Hoping to get answers about Xena's problems today!

As some of you know Xena has had nothing but problems with her eyes since I got her over 2 years ago. Recently things have not been improving and now she seems to be having problems with her ears and breathing. Although she is fine in herself, eating, drinking, binkying etc, she is definitely becoming more aggressive.
I noticed yesterday that her nose seems to be wet and today I booked her in to a new exotics vets that opened up recently. Fiver goes there for his acupuncture and there are several vets with an interest in rabbits. I am really hoping to get to the bottom of Xena's problems and I'm hoping it's not going to turn out to be something sinister.

There's not much point in this thread apart from recording what happens and to see if anybody has any suggestions about what I should ask the vets etc. I also wanted to ask if people think it's worth getting xrays or something done on her if nothing obvious shows up today? Bearing in mind that I believe she is an older bun and has been having slight breathing issues lately.

This was a few weeks ago- http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/showthread.php?424869-Really-worried-about-Xena&highlight=Xena Her breathing is much better but I am still hearing her "huffing" occasionally. Especially when she's sleeping.

She's at the vets at 2:45pm and I will update the thread then with what the vet has to say. I really hope I get some answers.

I can't offer any advice, but wanted to send vibes, hope its nothing sinister :thumb:

I hope the appointment goes well. The vet will hopefully advise if an x-ray would be needed.

Sending vibes for your little one

Thank you both.

I do overly worry about xrays and whatnot.

Bunnies are so difficult! :roll:

Good luck I hope you get some answers. x

No suggestions, but I'll be interested to see what's said.
Bunnies are such a puzzle.
I hope they can make some progress in working out what's going on with her.

Well, good news is her ears and everything else seems to be ok (ears, teeth etc). However, her eye has a large ulcer in the middle which he says is struggling to heal. She didn't have this a few weeks ago when she went to the vets, they put dye in and nothing stuck. He thinks all the problems are what my other vets have said: Her eye lid is deformed (puckered because of constant infections etc) and that it's not cleaning her eye properly and so her eye is drying out and the dust from the hay is most likely irritating it. He doesn't think the actual eye lid is the irritant because the ulcer is directly in the centre. He thinks the dust and whatnot is sticking to it and possibly the hay is damaging her eye. This would make sense since she can't see out of that eye so it's more likely to get injured.
It was the eye specialist I saw and I know he is fantastic because he managed to get my dog's sight back years ago when he went blind for no apparent reason. He has suggested trying a paraffin based eye ointment that will help to protect her eye and help the healing process. Unfortunately there is nothing we can do about her eyelid so I think the eye drops will have to be a permanent fixture. After 7-10 days of this cream I am going to get some "human" paraffin drops (apparently there are very few licensed for animals, let alone rabbits) a lot of people use these on their animals with success and he thinks this should help her a lot to stop getting infections etc.

He's happy her roots aren't causing the problems and he's happy that her tear ducts are lovely and clear etc etc.

I do hope this will help things. I can't imagine how sore her eye must feel. The ulcer really is very large.

Really hope the cream helps her, I imagine it will make it much more comfortable for her :thumb:

Poor Xena I hope the drops help her eye. This reminded me of a friend on my US forum and her bunny who had an ulcer (she also had glaucoma though) and they used ofloxacin ophthalmic and Optixcare Eye lube/Hyaluron drops (not together) and also this unique contact lens to help keep the eye protected and moist while it healed. I couldn't imagine putting a contact lens on a bunny's eye but I guess when it stayed in it really helped. :shock: I can imagine if it's a large ulcer it must be pretty uncomfortable. Did he prescribe anything for the pain?
Keeping her from rubbing at it will also speed healing.
Mimzy has chronic dry eyes and due to his residual tilt keeps bunging up his down eye, so we just use Genteal mild to moderate dry eye drops. He was a real pain to put drops in at first but he's been on them for a year and it's a piece of cake once he realized it helped him out. Of course he gets these little crusties that I have to soften and remove in the corners of his eyes so it's a big production. He really likes having me wash his face gently with warm water and a cloth now. I always check his eyes very carefully, especially the down eye since that one regularly gets dragged through his hay. It's got a droopy lid as well so I can only guess what he may get stuck in it. :roll:
What I got from my friend's experience is that since bunnies don't blink regularly their eyes dry out and that's what makes ulcers in them hard to heal.
Many vibes coming your way for Xena. xxxxxxx

Poor Xena . Did she get some metacam too?

My Timmy bunny has ulcers on both eyes, that had loads of treatment from my vet, D1ck vet and an eye specialist and nothing shifted them. He did have very dry eyes, but at the last test they weren't so bad. Now he just gets metacam.

He used viscotears for a while.

MimzMum said:

Poor Xena I hope the drops help her eye. This reminded me of a friend on my US forum and her bunny who had an ulcer (she also had glaucoma though) and they used ofloxacin ophthalmic and Optixcare Eye lube/Hyaluron drops (not together) and also this unique contact lens to help keep the eye protected and moist while it healed. I couldn't imagine putting a contact lens on a bunny's eye but I guess when it stayed in it really helped. :shock: I can imagine if it's a large ulcer it must be pretty uncomfortable. Did he prescribe anything for the pain?
Keeping her from rubbing at it will also speed healing.
Mimzy has chronic dry eyes and due to his residual tilt keeps bunging up his down eye, so we just use Genteal mild to moderate dry eye drops. He was a real pain to put drops in at first but he's been on them for a year and it's a piece of cake once he realized it helped him out. Of course he gets these little crusties that I have to soften and remove in the corners of his eyes so it's a big production. He really likes having me wash his face gently with warm water and a cloth now. I always check his eyes very carefully, especially the down eye since that one regularly gets dragged through his hay. It's got a droopy lid as well so I can only guess what he may get stuck in it. :roll:
What I got from my friend's experience is that since bunnies don't blink regularly their eyes dry out and that's what makes ulcers in them hard to heal.
Many vibes coming your way for Xena. xxxxxxx

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Funnily enough it doesn't seem to bother her. :? She always has it squinted but she's always done that and she never rubs it or shakes her head or anything. I didn't think about metacam actually but I do have some. I don't think I'll give her any, though, for now. Her eye already looks better. :shock: It's not as red and sore-looking. I'm quite surprised.

Oh! I think that was the stuff he was talking about. The eye lube..I'm sure that's what he mentioned. I'm going to ring and get the exact name of it once her cream is done with. He also mentioned about a contact lens but said they never stay put because of their third eyelid and it's not really worth trying because it's such a pain to do and we don't have anything like that in this country for bunnies. He talked about using some anti-fungal treatment but we don't have that in this country so he wanted to just try the antibiotics and see how she goes. He explained about the fact that rabbits don't blink and that's why her eye is drying out and preventing the ulcer from healing. I do have dry-eye drops but he said a bun produces tears every 45 mins or so and unless I could put the drop in every 45 mins it wouldn't make much of a difference to her...obviously that isn't very practical. :lol:

Thank you for the vibes. I'm so glad I decided to take her to Jacqui Patterson's. I think that we may be finally getting somewhere, even though I didn't really feel like it after the appointment.

It seems eye ulcers are very difficult to shift in bunnies. I think this will most likely be a constant battle with her. I wonder if removing the eye is a bit too drastic an option? :? She is blind (or nearly blind) in it anyway. I don't know. I will have to see how things go with her. I just feel awful with her always having something going on with her eye. I wonder if her being outside would help her (away from the dust etc). My run is nearly finished and they can go out all day soon, so I can see if it does help.