Suspected abscess!!!

lauraj27 said:

So Harley was bit off colour yesterday afternoon and as he is a stasis prone bun we brought him inside and did the usual, pain killer and gut motility.

Lo and behold about 2hours later he was pooping and munching on hay. His chewing motion seemed fine.

This morning he escaped from his indoor pen despite there being a netted cover over it and when we picked him up to pop him back in, we noticed a lump on one side of his face/bottom jaw. It is firm to the touch but we don't want to poke it too much. We have given him a small dose of metacam and have an appointment with the vet at 12:30pm however, it isn't with our normal bunny savy vets and I just wanted to know what other medication/treatment he should receive.

I suspect that a biopsy will be required to confirm whether it is an abscess but my question is whether there are any specific antibiotics we should ask for/be given to prevent it getting worse for the next 24 -36 hours as our plan is to take him to our normal vets tomorrow so that if it needs to be drained or surgically removed our normal bunny davy vets can take care of it.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Click to expand...

lauraj27 said:

So Harley was bit off colour yesterday afternoon and as he is a stasis prone bun we brought him inside and did the usual, pain killer and gut motility.

Lo and behold about 2hours later he was pooping and munching on hay. His chewing motion seemed fine.

This morning he escaped from his indoor pen despite there being a netted cover over it and when we picked him up to pop him back in, we noticed a lump on one side of his face/bottom jaw. It is firm to the touch but we don't want to poke it too much. We have given him a small dose of metacam and have an appointment with the vet at 12:30pm however, it isn't with our normal bunny savy vets and I just wanted to know what other medication/treatment he should receive.

I suspect that a biopsy will be required to confirm whether it is an abscess but my question is whether there are any specific antibiotics we should ask for/be given to prevent it getting worse for the next 24 -36 hours as our plan is to take him to our normal vets tomorrow so that if it needs to be drained or surgically removed our normal bunny davy vets can take care of it.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Click to expand...

MightyMax said:

Personally I would be seen by my rabbit savvy vet rather than any other. Abscesses are not usually urgent and can wait 2/3 days. They are not normally painful.

Click to expand...

lauraj27 said:

Hi

Thanks for the replies. Much appreciated.



Unfortunately with it being Sunday we were restricted to the out of hours vets which is a different practice to our usual one. Anytime one of the rabbits has something not quite right with them, I do go into a little bit of a panic and would rather get them seen sooner rather than later as I would never forgive myself if I left it too late. It didn't help that I found a page which said that the abscess could burst and cause sepsis if not treated early enough.

The abscess wasn't there Thursday or Friday so it only came up yesterday.

Anyway back from the vets now and the one we saw did seem to a bit bunny savy.

She did have a good look in his mouth and said that the teeth on the other side of his mouth are actually worse than the side where the abscess is and he is going to need to have a dental. She was unable to tell whether one of the teeth were wobbly or fractured and whether it is in the jaw bone/ developed into osteomyelitis and has recommended that whilst he is under for the dental, x-rays of the teeth/jaw are done and the abscess is lanced and the appropriate aftercare will need to be given. However due to the restrictions of the out of hours service these can't be done today and so we will be getting our normal vets to carry out the treatments this week.

In the meantime, he has been given a deopencillin(?) injection. She did say that this can be given once a week (I've previously questioned this and she did say it could be increased to twice a weeK). We have been warned that the deopencillin can in some cases lead to gut stasis so we need to monitor him and give him gut motility and metacam and maybe skip one of the deopencillin injections. She stated that he will need to have deopencillin for at least six months after the abscess is drained so I'm hoping our normal vets will let us administer it at home as taking a trip every 1-2 weeks over the next 6 months may be tricky. Happy togo once a month or so to ensure the abscess is monitored.

She also weighed him, he is 2.4kg and has advised that he can have a maximum of 1ml of metacam per day but recommended it be given in two doses of 0.5ml ( he has already had 0.5ml today and that seems to have done the trick for the time being anyway).

Just really going to have to wait and see what the x-rays show. If the tooth/teeth are really bad then we might have to consider having it/them removed in a bid to prevent a recurrence but I am wondering how we would get him to eat a balanced diet if this was the necessary treatment. Any advice on this would be appreciated as I want to do the best for Harley and make sure I'm prepared to make the best decision for him. I don't want his teeth removed and be in a position where I don't know how to cope with it.

Click to expand...

lauraj27 said:

Hi

Thanks for the replies. Much appreciated.



Unfortunately with it being Sunday we were restricted to the out of hours vets which is a different practice to our usual one. Anytime one of the rabbits has something not quite right with them, I do go into a little bit of a panic and would rather get them seen sooner rather than later as I would never forgive myself if I left it too late. It didn't help that I found a page which said that the abscess could burst and cause sepsis if not treated early enough.

The abscess wasn't there Thursday or Friday so it only came up yesterday.

Anyway back from the vets now and the one we saw did seem to a bit bunny savy.

She did have a good look in his mouth and said that the teeth on the other side of his mouth are actually worse than the side where the abscess is and he is going to need to have a dental. She was unable to tell whether one of the teeth were wobbly or fractured and whether it is in the jaw bone/ developed into osteomyelitis and has recommended that whilst he is under for the dental, x-rays of the teeth/jaw are done and the abscess is lanced and the appropriate aftercare will need to be given. However due to the restrictions of the out of hours service these can't be done today and so we will be getting our normal vets to carry out the treatments this week.

In the meantime, he has been given a deopencillin(?) injection. She did say that this can be given once a week (I've previously questioned this and she did say it could be increased to twice a weeK). We have been warned that the deopencillin can in some cases lead to gut stasis so we need to monitor him and give him gut motility and metacam and maybe skip one of the deopencillin injections. She stated that he will need to have deopencillin for at least six months after the abscess is drained so I'm hoping our normal vets will let us administer it at home as taking a trip every 1-2 weeks over the next 6 months may be tricky. Happy togo once a month or so to ensure the abscess is monitored.

She also weighed him, he is 2.4kg and has advised that he can have a maximum of 1ml of metacam per day but recommended it be given in two doses of 0.5ml ( he has already had 0.5ml today and that seems to have done the trick for the time being anyway).

Just really going to have to wait and see what the x-rays show. If the tooth/teeth are really bad then we might have to consider having it/them removed in a bid to prevent a recurrence but I am wondering how we would get him to eat a balanced diet if this was the necessary treatment. Any advice on this would be appreciated as I want to do the best for Harley and make sure I'm prepared to make the best decision for him. I don't want his teeth removed and be in a position where I don't know how to cope with it.

Click to expand...

lauraj27 said:

Thanks everyone. I have been told by two different vets both from the out of hours service about the doses for depocillin only being once to twice a week, which I have found bizarre. To her credit the vet today did say that they never tended to use penicillin in rabbits and were nervous about using it in them but the rabbit specialists have now stated that it can be used in rabbits, so hopefully our vet will be willing to increase the doses and hopefully let us administer it at home.

Click to expand...

Jack's-Jane said:

If your Vet is also reluctant to give Depocillin more frequently maybe you could ask her if she would mind speaking with an Exotics Specialist about it. These are a few who spring to mind. I have not included Frances Harcourt Brown as she is supposed to be retired from Consultations and thus she may be less readily available.

Marie Kubiak or Molly Varga at Manor Vets in Edgbaston:

http://www.manorvets.co.uk/contact-us/

Click to expand...

lauraj27 said:

Funnily enough we were just talking about asking him/ the situation being referred to Molly. We are currently registered with Cheshire Pet where Molly was before she moved to Manor Vets and we have been toying with potentially changing vets. There is an exotics vets that is a little further than Cheshire Pet but not as far as Edgbaston or the other Manor Vets practices which treated another forum member's rabbit who had fractured its jaw.

At the moment I think we are going to talk to Cheshire Pet (our current vets) see what they say but if are still on edge about it all we will ask for a referral to Molly who is hopefully still on good terms with Cheshire Pet.

Click to expand...

lauraj27 said:

Funnily enough we were just talking about asking him/ the situation being referred to Molly. We are currently registered with Cheshire Pet where Molly was before she moved to Manor Vets and we have been toying with potentially changing vets. There is an exotics vets that is a little further than Cheshire Pet but not as far as Edgbaston or the other Manor Vets practices which treated another forum member's rabbit who had fractured its jaw.

At the moment I think we are going to talk to Cheshire Pet (our current vets) see what they say but if are still on edge about it all we will ask for a referral to Molly who is hopefully still on good terms with Cheshire Pet.

Click to expand...

lauraj27 said:

***UPDATE***

So we have now seen bunny savy vet. He had a good look in Harley's mouth and a good feel of the the abscess. He was able to move the abscess which suggests that it isn't attached to anything and it is actually on the side of Harley's cheek rather than on the jaw. He seems to think that the abscess can be cut out whole without piercing it, but they won't know until they get in there.

So the plan is that Harley is going to go in on Friday to have the spurs on his teeth filed down and also to have the abscess cut out. We have made it clear that if it can't be cut out whole we want a C & S test done and that if it turns out to be attached either to the tooth or the jaw then x-rays will be done at the same time.

Click to expand...

lauraj27 said:

***UPDATE***

So we have now seen bunny savy vet. He had a good look in Harley's mouth and a good feel of the the abscess. He was able to move the abscess which suggests that it isn't attached to anything and it is actually on the side of Harley's cheek rather than on the jaw. He seems to think that the abscess can be cut out whole without piercing it, but they won't know until they get in there.

So the plan is that Harley is going to go in on Friday to have the spurs on his teeth filed down and also to have the abscess cut out. We have made it clear that if it can't be cut out whole we want a C & S test done and that if it turns out to be attached either to the tooth or the jaw then x-rays will be done at the same time.

Click to expand...

MightyMax said:

Laura, I'm really pleased your vet visit went so well :wave:

It must give you confidence now to know that Harley will be well looked after! x

Click to expand...

lauraj27 said:

***UPDATE***

So Harley went in today and as much as they tried to cut the abscess out in one go it did burst slightly but they drained it completely and sutured it up. Turns out he had a hole in his cheek, no idea how he got that! Anyway they have packed it with sterile material and did an x-ray whilst he was under which thankfully was clear. Doesn't seem that the abscess was related to a tooth or his jaw.

They didn't burr his teeth in the end as when he was under they were able to get a better look at them and there didn't seem to be any need to do it. We will of course keep a close eye on his teeth over the coming months.

He's going back on Wednesday for a check up but in the meantime we can give him 2mls of metacam twice a day and he has been given a shot of engemycin, which we have been told is a slow release antibiotic.

Click to expand...

Jack's-Jane said:

Poor chap, I hope that he makes a good recovery from the surgery. Is he eating for himself yet ?

Click to expand...

lauraj27 said:

He's had quite a bit of kale and has nibbled some strands of hay and he went up to his food bowl when we just fed him (he gets 30g of nuggets at 8pm every night!) but I don't think he munched anything.

We have given him 1ml of metacam just to help him feel a bit better but fingers crossed he will be perk up completely by tomorrow.

Click to expand...