Situation while using Manuka honey

Thumperina said:

hi all,
I have a 4 yo female (Thumperina) who lives mostly outdoors, we are in the United States. I also have 2 other bunnies
Not long ago (actually at the beginning of June), I saw that she had blood between her legs. Turned out, she was having a fly strike, and when I rushed her to the vet, the vet said she was having an abscess (in her private part)
The vet cleaned maggots, cleaned the area...then we had couple of weeks of keeping her indoors and hoping for the best. She has been healing all right.

Now what we have left... I don't know how she got it, but she has a cavity (a hole) between her legs (it's very similar to a human vagina, sorry for comparison). There is an opening that you can see outside her body and if you insert a cotton bud in it, you can feel how far it goes. (it was about 3 cm deep and 1 cm wide). There is no wound inside it (no blood or anything), just this cavity. Also, on the outside, she still has an unhealed area that is shrinking though.

The cavity did nothing as time passed... It wasn't getting any smaller/

Not long ago I decided to try manuka honey. I got Manuka Health MGO400+ - that's the best I could find. There is no active infection inside that cavity, my rabbit feels good, eats, plays and so on. The vet said she doesn't have an abscess.
I was putting honey inside the cavity and outside wherever she had wounds, I was trying to rinse it out afterwards using syringe. I could insert cotton bud less and less with each next application... I thought she was healing but then I realized that probably her cavity got just stuffed with honey that I wasn't rinsing well enough (not sure how I was supposed to flush it out)
Anyway...I am trying to insert cotton bud deeper but the bud just sticks to the old honey inside the cavity. I am rinsing and rinsing but it doesn't help.

What should I do? I basically have a bunny who had her inside wound glued with Manuka honey. I don't think it's a good idea.
The vet has no idea about using Manuka. He doesn;t mind me using it but he cant give me an advice.

Please help if you have experience using Manuka! thanks!

Click to expand...

Thumperina said:

hi all,
I have a 4 yo female (Thumperina) who lives mostly outdoors, we are in the United States. I also have 2 other bunnies
Not long ago (actually at the beginning of June), I saw that she had blood between her legs. Turned out, she was having a fly strike, and when I rushed her to the vet, the vet said she was having an abscess (in her private part)
The vet cleaned maggots, cleaned the area...then we had couple of weeks of keeping her indoors and hoping for the best. She has been healing all right.

Now what we have left... I don't know how she got it, but she has a cavity (a hole) between her legs (it's very similar to a human vagina, sorry for comparison). There is an opening that you can see outside her body and if you insert a cotton bud in it, you can feel how far it goes. (it was about 3 cm deep and 1 cm wide). There is no wound inside it (no blood or anything), just this cavity. Also, on the outside, she still has an unhealed area that is shrinking though.

The cavity did nothing as time passed... It wasn't getting any smaller/

Not long ago I decided to try manuka honey. I got Manuka Health MGO400+ - that's the best I could find. There is no active infection inside that cavity, my rabbit feels good, eats, plays and so on. The vet said she doesn't have an abscess.
I was putting honey inside the cavity and outside wherever she had wounds, I was trying to rinse it out afterwards using syringe. I could insert cotton bud less and less with each next application... I thought she was healing but then I realized that probably her cavity got just stuffed with honey that I wasn't rinsing well enough (not sure how I was supposed to flush it out)
Anyway...I am trying to insert cotton bud deeper but the bud just sticks to the old honey inside the cavity. I am rinsing and rinsing but it doesn't help.

What should I do? I basically have a bunny who had her inside wound glued with Manuka honey. I don't think it's a good idea.
The vet has no idea about using Manuka. He doesn;t mind me using it but he cant give me an advice.

Please help if you have experience using Manuka! thanks!

Click to expand...

Jack's-Jane said:

When was the last time that the Vet actually saw the wound ? If there is definitely no infection/abscess then I would have thought it may be better not to keep poking anything into the cavity, either cotton buds or Manuka Honey. The Manuka Honey already inside should dissolve over time.

Obviously I cant say if the above is the correct course of action as I cant see the wound. Not wishing to pose a daft question, but are you certain that the 'hole' that remains is not actually the normal cavity where the scent gland is located ?

This photo is of a buck, but the location of the scent glands is the same in both Bucks and Does, ie either side of the prepuce. The brown matter you can see is the normal waxy secretion of the scent glands. Could you be seeing that and not impacted Manuka Honey ?

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Thumperina said:

my buck's privates look exactly like the picture you posted. I don't see the same stuff on does where scent glands should be, so I am assuming they are more hidden. I do know what her privates should look like when normal, and what she has isn't normal.
The vet saw us on the 13th of June, Monday. I bought honey a day before that and applied it maybe once prior visiting the vet. So he basically saw us prior the honey treatment.
Since the last vet visit, I let her out in the yard twice a day because she was very depressed when I was keeping her indoors, and almost stopped eating. She is a grass eater, she ignores grass that I picked for her and she doesn't eat much hay. The vet said it's OK to let her out if it helps her to be back to her normal self. We decided to stop all oral medicine (she was taking oral AB and anti-inflammatory) as her problem looked much better.

Now about the honey... I know it has very powerful AB properties when a high factor is used. Does it also have healing properties? This is what I was hoping for when I started using it. Plus, she is unprotected by antibiotics now, so I wanted to make sure she had some kind of defense (honey in this situation) if something had to happen. I need to be watching attentively for a new flu strike (as her wound still not healed all the way)

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MightyMax said:

Absolutely, yes. That is exactly why it is used for wound healing.

Antibiotics will not protect her against flystrike. Nor will Manuka Honey.

Would it be better perhaps to keep her indoors, if the weather is very warm, until the wound has healed?

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