost all the fur round his eyes due to it clotting with the tears, it put so much pressure on the roots that it pulled out by itself and his eyelides were very red and swollen.

I completely agree with Thea.

Our bun has constant weepy eyes and we manage with exactly the same method as Thea. We found as long as the fur is not allowed to become too crusty then he seems quite happy. As far as I can tell there has been no fur loss around the eyes that i can see.

I also brought up tooth removal with my rabbit savvy vet. She says much the same as you i.e. the preferred option was to manage rather than to put our bun through tooth removal surgery.

I would however also warn that because of the weepy eyes he does get rather more infections than would be normal ( 2 since April), but a quick phone call to the vet and I can usually get something to sort it out. I know it's not ideal but I would rather have a happy bun with the eye cleaning than a distressed one with trips to and fro to the vets.

Hope this helps

Having re read your post I would also say that our bun has NOT had a skull x-ray as our vet is quite happy with the above.

I'm not sure that tooth extraction is 100% solution. If the tear ducts are damaged, removing the original cause may not help.

I'd vote for manage.

Tam

I have a bunny with chronic weepy eyes. She has osteoporosis of the jaw bone and problems with tooth roots. She used to have regular tear duct flushes, but eventually one side became unflushable due to scar tissue

TBH it doesn't seem to bother her that much, as long as the tears are cleaned away from her skin so it doesn't get sore.

Personally I wouldn't have molars extracted for chronic weepy eyes. It seems a bit OTT.

If the roots are elongated enough to be interfering with the tear ducts would this not be painful to the rabbit?

TBH I don't know, but in Smokey's case I don't think it causes her pain. She acts exactly the same as she always has done, and her appitite is fine. She's had this problem for about 3 years now, and has never seemed 'ill' apart from having snuffles.

Sooz22 said:

So do you think its acceptable not to pull the teeth and roots and have runny eyes evry now and then instead?

I had a rescue bun come in who lost all the fur round his eyes due to it clotting with the tears, it put so much pressure on the roots that it pulled out by itself and his eyelides were very red and swollen.

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That I don't know, I'm afraid a) because I don't not have enough experience b) because Bobbin has not yet been diagnosed with any thing tooth related.

My point though was that as it is (before any proper diagnosis) the management seems to be working extremely well.

I suppose you could measure how bad the problem is by seeing how long it takes for the eyes to become weeping again after bathing. Bobbins doesn't return for a month or so, which I think means his condition is less severe. However, if you bathed the eyes and the weeping returned within days I think it's safe to say it's more severe. But even then, I do not know about tooth extraction and whether or not this is the best route :?

I wouldn't have thought it would case pain as such, it's not an abcess so there is no infection. The roots just push on the tear duct which narrow it or push it out of shape. That's my understanding anyway.

Tamsin said:

I wouldn't have thought it would case pain as such, it's not an abcess so there is no infection. The roots just push on the tear duct which narrow it or push it out of shape. That's my understanding anyway.

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It's just I know that chinchillas (the animal, not the rabbit breed) are prone to root problems and as far as I remember (been a while since I've been active on that forum) the prognosis was poor as the chinchilla would be off its food and acting out of character as if in pain, and generally euthanasia was fairer :? I can't see it being pain-free for things to be growing into tissue they're not meant to be in

You can't really compare rabbits and chins. Chin teeth are in a totally different configuration to rabbit teeth.

Like I said, my Smokey doesn't appear to be in any pain. Although the vet said that the condition gradually gets worse and infection can eventually set in, and lead to PTS.

abbymarysmokey said:

You can't really compare rabbits and chins. Chin teeth are in a totally different configuration to rabbit teeth.

Like I said, my Smokey doesn't appear to be in any pain. Although the vet said that the condition gradually gets worse and infection can eventually set in, and lead to PTS.

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I wouldn't have thought they were hugely different, given the similarities between the species (diet, diseases they can get, etc) - they're both grazing animals needing constant access to hay and a limited amount of pellets and both need a high fibre diet so I'd assume their digestive system was similar too. Either way, neither animal is designed to have overgrowing tooth roots so I'd have thought it would cause a similar effect to any animal.
I'm not saying you're leaving your animal in pain but wondered if it would be/would become a painful condition to any rabbit

I remember watching a TV programme which showed the inside of a chins mouth. It's molar teeth were arranged in almost a circular pattern right at the back of its tiny little mouth. It looked like it would be MUCH more difficult to perform dentistry work on a chin than a rabbit.

From what I understand, the root put pressure on the ducts that drain the eyes so they are watery (the excess water weeps out the eye instead of being drained).

I wouldn't have thought that necessarily means pain. It's like if you wrap something around your finger, you cut the blood flow but it doesn't hurt.

Tam

abbymarysmokey said:

I remember watching a TV programme which showed the inside of a chins mouth. It's molar teeth were arranged in almost a circular pattern right at the back of its tiny little mouth. It looked like it would be MUCH more difficult to perform dentistry work on a chin than a rabbit.

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I know chinchillas can have spurs etc burred down though - even if molar extraction could be more difficult in chinchillas I'd have thought the overgrown roots would affect animals in a similar way.

I wouldn't have thought that necessarily means pain. It's like if you wrap something around your finger, you cut the blood flow but it doesn't hurt.

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But it's not good for you to have something wrapped around your finger permanently and would cause damage/pain after a while :?

Ben's mum said:

I know chinchillas can have spurs etc burred down though - even if molar extraction could be more difficult in chinchillas I'd have thought the overgrown roots would affect animals in a similar way.

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Not necessarily, from what I remember Chins teeth point in different directions to rabbit teeth, so overgrown roots could potentially affect different areas of the head.

Ben's mum said:

But it's not good for you to have something wrapped around your finger permanently and would cause damage/pain after a while :?

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Only because after awhile cutting off the blood supply your finger would get infected and drop off

Okay, better example, when they clamp tubes in a vasectomy. That's closer to a duct. It puts pressure on the tube, sealing it off but doesn't cause pain.

Tam

Tamsin said:

Only because after awhile cutting off the blood supply your finger would get infected and drop off

Okay, better example, when they clamp tubes in a vasectomy. That's closer to a duct. It puts pressure on the tube, sealing it off but doesn't cause pain.

Tam

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But again that's not permanently - the post was about possibly leaving the teeth unextracted.
I'm not just referring to the roots that cross the tear ducts either, surely if they're overgrowing they'll end up going to more places they shouldn't be? :?

Elongated tooth roots is a progressive condition and can eventually lead to pain and abscessation.
I would not opt for molar extraction without further diagnostics. As Tamsin said extracting the molars may not resolve the eye problems if the nasolacrimal duct is already permanently damaged.
I'd also take into account the age of the Bun

This is quite an interesting article on Rabbit Dentistry

http://www.theveterinarian.com.au/clinicalreview/article131.asp

Janex