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Mr Psychoflops & Teeth Problems - Very Sad Ending!

D

Dussy Hoppers

Warren Scout
Help! My beloved Mr. P. is poorly!

Tuesday, I noticed that he was sneezing and coughing, especially when drinking water. On Wednesday morning he was off his food and he had got a really rattly chest, so I rushed him round to the vets.

He has had teeth problems in the past, so when the vet checked him, she said he had developed spurrs again and an abcess and therefore needed a dental operation. She booked him in for Thursday morning.

Thursday afternoon, I went to collect him after the op, and it was a totally different vet. She said she had done the op, and that his teeth were not actually that bad, and although his mouth was sore, did not find an abcess.

She concluded that he may have Pasturella and a chest infection, so gave him an antibiotic injection and sent me home with 7 days supply of Baytril to give him. She also asked to see him again the next day just to check things out.

So I went back last night, and this time saw the first vet again. She looked in his mouth and said all looked fine. When I told her what the other vet had said, she said his chest would have been much worse if he had got Pasturella, but to keep administering the antibiotics. So I came home totally confused and angry. It appeared that the two vets were not communicating and I was piggy in the middle!

My bunny is still very lethargic today and totally off his food. His rattling chest is much better, but he looks like his mouth is very sore and is chewing & dribbling all the time. All I can get him to eat is a bit of grated carrot or small pieces of bread with the Oxebow critical care food spread on it. He is actually worse now than the morning he went in for his dental operation.

So, has anyone got any suggestions?

Is it safe to feed him bread?

What food can I try to tempt him with?

Any advice would be great!
 
Did the Vet give him any pain relief? If his mouth hurts he wont want to eat.
Is he pooing? If not he will also need some gut motility medication. I would phone the Vets again now as it sounds as though your poor Bun is not happy

Bread is not really good to feed as the carbohydrate content is high which may upset his guts. As he is on antibiotics his guts are at risk of being upset anyway and carbs will add to the problem
I would syringe feed the critical care although this may be difficult if his mouth is very sore.

I hope he soon feels better

Janex
 
He is still pooing and recycling which is a good thing.

Just managed to get him to eat a good spoonfull of the Critical Care probiotic food, and a nice piece of brocolli, so things are looking on the up tonight.

Will keep you posted.
 
Hi there. I mix the recovery food (or in my case mushed Oxbow pellets) in with baby food and use the syringe that you can buy in Dentinox Infant Colic drops (with the end snipped right off). It allows you to get more pasty food into them and they are less likely to let it run out. I have found an excellent baby food in Tesco which comes in squeezy packets and the apples/bananas flavour makes my bunnies more compliant during syringe feeding! I make sure there is far more mushed pellets in the mix than baby food, just enough to give a nicer taste.

I would also syringe feed some pineapple juice mixed with boiled cool water, or the water alone, as they seem to like it and fluids seem to help bunnies feel a little better.

I would agree that pain relief is crucial though.

Some of my bunnies have done quite badly after a dental. How severe was the dental, do you know? What I mean is that the bunnies I have who have had their teeth burred down a good bit haven't done as well post procedure as those who have only had a little 'light' dental with only the spurs removed. I'm certain that technique has got something to do with it. Its been normal for me to have to support eating and drinking artifically via syringe feeding after a dental for a few days whilst any pain subsides. Some others on here have the same experience. But of course, pain relief is important at that point too.

Hope Mr. P is feeling better soon.

Fiona x

P.S. My sister lives in Brownhills!! Too far away from me though! x
 
Hi everyone!

Mr P went a bit downhill over the weekend, but thanks to your advice, we have managed to keep him going by syringe feeding him small amounts every 1 to 2 hours. He can just about manage a small amount of grated carrot on his own or a small peice of banana.

He is so lethargic and constantly chewing on nothing and dribbling with the occasional sneeze thrown in. He is also holding his head on one side as if the pain is weighing him down. Poor old boy! It is so distressing to see him like this. I am back to the vets with him at 5pm today, to try and see if they can do anymore for him as far as the pain is concerned.

According to the vet that did the operation, she said his teeth were not that bad at all. Only small spurrs which she removed. She thought he may have Pasteuralla/snuffles? The second vet said it was definately his teeth and that he had got an abcess causing all the pain. However, she did not give him any pain relief! I will see what the third vet has to say at 5pm!!!

I will keep you posted.
 
Hi there! I am hope that you can get some answers from your vet. If not, I would be tempeted to look for another vet.

I also just noticed that you are in Brownhills, I'm in Hednesford, only down the road! I thought about fostering for the RSPCA in Walsall too. When you are not so stressed out and worried, maybe you could tell me more about it.
 
Hope you get to the bottom of it. Hope you get a conclusive answer and better vet advice tonight

Fiona x
 
Just back from vet No.3

It appears that the first vet was right all along. It is his teeth and a nasty abcess. His one gum is very inflamed and obviously causing him a lot of pain and discomfort.

