Infection after eye removal

Hello everyone,

I am looking for anyone who has experience with abcesses and the antibiotic treatment of them.

I am a veterinary nurse, and a family brough in a very neglected male bunny, a 6 year old lop. They said his eye has been 'funny' for a while, and when the vet told them that it was so damaged and advanced, antibiotic and topical treatment would not work, and only removing the eye was an option, they said to put him to sleep.

I was the nurse at the time, and when the bunny, now named Gerald, was brought to be put to sleep, I fell in love, said I would pay and keep him. Our lovely vet contacted the owners, and they gave consent to have him signed over to me.

The following day, we operated and removed his eye. The amount of pus and infection in it was horrendous, and the eye ball no longer resembled one at all. The poor little lad pulled through the op fine, although the eye did bleed a lot on removal.

I left him to recover for a few days at work, administered baytril injections, and brought him home with me on Monday. On wednesday, I noticed a slight pus discharge from the eye, so took him in and basically I am flushing the eye twice daily with sterile water, and giving Baytril orally twice daily. The pockets of puss are less, but still there, and I wondered if anyone knew of a better antibiotic to use on him that fights this type of infection better?

The vets have mentioned several different antibiotics, but I wondered if anyone had a similar experience with abcesses and what they felt worked the best?

Little Gerald is a very nervous chap, and is trying to adapt to his one eye, but I am hoping since I lost my male lop, Willow, a few months ago that he will be able to integrate in the shed with my 3 girlies once he's healed enough. He is a little star, is letting me do absolutely anything to him, and I have to say, likes his food! His ears were also scabbed up and lumpy, he has a claw missing completely but he is neutered, thankfully.

Thanks in advance for any advice to help my adorable little rescue boy.

Liz & Gerald!

Hi Liz :wave: Well done for taking in this little one and giving him a chance

I've got no experience of eye removal particularly but I am using engemycin LA (oxytetracycline) on a bunny I'm fostering who has severe eye/tear duct infections and it's working an absolute treat - plus as it's long acting it's just one injection every 3 days so not too stressful. Metradonizole is also supposed to be a useful addition to other antibiotics as it's good at zapping anaerobes - many of the nice broad spectrum ones don't seem to be too good at that so you might find that something like this helps too especially if it's very deep seated.

If there is an open area you can get to, you may be able to use active manuka honey (make sure you get an active one, as high a number as you can get hold of - upwards of 15) as this is naturally antibiotic and also helps to clean out the abscess. Sounds gross but a lot of people have had huge success with it.

Has a swab been taken for MC+S ?

I know that sometimes anaerobes are involved which Enrofloxacin (Baytril) wont touch. Metronidazole would though.
Has a Skull Xray been taken?

Also have a look at this thread here for some more general antibiotic thoughts

http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/showthread.php?t=156867

Everything you need to know about abscess is in this link, 1 of the very best rabbit medicine book on abscess treatment. Knock yourself out

http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/showthread.php?t=124510&page=3

Can't offer any advice, but wanted to say what a wonderful thing you have done to try to help this bunny. He sounds absolutely gorgeous. Well done.

Oh how lovely of you to save him - I am so happy to hear that

I would recommend leaving the Baytril and trying Septrin and Metronidazole - I have had great results with it

I would recommend oral Azithromycin (Zithromax) as it cleared up three abscesses on Daisy's face, one was behind her eye. It was so bad we thought she'd end up losing it but Zithromax really worked and quickly too! I would also use Manuka honey on the wound itself.

Hope Gerald gets on ok!

Mack has been on Ceporex for 5 days now with Baytril & Manuka applied directly into the wound and the abcess is healing far better than I expected, even the pus has cleared up.

A hiuge well doen to you for taking this bunny on

Aww, well done you!

Dont have any further advice on aftercare except to say that my Stitch had an eye removed before I adopted him and we dont know why. His sight in his other eye is practically zero but that doesn't stop him living a happy life. He's such a little rascal.

I'm sure your bun just feels a little weird in that area and what with a new home is just adjusting, he wouldn't of had sight in that eye for ages by the sound of it so hopefully he'll learn to trust you fully soon and become a great pal for you

You must post some piccies when he's better :wave: