Baytril & Abscesses

Has anyone here ever known Baytril to work on an abscess/infection?

Daisy has been to the vet today for a dental check-up and the vet found a lot of pus in her mouth. I was expecting her to be kept in for molar burring but the vet would like to address the pus issue first. We're to give her Baytril twice a day for the next 10-14 days to see if it clears the infection. However, I have little faith in Baytril....

Daisy had an op around 2 years ago to remove a troublesome tooth and developed an abscess behind her eye following surgery. The original vet prescribed Baytril which didn't touch the abscess at all, in fact the abscess got bigger and bigger to the point where we were certain she would lose her eye. We then took her to a specialist rabbit vet who prescribed Zithromax which cleared it up within around 10 days.

We're going to treat her as advised for the next 2 weeks and see what happens. I am aware that Baytril is the only licensed antibiotic for rabbits but does it really work?

Unfortunately Baytril is not good at penetrating and breaking down pus. It might work better if combined with Septrin if the vet insists on "playing it safe"

But I have always had better results with ceporex.

I haven't used zithromax for an abscess before but had excellent results with it with a URTI

In my experience Baytril alone is seldom helpful for the treatment of Dental abscesses. My Vet usually prescribes Depocillin injections xx

My vet treated an Abcess in Alfie's mouth with Depocillin injections too, and she specialises in bunnies.

Hi, my Pickles was put on Baytril for an abcess on his leg last year it did the job brilliantly but wether this is the same for dental I have no idea. Sorry not really much help.

Manda
xxxxxx

Any abscesses above the neck are bad news and need treating with an antibiotic with good bone penetration. Abscesses in this area are almost always caused by dental problems (i.e. the problem is from the 'inside' rather than an external wound)

Below the neck is usually from a wound, and could very possibly clear up with baytril

I used baytril (and metacam) as advised by my vet after removal of a dental abcess (teeth also removed). 9 months later the abcess returned, although this is the risk. After continuing with baytril and toying with the idea of another op, we decided to try Septrin. A few months have passed and the size of the abcess has reduced dramatically, I would say to almost 2/3 of it's original size.

Hi Vickie :wave:

I think you're asking two questions in one there (abscesses and infections). As an antibiotic, Baytril can definitely kill certain types of bacteria, and therefore treat infection, but rabbits tend to isolate any infection from the healthy tissue - they encapsulate it, and that's when you have an abscess. My understanding is that this is when you run into problems, firstly because Baytril is not the most potent of antibiotics (albeit the only one licensed for use in rabbits), and secondly because it then has additional the job of getting to the site of the infection, which has been walled off.

From the sound of your post, your vet is treating an infection in the gum, and trying to prevent an abscess forming. Baytril is definitely capable of doing this - I know because Chutney lost an incisor because of a tooth root infection (or maybe lost an incisor and then developed an infection) and this was treated successfully with Baytril (I'm almost certain she was treated for longer than two weeks though). For a gum infection, your vet probably wouldn't want to risk using anything unlicenced, though they might if they were treating an abscess. Either way, as the others have said, I think that if an abscess has already formed, Baytril is of limited use.