Vet now say not pasturella is in fact a straw allergy!!

:evil: Hi all

Just wondered if anyone has heard of this...

Yoshi has been to the vets 4 times in the last six weeks with white or clear discharge coming from his nose. Each vsit costing in the region of £35.00 :shock: [he is worth every penny though ] For the first few times they kept saying he had pasturella and gave me courses of baytril. which he got better on [no nasal discharge] then 5-7days after finshing the batril the discharge is back . So back to vets and more baytril. but agian he finsihed the course and about a week later he was ill again with discharge and sounding snuffly.

At this point we stared searching this forum for other possiblities :roll: and discovered that unless the vet does a culture test there is no way of knowing whether pasturella is the cause and if not baytril could well make him worse!! :no: So thanks to this site we took yoshi back to the vets and suprise surprise when we mentioned about culture tests etc they said they think it may be a allergy to straw as other than nasal discharge he had no other symptoms of pasturella [ his chest /lugs where totally clear and eyes are fine]. So we have been told to put him on paper bedding and dust extracted hay to eat.

But i can't help wondering how much money the vet would have taken from us telling us he needed antibiotics if we hadn't mentioned what we did. So although i know there is still a chance it is pasturella i am hopeful it is a allergy. But i am obviously keeping a close eye on him but at the moment no nasal dischage [thats without any antibiotics]

I will let you know if it turns out the paper sorts him out and if it does i will be very happy as a allergy is a much better outcome than pasturella!!

Thanks to all :wave::bunny::bunny::bunny:

A straw allergy would be unusual, although if the straw has got damp then fungal spores could cause an allergic type response.
An infection does sound more likely given the fact that he has responded to antibiotics. It can be difficult to clear infections with short courses of antibiotics as the nasal cavities have many little difficult to reach areas with limited blood supply so prolonged treatment is required to eliminate bacteria. With shorter courses the number of bacteria are reduced (but not eliminated) so symptoms clear up, then remaining bacteria multiply again when the treatment stops. If the discharge reappears it would be worth doing cultures and antibiotic sensitivity tests (before any more antibiotics are given) and checking exactly what is there and what it is sensitive to. I have had good success treating these repeptitive snuffles cases with longer courses of newer antibiotics, particuarly zithromax.

Discharge only in the evening

Hi Thanks for the responce

Thing is yoshi is a outdoor bunny [sort of he lives in a hutch in a summer house] but comes in with me during the day and then again for a while in the evening [ taking in turns with his brother as they don't get on yet]

Now when he has the nasal discharge it is usually in the evening... a lot of white snot [or sometimes only a little bit] and he sounds really snuffly.
So we book him into the vets first thing in the morning [not wanting to take any chances]
when we take him to the vets his nose is clear and we are told clinically he is fine. [thats why they are not treating him this time] However the first time he went in he did have a temperture and they could here some snuffling but nothing much. Now just wondering 1. can pasturella [if it is that] settle on its own? 2. Why is it only in the evening? 3. How can we do the culture test if there is no discharge from his nose when we take him to the vet? :roll:

Today i have cleaned his hutch out and gizmo's [our other bunny] and gave the summer house a really good clean getting rid of any dust etc... he has his paper bedding [more like shedded tissue paper] so we will see [living in hope its a allergy really:? ]

Well please let me know what you think... maybe it is pasturella but not to bad or maybe i have a strange bunny with a allergy :? but either way we love him and our other bunny dearly

I really would push for a C&S test, white discharge is very likely to be indicative of a respiratory infection...my Pasteurella bunny always presents with a sticky white discharge when her symptoms are not under control.

A C&S test cost me £46 last week but this will vary from vets to vets, however in the longrun it will save you a lot of trial and error with various antibiotic courses and allow you to get to the heart of the problem once the results are in.

Good Luck

does the discharge need to be present though when i go to the vets... as as i stated in the post above the discharge is only in the evenings at the moment [out of vets hours] the rest of the day he seems fine.

the cost of the test doesn't worry us its just needing to know what is wrong... thanks for the advice though i will keep you posted on how he is getting on. :?