Abscess and pain relief

Alfred had surgery two weeks ago to remove a tooth and an abscess on his lower jaw.

He's still on oral abx, abx injections every other day for 4 weeks, and an abx cream to put in the drainage hole daily.

I was really stressed when I collected him from the vets, and misheard when the vet say to give him 0.3mls of meloxidyl once a day, and was giving it to him twice a day, he was struggling a couple of days later and had gone into stasis, the vet said to double the meloxidyl, (again I hadn't realised he should be having this once) so for 2 days be had 0.6mls twice a day, I reduced this and for a week he seemed quite happy on 0.4mls twice a day, and I'd just dropped it back to 0.3mls when I took him to the vets again on Friday.

The vet said to drop him down to 0.25mls, and I got some more meloxidyl, when I got home I then saw it should be once daily. So didn't give him any more that night when he had his abx, and emeprid, but over night he stopped eating his hay. I gave him 0.3mls on Sat am, and within a couple of hours he was back munching his hay.

I gave him 0.2mls yesterday evening, and he seemed to stop eating hay around 4am, I've then given him 0.25mls this morning, and again he was happily munching hay a couple of hours later.

He will eat greens when he's not eating his hay.

Is it normal for rabbits to require this much pain relief 2 weeks after surgery?

I'm back at the vets tomorrow, and going to have to explain what I've done :-(

Alfred is a 6 year old mini lop, and weighs 2.8kg.

Im not familiar with that antibiotic but Buster had the same surgery 4 weeks ago and has just been put on 1mg of metranidazol and depocillin injections. He has litewrally only just started eating like normal so you just have to give it time. I hope he recovers quickly

Thanks Shelly, I beleive that meloxidyl is another name for metacam.

How much pain releif did your bun have? Glad to hear that your guy is recovering

x

Apache said:

Thanks Shelly, I beleive that meloxidyl is another name for metacam.

How much pain releif did your bun have? Glad to hear that your guy is recovering

x

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Do you know what strength the medicine is? With Loxicom and Metacam, other painkillers they have a dog and a cat version. The dog version is 1.5mg per ml of meloxicam (which is the actual name of the drug). The cat version is 0.5mg.

At 2.8kg I would think that he would be having about 0.56 of the dog version and more of the cat version. After abscess surgery I would probably ask my vet if I could give it twice a day anyway. Rabbits have a strong resistance to painkillers and the painkilling effect wears out after 12 hours. The anti inflammatory effect lasts for 24 hours.

I don't think you've given him too much, if anything not enough. I think it sounds like he's still in pain and should be getting at least one dose a day until his jaw heals properly. See if you can find the strength of it.

Buster has been on 0.7ml of Metacam once a day for the past four weeks. He has his last lot tomorrow then he's comming off of it. Metacam is also an anti-inflamatary so it'll help with that too however it depends on what the situation was when he had his op. If they fully removed the abcess then he should recover fine. The vet couldne remove all of Busters and it went too far into his jaw bone, he'll probably be on antibiotics for a long time if not the rest of his life

one other thing i have learnt in the past 4 weeks is never be afraid to question your vet to find out what he/she is giving your bun and why! With the help of Jack's-Jane and Jenova ive been able to suggest alternatives to my vet that could make a huge difference to Busters outcome. My vet was really pleased that i'd done my own research and got help from others as it gave her new avenues to explore. Ive found that because there is so little info on what you can use to treat rabbit abcesses safely you really need to have your own knowledge so that you can advocate for your bun (Thanks to Sky-O)

Thank you both of you - the strength is the dog one at 1.5mg/ml, so it definitely sounds like even with me accidentally overdosing on what the vet said to give him its still within safe parameters.

I really appreciate your help

The vet seemed to think she'd removed all of the abscess, so I'm keeping everything crossed for a full recovery, I've been a complete wreck over this...

Apache said:

Thank you both of you - the strength is the dog one at 1.5mg/ml, so it definitely sounds like even with me accidentally overdosing on what the vet said to give him its still within safe parameters.

I really appreciate your help

The vet seemed to think she'd removed all of the abscess, so I'm keeping everything crossed for a full recovery, I've been a complete wreck over this...

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Yes we've been in turmoil over it to, its horrible. I hope he makes a full recovery

Apache said:

Thank you both of you - the strength is the dog one at 1.5mg/ml, so it definitely sounds like even with me accidentally overdosing on what the vet said to give him its still within safe parameters.

I really appreciate your help

The vet seemed to think she'd removed all of the abscess, so I'm keeping everything crossed for a full recovery, I've been a complete wreck over this...

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Good to hear that.
Unfortunately I've become a bit of an expert on rabbit tooth abscesses as both my rabbits have had them. :? I really think they are one of the worst ailments rabbits can have. If it does come back ask you vet to look into depocillin injections, but I really hope it doesn't. It took Smoo a good few weeks to start eating hard food like hay again after hers was removed. I kept her on painkillers and soggy pellets in the mean time.

shelley said:

Yes we've been in turmoil over it to, its horrible. I hope he makes a full recovery

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Thanks - hope your bun does ok too, and you can keep on top of it with the abx x

Good to hear that.
Unfortunately I've become a bit of an expert on rabbit tooth abscesses as both my rabbits have had them. I really think they are one of the worst ailments rabbits can have. If it does come back ask you vet to look into depocillin injections, but I really hope it doesn't. It took Smoo a good few weeks to start eating hard food like hay again after hers was removed. I kept her on painkillers and soggy pellets in the mean time.

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Thanks Jenova, I've checked and Alfred's having amoxypen injections every other day, I'll have a look into depocillin and see what the differences are.

Thanks again both of you for taking the time to share your experiences x

Apache said:

Thanks - hope your bun does ok too, and you can keep on top of it with the abx x


Thanks Jenova, I've checked and Alfred's having amoxypen injections every other day, I'll have a look into depocillin and see what the differences are.

Thanks again both of you for taking the time to share your experiences x

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That's good to hear. A lot of vets just give baytril but I don't think it's strong enough to deal with abscesses in rabbits. Your vet sounds really good.

Thanks Jenova,
Had a chat with the vet today about be accidentally doubling his pain relief and the issues when I cut it back, she said its fine to just give him what I think he needs - although reduce it if I can.
She seems quite pleased with his progress so far - so fingers crossed x