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Rabbit: Runny nose...Cannot diagnose ...Any help please???

amyloux

New Kit
Hi,

I have a dwarf lop house rabbit, he has a runny nose constantly and sneezes alot too. He is currently on the following medication:
Amikin injections
Metacam
Bisolvin
Ronoxin tablets
Dupaphen injections
Eye drops
None of which have cleared any of his symptoms up. He has had this now for quite a few month and he had been on this medication since December.

We are currently seeing a rabbit veterinary specialist. She has given him an x-ray, which we can see that there are no problems with his teeth. She has had a culture for him and this came back as normal, when she did look up his nose for the culture she did see a small abscess, however she has stated that this is not causing the runny nose ect. He has had a blood test to see if he had E-cuniculi, however this came back negative too.


The vet is now exploring rare possibilities such as leukaemia etc. The rabbit on this medication has passed it onto two other large rabbits that we have, however theirs have cleared up and we are gradually reducing medication with them 2.

I am posting to see if anyone has had anything similar as we are very concerned. We just want to get him better and as soon as possible as we have nearly reached our insurance quota for the year and we will not be able to afford afterwards. We just want to see if anyone has been in this situation before and had a successful diagnosis??

Any help will be greatly appreciated. :)
 
The abscess is not causing any irritation, she also says that this may go on its own with the amount of medication we are giving him. Also, when he was cultured to see what the discharge was it showed that they were unrelated. We are not able to do anything with the abscess yet as he may have to have surgery on it to remove it and we do not want his immune system to deteriorate if he has the operation. He is known to be a troublesome boy when it comes to gut stasis as well.

We all agree that sorting out and finding the diagnosis for the runny nose would be the best thing to do now.
 
To me it sounds like pasteurella or another bacterial infection causing the snuffles.
In some rabbits it cannot be cured, only kept under control with medication. The best thing to do is take him off all antibiotics for a week and then do a culture and sensitivity test to see which antibiotics will be best. However with my rabbit the infection was too bad to do this so we just tried different combinations of antibiotics for a few weeks each to see what would work. We ended up using penicillin injections every three days and baytril every day. This keeps it under control but he will be on it for life.

I don't know if that helps at all.
 
my vet had a case where an absess in the nasal cavity had a bit of hay in the centre causing the runny nose and sneezing. My rabbit had the same problem but no absess-she had a 2inch peice of hay up her nose!
 
My rabbit sneezes and has clear thin discharge every time he sneezes.
He sneezes a few times a day.

My vet said that his tears flow down to his nose because of his bones near his nose are narrow; close together.
 
my vet had a case where an absess in the nasal cavity had a bit of hay in the centre causing the runny nose and sneezing. My rabbit had the same problem but no absess-she had a 2inch peice of hay up her nose!

I know of this problem too.My cat had it.
Anything is possible from this, to allergies, to pasteurella...
 
To me it sounds like pasteurella or another bacterial infection causing the snuffles.
In some rabbits it cannot be cured, only kept under control with medication. The best thing to do is take him off all antibiotics for a week and then do a culture and sensitivity test to see which antibiotics will be best. However with my rabbit the infection was too bad to do this so we just tried different combinations of antibiotics for a few weeks each to see what would work. We ended up using penicillin injections every three days and baytril every day. This keeps it under control but he will be on it for life.

I don't know if that helps at all.

We did take him off the medication for a week or two and it was just as bad but he was sneezing a lot more. We currently have him on twice daily injections of penicillin and amikacin.
 
my vet had a case where an absess in the nasal cavity had a bit of hay in the centre causing the runny nose and sneezing. My rabbit had the same problem but no absess-she had a 2inch peice of hay up her nose!

When the vet did the culture, she also put a camera up his nose to see the abscess properly and there was nothing causing the runny nose from the abscess unfortunately :( I wish we could just know what was causing it so we could help to stop it properly.
 
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