very unhappy with my vet!!!

I took Milo to the vets this evening, as he has gone a bit snuffly and has a respiratory infection and the vet has prescribed him with amoxicillin.
he said to me when he gave it that it is not registered for use on rabbits but that it should be fine. This did not sound very good to me so i decided to check it out online and have discovered that it is highly toxic to rabbits and shouldn't be used under any circumstances!!!

I am so angry!! I dread to think what would have happened if i had just taken his word that it was safe to use! I wonder how many rabbits he has given it to and people have believed it was ok only to find it wasn't.

You would not believe how angry I am!!!!!!

Omg what vets do you use nic?

This was one in leicester as i am at uni at the moment.

ADMIN EDIT on name of Vets.
Please do not Give out Vets Practices names in a negative fashion in the open Forum.
We understand and sympathise with why you are so upset, but the Vet is not here to give their side of things.

Best wishes
ADMIN
(Adele and Tamsin)

You know what? I would go else where.

"Should be" means second opinion in my mind.

I think you were very lucky that you looked up the drug. If you were to trust your vet, with his decision you could of just given Milo the moxicillin and maybe have lost Milo. Its the worst situation ever.

Where i live there are a lot of vet practices. I have two ferrets, and none really have a clue. I have the number of a vet that specialises in ferrets, but the practice is miles away. So, often my vet will ring him if they have any ferrets come in.

Gracie and animals x

I find vets can say things and don't really explain themselves. Our vet said that mady might have to be put on an antibi that might not be safe for rabbits. I came home very upset and rang my husband crying cos i didn't want to give her something which wasn't save. I went to another vet to get a second option to see if my vet was doing the right thing. In the end mady didn't need to take anything as the problem was clearing itself up. but what the vet said was really upsetting. when you love these animals SOOOooooo much and vets don't seem to give you (or your pet ) the time to explain themselves or take the fact that your pets are hugely important to you into mind when they are dealing with you - it is upsetting. At the end of the day we aren't trained vets and we are putting our beloved bunnies in their hands (so to speak) and when we come out with more questions than answers you come away thinking "what was the point !"
NOw whenever I got to the vets I write down every question i could possibly ask - even if they think I'm crazy, and if I come away with more questions I ring them up. Our bunnies have private health care and we pay out alot of it so if we aren't happy we should say something.
My advise would be to call the vet and question why they thought this drug was a good idea when clearly its not !
rant over :shock:

The vets are sooooo expensive these days and to fob you off with an unsafe drug is unexceptable. If your rabbit ad have died they would expect you to pay the bill!!!!!!

Lots of drugs aren't licenced for rabbits. For example metacam is only licenced for cats and dogs. However alot of the time tests have been done on other animals too and sometimes it's been used alot so it's known it's okay.

With antibiotics if the bacteria is resistent to the normal rabbit antibiotic used then the risk of using a different drug might be out weighed by the fact without treatment the rabbit won't make it anyway. Other drugs should be tried first though.

I don't know what antibiotics are safe for bunnies but if the one you have been given isn't then you should definately write and complain. Start of with a second opinion from another vet.

Best wishes,
Tamsin

Did the vet give you this for injection only and tell you not to administer orally?

These links should help you with drugs for buns:
Antibiotics SAFE for rabbit use - http://www.medirabbit.com/Safe_medication/Antibiotics/Safe_antibiotics.htm

Antibiotics endangering the life of buns - http://www.medirabbit.com/Unsafe_medication/dangerous_antibiotics.htm

For those who haven't heard of amoxicillin being dangerous to buns -
http://www.rabbit.org/journal/1/amoxicillin-warning.html

He has given me 10 tablets and told me to crush them up and put them on his food. I am going to ring my vets in Norwich tomorrow morning for a second opinion and if they agree that it is unsafe i will phone the vets i went to today and ask for a different antibiotic and then never set foot through that door again.

I was thinking about making a formal complaint to stop him from prescribing it to other buns but I don't know how I would go about it. Anyone complained about a vet before?

nic99 said:

He has given me 10 tablets and told me to crush them up and put them on his food. I am going to ring my vets in Norwich tomorrow morning for a second opinion and if they agree that it is unsafe i will phone the vets i went to today and ask for a different antibiotic and then never set foot through that door again.

I was thinking about making a formal complaint to stop him from prescribing it to other buns but I don't know how I would go about it. Anyone complained about a vet before?

Click to expand...

If he gave them to you for him to have orally then he should be reported :shock: He would have killed Milo :shock: He should be struck off the register for that :shock:

it is definately amoxicillin (Just had to double check to make sure i wasn't making fuss over nothing). It says on the back of the packet 40mg amoxicillin and 10mg clavulanic acid per tablet.

That is definately not safe for rabbits have been reading about it today actually and you are right it is deadly.

You should def complain before they give it to someone else

hi

So how would you go about getting a vet over something like this? Is there a vet's council or something you would report them to? I think it's just dreadful to be so careless about an animal's life - isn't it their job to keep up with research? :x

I'd double check with your normal vet first just incase but it certainly sounds dodgy. You can write a letter of complaint to the practice manager. The vetinary governing body is: http://www.rcvs.org.uk

If your vet does say it is unsafe then contact them and see what they recommend.

Best wishes,
Tamsin

I have just found a complaints procedure on the web page for the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. It states that before you can make a complaint you need to talk to the vet in question and see if you can resolve the issue (I can resolve it by demanding a different antibiotic though I don't know if this would stop him prescribing it again) and you must then talk to the most senior person at the practice. Only after that can you make a formal complaint with the RCVS. Though it does say if the complaint is too serious to be dealt with that way then you can make a formal complaint straight off. I'm thinking this may be one of those cases. Though i will wait till I have a second opinion tomorrow so that I have good grounds to make a complaint on.

I thinks its just terrible that this has hapened. thank God that this forum is about so we can check things out, and ask/give advice. Can't believe that we have to double check our vets but seems we do in some cases.
Hope this issue is sorted - let us know how the second option goes.

Certain antibiotics classed as dangerous to rabbits given in other ways can be less dangerous for example penicillin orally is usually lethal but when injected it can often be tolerated.

Giving amoxicillin (a penicillin based antibiotic) orally would probably have been lethal to Milo. My vet (a rabbit expert) was even very cautions about giving Zeus injectable penicillin and did warn me it could still cause complications but we had to weigh up the risk against how ill Zeus was!

We also took precautions such as probiotics and making sure he had a gut packed full of fibre before starting treatment.

I would ask for a second opinion (from your usual vet) to confirm your suspicions and then have a chat with the practice manager where you were given the amoxicillin.

They can then look into rabbits he has previously prescribed it too (to check their medical history and whether there were complications arising) and hopefully stop him from prescribing it to any more rabbits immediately. An RCVS complaint may take longer to process and a rabbit could die in the mean time!

Caz

OMG thats terrible,id be very angry aswell id report him! would you mind pming me the name of the vet please

I have to agree with Caz as one of my house buns Gizmo had a really severe respitory infection 3.5 weeks ago and the only thing that would have cleared it was penicillin which was injected into him and then had to have another 48hrs later but unfortunately Gizzy didn't make it to he next injection but as I said it was a very severe infection.