He has now had a pain killer injection to hopefully help, and well as a gut motility injection to keep his bowels in motion. I have also been given a new antibiotic called Septim to give him twice a day.

We are going to see how he gets on tomorrow, then the vet wants him back in on Thursday to check if the inflamation has gone down. The biggest worry is if the infection has got into his jaw bone. Then it is life threatening. This new vet is very worried about him but certainly knows what she is doing.

So it is fingers crossed for the next 48 hours!
 
My Psychoflops

My poor darling, may I just say I know exactly how you feel. It is horrid when our beloved's are ill and we don't know what to do and even more so when the advice we appear to be getting from our vet's is so higgedly piggeldy and wrong. So, let me reassure you of two things. 1. My bunny got an abscess two years ago. 2. He was operated on and treated and survived. In fact, he survived two of the wretched things, because we stopped medication too early the first time and it came back so had to try all over again. But first, answer me this: how much do you love your bunny? It has to be the whole works, a little bit isn't enough. Treating an abscess requires 100%, it requires you to do things you previously dreamed impossible, but it's worth it if you are prepared to go down that road, I just can't promise that it won't be traumatic and scary and cause you to cry a lot. Sick bunnies can be very emotionally draining.

That said, when my bunny first got sick I was terrified. Even more so when I went to my vets and he shook his head and said it isn't good, he has bad teeth, again (because my darling has chronic teeth, thanks to a careless breeder), and what looks like abscess. He then informed me it was basically 'bunny byebye's', his words not mine, and that I should prepare myself to have him put down.

More than a little obsessed with my bunny, I view him more as a son than as a pet, I flatly refused to give up without at least putting up a good fight. He might be feeling under the weather, he might be off his food, but he was still managing to spend plenty of time with his stuffed girlfriend, if you know what I mean, and still running around and showing me affection. I would not give up when he was refusing to.

So I went online and did a whole load of reasearch and went back to my vet's with all of the facts. I talked through the various options with him and said I wanted to try an operation. In the end it was decided he cut open my poor bun's cheek, squeeze out the puss, clean out the wound and then send me home with Baytril. I countered that Baytril alone didn't have a very good success rate at killing the bacteria in the abscess and that I wanted better than that. I then proposed this American drug, mainly used on horses, and declared I wanted that. He went away, looked it up, and then apologised that it wasn't available in this country. But he did suggest something else: Duphapen.

So, my suggestion is this, but it does involve you personally flushing out your bunnies wound to prevent the puss from healing back in, and also twice daily injections for three weeks and then once daily for the foreseeable future. Do you think you can manage that? You'd be surprised what bunnies can put up with. Damien, my little love, got used to having his wound cleaned out with a pippette of salien, didn't really mind it being squeezed (yes, like a spot), and although he's never really loved the injections, once you develop the nack, and there is a nack, they don't feel it. It's more the injustice of being lifted off the floor and held down while you perform the deed that offends. Nothing a nice piece of banana can't fix.

If you want any more information about this, because there's a lot to say and I'm probably not doing that great a job at explaining it properly here. Please email me at: becsatherton@aol.com. I'm not promising that this will work, just saying that it did for me. When everyone else was ready to give up hope, I found something that worked and with the help of my vet cured my bunny.

I hope My Psychoflops is OK. Give him my regards. The best of luck.
I'm thinking of you in this trying time.
 
Re: My Psychoflops

becsatherton said:
My poor darling, may I just say I know exactly how you feel. It is horrid when our beloved's are ill and we don't know what to do and even more so when the advice we appear to be getting from our vet's is so higgedly piggeldy and wrong. So, let me reassure you of two things. 1. My bunny got an abscess two years ago. 2. He was operated on and treated and survived. In fact, he survived two of the wretched things, because we stopped medication too early the first time and it came back so had to try all over again. But first, answer me this: how much do you love your bunny? It has to be the whole works, a little bit isn't enough. Treating an abscess requires 100%, it requires you to do things you previously dreamed impossible, but it's worth it if you are prepared to go down that road, I just can't promise that it won't be traumatic and scary and cause you to cry a lot. Sick bunnies can be very emotionally draining.

That said, when my bunny first got sick I was terrified. Even more so when I went to my vets and he shook his head and said it isn't good, he has bad teeth, again (because my darling has chronic teeth, thanks to a careless breeder), and what looks like abscess. He then informed me it was basically 'bunny byebye's', his words not mine, and that I should prepare myself to have him put down.

More than a little obsessed with my bunny, I view him more as a son than as a pet, I flatly refused to give up without at least putting up a good fight. He might be feeling under the weather, he might be off his food, but he was still managing to spend plenty of time with his stuffed girlfriend, if you know what I mean, and still running around and showing me affection. I would not give up when he was refusing to.

