Hi All
It’s been many years since I last visited this forum - nice to be back!
Looking for some advice re my 9 year old indoor rabbit marbles. She was in great health up until about 2 months ago when she had a pretty serious choking incident that led to a bad upper respiratory tract infection. She had sulfatrim antibiotics which helped loads initially, but she has been unable to get completely back to normal. Her current symptoms are regular dry sneezes throughout the day, and occasional severe sneezing fits with snot. Otherwise she is fine in herself.
She’s been on the sulfatrim for nearly two months now but just can’t get back to normal. She had a swab taken early on which showed strong bacterial growth that was sensitive to the sulfatrim, so should have got better.
Today she has been in to have a scope up the nose and some xrays, as the vet (a truly wonderful bunny specialist) wondered if she had something stuck up her nose from the choking incident. However, vet has confirmed there was nothing up there and nothing of concern from the X-ray. But what they did find was severe ulceration in both nostrils.
The vet couldn’t believe she is acting her normal self based on the severity of inflammation and said she’d hate to think how bad it was up there when she was at her worst :-(
Vet is unsure what the problem is, suspicions are either that her immune system has gone overboard and is having a kind of autoimmune response, or possibly an allergy that has just been irritated/exacerbated by the infection.
We’re going to try her on continued antibiotics and add in some anti-inflammatories for a few weeks. Vet said other options were to try her on anti-histamines and potentially steroids as a last resort.
So I guess I’m looking for general thoughts/advice/if anyone has experienced anything similar?
I’m wondering whether to also start working on the assumption she might have a dust/hay allergy - what are the best options for allergic buns these days? Is it still the old rinsing the hay trick? Any reasonably priced dust free hays out there?
Any advice much appreciated
It’s been many years since I last visited this forum - nice to be back!
Looking for some advice re my 9 year old indoor rabbit marbles. She was in great health up until about 2 months ago when she had a pretty serious choking incident that led to a bad upper respiratory tract infection. She had sulfatrim antibiotics which helped loads initially, but she has been unable to get completely back to normal. Her current symptoms are regular dry sneezes throughout the day, and occasional severe sneezing fits with snot. Otherwise she is fine in herself.
She’s been on the sulfatrim for nearly two months now but just can’t get back to normal. She had a swab taken early on which showed strong bacterial growth that was sensitive to the sulfatrim, so should have got better.
Today she has been in to have a scope up the nose and some xrays, as the vet (a truly wonderful bunny specialist) wondered if she had something stuck up her nose from the choking incident. However, vet has confirmed there was nothing up there and nothing of concern from the X-ray. But what they did find was severe ulceration in both nostrils.
The vet couldn’t believe she is acting her normal self based on the severity of inflammation and said she’d hate to think how bad it was up there when she was at her worst :-(
Vet is unsure what the problem is, suspicions are either that her immune system has gone overboard and is having a kind of autoimmune response, or possibly an allergy that has just been irritated/exacerbated by the infection.
We’re going to try her on continued antibiotics and add in some anti-inflammatories for a few weeks. Vet said other options were to try her on anti-histamines and potentially steroids as a last resort.
So I guess I’m looking for general thoughts/advice/if anyone has experienced anything similar?
I’m wondering whether to also start working on the assumption she might have a dust/hay allergy - what are the best options for allergic buns these days? Is it still the old rinsing the hay trick? Any reasonably priced dust free hays out there?
Any advice much appreciated