The stress on a bonded friend of a terminnaly sick bunny

Lighters has a mandibular abscess. He's been on treatment now for about 6 weeks- one week of one type and the following weeks all of penicillin (plus pain relief obviously). His swelling went down but the actual abscess capsule expanded, but he returned totally to normal personality wise, so we carried on.

Two days after we had Dopey 2 PTS his abscess started to shrink (which was two weeks ago so three weeks after going on penicillin). My feeling is, because nothing else has changed, that maybe the stress on him and his immune system of knowing Dopes will terminally ill prevented him from healing and so his abscess increased. However, obviously, it could be related to if, for some reason, it has randomly started to leak out into his mouth (can't think of the actual term for that- mind blank!).

I just wondered if anyone else had experienced anything similar with bunnies who are bonded, but both are sick and whether the stress of one can impact on the health and immune response of the other?

only 'negative evidence' here . .

we have had several long term illness rabbits whose illness and on-going treatments must have 'impacted' on the lives of their bonded partners:
:
amongst others:

Damson with his kidney;
Viola Rose with renal failure;
and poor Albus - who I miss so much every day.

In none of these cases did the bonded partner become stressed or ill. With end stage elderly bunnies I find there is sometimes bullying by the partner - although interestingly enough not in these instances.

The other instance might be Parsley - and Peaches certainly shows no signs at all of stress - despite his frequent visits and stay-overs with the vet followed often with him returning rather 'worse for wear' so to speak - she just licks him all over, shows off her lovely well groomed hair (she spends a lot of time on her hair and grooming while he is away), and things go back to normal straight away.

Sorry not to be helpful

PS in terms of if bOTh rabbits have an illness - again no we havnt noticed an impact. In fact sometimes we group together ones that have prblems as that can make it eaier for us and also for them if they are no longer up to the full rough and tumble of a group.

Thanks Any replies or thoughts are good

I've had many ill bunnies with ill friends too with no signs like this either, to be honest. They've all coped well. I think the abscess was going to happen anyway (two brothers with identical abscesses also diagnosed, one on the same day, one a couple of months previously), but he is a total stress head and when he first got ill, before I knew it was his teeth, I did question if it was the stress from what she was going through.

It was just thinking, and he may be the only one, but I thought I would ask anyway