So I went online and did a whole load of reasearch and went back to my vet's with all of the facts. I talked through the various options with him and said I wanted to try an operation. In the end it was decided he cut open my poor bun's cheek, squeeze out the puss, clean out the wound and then send me home with Baytril. I countered that Baytril alone didn't have a very good success rate at killing the bacteria in the abscess and that I wanted better than that. I then proposed this American drug, mainly used on horses, and declared I wanted that. He went away, looked it up, and then apologised that it wasn't available in this country. But he did suggest something else: Duphapen.

So, my suggestion is this, but it does involve you personally flushing out your bunnies wound to prevent the puss from healing back in, and also twice daily injections for three weeks and then once daily for the foreseeable future. Do you think you can manage that? You'd be surprised what bunnies can put up with. Damien, my little love, got used to having his wound cleaned out with a pippette of salien, didn't really mind it being squeezed (yes, like a spot), and although he's never really loved the injections, once you develop the nack, and there is a nack, they don't feel it. It's more the injustice of being lifted off the floor and held down while you perform the deed that offends. Nothing a nice piece of banana can't fix.

If you want any more information about this, because there's a lot to say and I'm probably not doing that great a job at explaining it properly here. Please email me at: becsatherton@aol.com. I'm not promising that this will work, just saying that it did for me. When everyone else was ready to give up hope, I found something that worked and with the help of my vet cured my bunny.

I hope My Psychoflops is OK. Give him my regards. The best of luck.
I'm thinking of you in this trying time.
Click to expand...
 
So sorry to hear about your bun! My Poppy is going through this at the moment, although thankfully her abscess was in soft tissue and not in her bone. It is very stressful, however, but you do find the strength to deal with it. Please keep us posted on your bun's progress. Claire x
 
Good luck my Zippy recovered from a mouth abcess, so everything is crossed for your bunny :D
 
Was back at the vets again on Thursday, where he got another pain relief injection. He still looks as though he is in a lot of discomfort, but has picked up slightly. The good news is that he has been out in the garden Friday and Saturday,enjoying the waarm sunshine on his back, and grazing on soft new shoots. Wild geranium, chicory and chick weed seem to be his favourites. I am also managing to get him to eat some of his Burgess Excell pellets by crushing them up and mixing them with grated carrot.

Found a really article in "Rabbiting On" magazine that suggested digestive biscuits to help boost their glucose levels, and he has been tucking into occasional small offerings. It is these that seem to have given him a boost. So overall, things do look slightly on the up. Still very worried about him, and still 3 more days of his new antibiotics to go, so it is all fingers crossed. We are back at the vets again on Monday to decide the next course of action.

I would just like to thank you all for your wonderful support and advice. Everyone thinks I am totally mad paying all the vets bills "on a stupid rabbit"! But you guys know what it is really like to be honoured to share your homes with these wonderful creatures. I have had Mr P since he was just 6-8 weeks old and we have grown very attached and he follows me everywhere. I cried myself to sleep on Thursday night worrying about him, but then to see him hopping round the garden on Friday really cheered the heart. I will do anything to save him, because he is only 4 years old and has many happy years to look forwards to.

I will keep you posted, but in the meantime, here are some pickies to enjoy:

Mr P with Toothache!
You can just see the lump beneath his eye caused by the abcess. Ouch!

ToothAche.jpg



Mr & Mrs P Enjoying a Snuggle

BunnyCuddles.jpg



Mrs Tilly P Enjoying Life as a House Rabbit for a change

Tilly.jpg
 
So glad he seems to be doing Ok and struggling on through. They are remarkably resilient and determined little creatures I have found. I know what you mean about vet bills. When Damien was ill with his abscess it was such a struggle. My boyfriend and I were stressing out at times because it was pay the rent or pay for an operation for Damien. I always insisted Damien come first. And being female, I always won. We just cut down on going out and simplified our weekly shopping for several months. Beans on toast. We ended up spending around 1,000 to get him over the first abscess, (London vet prices and a cab to and from the vets as I didn't want to put him through the trauma of the bus or tube). But it was worth it because he recovered and proved he wasn't ready to give up yet. He was five and a half at the time and has a history of chronic teeth and tri-monthly dentals (another extortionate expense). Why is it insurance doesn't cover anything that actually goes wrong? Anyway, apart from daily injections he is happy, healthy and abscess free a year and a half on and bizarrely, his teeth even seem to have improved somewhat - it must have been the abscess infected one that was causing most of the problems all along.
Good luck to both of you. I know it is upsetting and I know how much you love him. None of my friends understood why, when he was ill, I didn't go out for three whole weeks as I couldn't bear to leave his side incase that was all we had. I even cancelled my birthday celebrations to stay with him. But it was worth it and I don't regret it and I know he appreciated it as he kept telling me so. How can an animal in pain - with a wonky head and swollen cheek and eye, and a dribbling mouth and gums so sore he can't eat and struggles to pass what does go in through - still manage to snuggle up to you and lick your face and hand and say thank you? Things like that make me feel so small, incredibly privileged and totally unworthy.
 
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