Three abcesses?

I posted about my Starr a few weeks ago. She was losing all her fur so I took her into the vet to find out that she had an abcess. Well we've been draining it and flushing it twice a day and she's on antibiotics, but it doesn't seem to be going down.

Now to add to the problem about a week after her surgery I found one more bump on her face, I took her in and the doc said that it was another abcess, but that it wasn't connected to the first one. She said that she's never seen this before. I had no money for surgery so she poked a hole in it and told me to drain it twice a day along with the first one.

Tonight, I found yet another abcess on her chin, I will be taking her in for a look tomorrow to make sure it really is another abcess, this is 25 dollars as opposed to the 400 it would take for her surgery..

Paying for her surgery, and one of my birds was sick, and I've got a clutch of 3 baby budgies, has left me pretty broke, I won't be able to afford more sugery for her for at least another week or so.

Can someone please give me some advice, she's my shining Starr and I really don't want to lose her. I'm trying as hard as I can to scrape up the money, but I just don't see it happening for at least a week.

I'm sorry Starr isn't well at the moment. My Effie has an abcess at the moment and seeing the vet every day to have it flushed and plugged. They found a smaller secondary abcess and the vet actually said it was quite common for rabbits to develop abcesses and that although it was a concern not to be too worried about it. I don't know much about them but I do know how worried you must be. Hope Starr gets better soon and I'm sure someone with more experience will be able to give you some advice.x

Hi Jessika. My Poppy had another abscess develop just two days after her first one was operated on. This was whilst she was on antibiotics. Unfortunately they can "seed" sometimes and appear elsewhere. I hope you can get Star better. Claire x

Hi, when my bun Flint had an abscess he had to have a large area of skin cut away - draining the abscess wasn't enough as the tissue was infected around it.
He was also on antibiotics & pain killers.

He's fine now, & no problems since.

Do you have insurance? You may be able to claim for this operation.

If the abscesses are spreading, I would have thought the only option was surgery - but there's people on here with more experience than me.

You can try putting manuka(sp) honey in the wound too.

What antibiotics are you using? there may be something stronger too that might help.

Also - talk to your vet about payment. I got credit terms when one of my buns was really ill & needed expensive treatment

Hi guys, thanks for your solutions. After I found the second and third abcesses I thought all hope was lost, the first one hasn't even gone down yet. She's taking Meloxicam for pain, and Chlorpalm 2.3.

This is really not a good situation for Starr, the vet told me to take away her hay because she thinks that that is what caused the cut that caused the abcess? Does that make sense?

Jessika said:

Hi guys, thanks for your solutions. After I found the second and third abcesses I thought all hope was lost, the first one hasn't even gone down yet. She's taking Meloxicam for pain, and Chlorpalm 2.3.

This is really not a good situation for Starr, the vet told me to take away her hay because she thinks that that is what caused the cut that caused the abcess? Does that make sense?

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Sorry but i would be very wary of a vet who`s advised you to take away your bunny`s hay!:shock:
It is the most important part of their diet & not giving her access to hay could cause numerous health problems, i:e: the lack of fibre could lead to gut problems & hay also helps keep their teeth worn correctly.

If she has been unfortunate enough to cut herself on a sharp piece of hay then that is true bad luck but in my personal opinion it would not explain 3 seperate abcesses, though i am aware secondary abcesses can form. But i would still not be happy not giving a bunny hay due to the health problems this could lead to.

Is there a more rabbit savvy vet you could try?

Also as Angie suggested, if you are worried about cost you could discuss with your vet about paying in instalments.

Good luck & let us know how you get on.

Su.x

Yep - some buns only need a tiny scratch to get an abscess. Don't feel bad - I've had a few now

BUT - can you still feed her hay? Put it in a net for her or something? Or feed dried grass or something or cut up hay? Just that it's meant to be 85%-90% of her diet & it might slow her guts down or cause teeth problems if she can't eat it?

Yeah, I thought it sounded weird, but she's getting lots of fresh, not sharp greens. She's the most rabbit-saavy vet in town. She told me just to keep it from her until the wound closes up, which was only supposed to take four days.

Hope she recovers eventually, but it does take time once an abscess seeds new ones. Here's what I just posted on a different thread - hope it helps - Maa's abscess was caused by hay too - they found it inside the pus when they operated. I was advised to give her less sharp hay, but I thought it was too risky to remove it - it would have just caused other health problems so I carried on giving hay and hoped it would be OK.

I spent £500 last year having my golden lop, Maa, treated for an abscess in her head - It seemed to clear up for months then came back with a vengeance. The trouble with anything in the head area is it's very difficult for the vets to clean all the pus out thoroughly without damaging the blood vessels etc packed in there, and if there's a tiny bit of puss left, the bacteria slowly grow again.

Baytril is pretty useless for deep abscesses - ones that are filled with anaerobic bacteria that multiply in airless cavities. Human MRSA is one such type of bacteria, and baytril is too weak to touch it.

If the lump grows, your best course of action I think would be to ask the vet to draw off some puss, if there is any, and send it to a lab for analysis. It cost me £30 to have this done with Maa, but it was money well spent as not only did it save on months of useless baytril, it also saved her life by killing the bacteria, as the lab told us exactly which antibiotic to use.

We used metronidazole, and she only needed half a tablet a day, for 8 days. I ground the tablets up and mixed them with mushed up pellets when she was really hungry - she wolfed it down.

Well I found her looking terrible this morning, so I took her in to the emergency clinic. It's pasteurella. They gave me different antibiotics and different stuff to flush with, and I have an appointment for more surgery on thursday.