Theodore's tricky facial abscess - U/D

Theodore has been suffering from a facial abscess for a couple of weeks now. It was caused by a tooth growing the wrong way out of the lower jaw and then falling out.

We've been treating with daily depocillin injections and he's having the tooth socket flushed by the vet daily as food keeps passing through the socket into the abscess.

The vet will do another x-ray tomorrow.

Does anyone have any ideas how long these kind of problems take to heal? The vet has only done this with horses before, never with a rabbit.

toffee said:

Theodore has been suffering from a facial abscess for a couple of weeks now. It was caused by a tooth growing the wrong way out of the lower jaw and then falling out.

We've been treating with daily depocillin injections and he's having the tooth socket flushed by the vet daily as food keeps passing through the socket into the abscess.

The vet will do another x-ray tomorrow.

Does anyone have any ideas how long these kind of problems take to heal? The vet has only done this with horses before, never with a rabbit.

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I'm sorry no one has replied to your post yet I have only just seen this. So sorry to read about your Theodore's abcess. Unfortunately abcessation is tricky to treat in buns and sadly abcesses can often reoccur down the line. I see from your avator that you are in W Yorkshire? I strongly recommend you ask for a referral to Frances Harcourt-Brown. I believe she is in your area and is one of the best rabbit vets in the country.
With proper managment and surgery and appropriate antibiotics and pain relief jaw abcesses can be well managed in most cases. She is likely to be your best bet and he would be in very safe hands. Hopefully someone else on here will post her contact details for you...
Good luck :wave:

BUMP!

ETA sorry if that sounded rather negative, on reading it back I thought it did. There are MANY members on here who's buns have had facial abcesses and who have made very good recoveries and done very well. I hope that helps a bit

http://www.any-uk-vet.co.uk/harcourt-brown/index.htm :wave:

Hi,

I've got a bit more time now so will tell you what I know about abcesses, but i've not actually been through this personally. It also bumps your post up to the top of the queue again
Abcesses as i've already said are tricky to treat but it sounds like your vet is following aggressive therapy with the depocillin and keeping the socket flushed which is good. The problem with rabbit abcesses is that they wall themselves off so thickly that it is very hard for the antibiotics to reach the bacteria. Rabbit pus is also very thick and hard. Usually I believe that an abcess that drains to the outside of the face is easier to deal with than an abcess that drains into the mouth. Packing anything into a wound that drains into the mouth means that invariably bunny will swallow some of it, and topical antibiotics swallowed or a high UMF manuka honey packed into the wound isn't the best for Theodore's tummy. So I expect keeping it flushed is pretty much all you can do when they drain this way. :?

An absolute priority for any rabbit with an abcess... particularly a jaw abcess is adequate pain relief. Pain relief is essential to keep bunny eating - which in turn keeps the guts moving and prevents a secondary GI stasis, but pain relief is also important for maintaining a good immune response to fight the infection.
Hopefully the depocillin will clear this up. Do you know if the infection had gone into the jaw bone itself? Osteomyelitis? If so.... longer term antibiotic therapy will probably be important. I expect the Xray will tell you this. Unfortunately, abcessation does seem to have a habit of reoccuring, especially if there are underlying dental issues. The more hay you can get your bun to eat...when he is out of this acute phase as he may find it too painful right now...the more protection I would hope he would have from further dental disease.
If the depocillin is not effective there are other antibiotics that people have found to be very useful with abcesses. Cephalosporins (injectable), Engemycin etc. I believe that with all of these you can also give Baytril alongside as an extra to cover all possibilites.
Generally a c+s of the bacteria from the abcess wall is a good idea during surgery before antibiotics are given so as not to cloud the results and in order to help find the most appropriate antibiotics. I hope your bun feels better soon. Perhaps some echinacea drops in water would help boost his immune system a little

Hello again,

(Thanks for your responses above by the way!:wave

He's gone in again to have the tooth socket flushed. The vet is doing this twice weekly now, and I'm worried because Ted's heart rate is not good when under the anaesthetic.

The good news is the depocillin seems to be clearing the infection. The main problem now is food getting into the socket. This appears to be mainly ground up pellets and "Green stuff" which i assume to be broccoli so I'm feeding pureed veg mixed with Science recovery instead of pellets and leaving the broc out of his dinner. We will see later whether this has helped.

Does anyone have any tips as to how to avoid the food getting in the socket?

I've just spoken to the vet - he says there's real improvement.

- The abscess is substantially smaller
- The new diet seems to be working as no food found in tooth socket
- Heart rate was fine under anaesthetic

I'm really pleased, this sounds like real progress. he's going back in on Friday so fingers crossed by then he'll be even better!

That sounds like good news to me!

How lucky are you being in Yorkshire, being near Harcourt Brown. I would definitely see her, particularly if your vet is not rabbit savvy.

raine said:

How lucky are you being in Yorkshire, being near Harcourt Brown. I would definitely see her, particularly if your vet is not rabbit savvy.

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Luckily, my vet is brill with rabbits. He's more than willing to try things he hasn't tried before and spends ages researching the conditions that my rabbits present. He's also very open to suggestion from me. He's really quite proud of how far we've come with Ted's abscess and Zinzan's EC (she has a permanent headtilt now and recently recovered from a retrobulbar abscess). He's always saying that other vets would have given up on them and really seems to enjoy seeking out different treatment options.

I reckon my buns will become the subject of a research paper - he's noticed that Zinzan's retina is not normal (we don't think she can see very much since her last bout of EC and the abscess) and he wants to compare it with the retinas of all my other rabbits to see if he can learn more about their eyes and vision.