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Ear wax, strange head twitch

Sammy&Patch

Warren Scout
I am hoping someone has experienced the same as me as I can't seem to find any discussions with similar 'symptoms'.
We have had Shadow since about february, he was estimated about 1-2 years then so he is probably between 2-3 years now. He has one hear that is permanantly up and the other is a lop ear type. His ears are quite long.

In September we were playing with him and Hazel in the bedroom when he seemed to have a strange sort of episode. He was sitting up sort of staring when he did some weird almost tremble or shudder of just his head. He had his eyes quite slit like shut. He did it a couple more times while we watched him with short intervals inbetween some like this and others more just a quick twitch. I was immediatly thinking of something neurological. He then seemed to snap out of it and was fine. I looked in his ears and noticed that although they looked nice and clean for the most part, there was a yellow waxy patch in the lop ear but the sticking up here had some very white little clumpy bits in quite far down. I looked up mites and ear wax but this stuff is very white, I was thinking it could be eggs of something as they are quite round. Anyway I decided to order some vetzyme antibacterial ear drops/cleaner but also booked him into the vets, they were due their injections anyway so decided to take them both in. All my previous bunnies have had very clean ears so I've never really seen ear wax in bunnies. Shadow hadn't been scratching at his ears, or shaking his head around or anythign other than this one incident to suggest anything might be wrong.
Unfortunately my favourite vet has left so I saw a different vet that I do have confidence in but not as much as my previous one, she was just amazing. I explained what I had seen and she looked in his ears. Her scope thing that she put in his ear had some of the white round bits on it when she took it back out the sticking up here and she said it is just ear wax. I was relieved as I was thinking it was something else because of the bright white colour rather than yellow. She checked him over and was happy with him and didn't seem concerned about the weird episode (maybe I should have pushed more about why it happened). Anyway, I was just relieved I think so didn't think much more about it. I just thought I guess some humans have more wax than others so that's the same with him. I did the drops that I bought for a couple of days but they didn't seem to do much so I just left it then.

Nothing happened inbetween (other than him having a skin reaction to the first injection but that healed up and he was fine in himself so that's not related I don't think).
But yesterday we were again playing in the bedroom with them both and Shadow seemed to stumble a bit at one point. I laughed and said he looked drunk and thought nothing of it, he's a bit of a crazy bunny who runs and leaps about so I just thought it was that. Then he was sitting up and did a strange nod of his head but to the side, very quick almost like tipping his hat but sideways. Nothing like a head tilt or anything just very quick. I again laughed and said that was so funny thinking it was nothing sinister, but then he had his eyes quite slit like again and did a small twitch of his head, probably about 6-8 times with little pause inbetween. Myself and my partner both saw him. He also did a slightly longer shudder of his head once or twice. These movements appeared involuntary. Since september we hadn't noticed him do this so it's back then and now that we've seen it. We do spend a fair bit of time with him but he could easily be doing it more and we hadn't seen. It is so slight that you only really notice when you are really watching him closely. I have noticed at times he will just sit upright quite still and seem to be staring but our other bunny does that at times so I'm not sure if that means anything. After this episode, he seemed to snap out of it again and his eyes were back to normal being open and he was pestering our other bunny for some 'licks' back to his normal self. A few minutes later he was running down the stairs and back up again, leaping from half way up to the very top, full of his usual energy.

I checked his ears and the sticking up one still has the white clusters of ear wax similar amount to before. It is too far down for me to want to attempt to remove. I have seen other threads discussing ear wax build up but everyone elses seems to be yellow not bright white and not like a little cluster. I expect my vet should know and is correct that it is ear wax but I'm not sure why shadow's looks different. And he also has a small amount of yellow wax elsewhere.
When I look up ear infections or mites, the symptoms other people describe are different. No one seems to mention the twitch or small shudders and Shadow is not doing the more typical scratching ears, shaking his head like I would expect if he had an infection or mites. He is perectly happy with me touching his ear and messing about with it lookign in it so I don't think he has pain in it and there is no signs of swelling, redness or anything like that. I'm wondering if a build up of wax can cause problems without actually having an infection?

If anyone has experienced similar or knows anything about this I would appreciate their advice. Thankyou and Happy Christmas :)
 
Could the twitching be a response to pain/pressure if the substance gets disturbed and irritates his ear drum? Is your bunny scratching at base of his ears? I would be reluctant to put anything into his ears without another vet check to determine what you are seeing?
 
Rabbit ear wax deeper in the ear canal can look white and is often mistaken for pus.can you try to get a video of the ‘twitching’ and post it on here ?
 
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Rabbit ear wax deeper in the ear canal can look white and is often mistaken for pus.can you try to get a video of the ‘twitching’ and post it on here ?

That's good to know about the colour, thanks. Unfortunately I didn't think quick enough to video it, I have only seen it happen twice, once in september and then this incident, so it might not happen again (or I might not see it happen). My partner and I are both going to try to film it either of us see it happen again, I wish I had thought quicker this last time!
 
Could the twitching be a response to pain/pressure if the substance gets disturbed and irritates his ear drum? Is your bunny scratching at base of his ears? I would be reluctant to put anything into his ears without another vet check to determine what you are seeing?

Hi, no he's not scratching at it, he lets me pull it around to look in it, I was moving it around and pressing different areas around it and at the base to see if he reacted but he didn't, he doesn't seem bothered by it at all. He's not been shaking his head around like they sometimes do when they have an itch. I thought about it being a pain/ pressure response, and maybe the little stumble could have been it messing up his balance a bit. The bits I can see are the same as before that the vet said is earwax, I showed her the bottle of vetzyme ear stuff and she was ok with that but maybe I will hold off using it anyway, I didn't use it much, he hated it!
 
Hi, no he's not scratching at it, he lets me pull it around to look in it, I was moving it around and pressing different areas around it and at the base to see if he reacted but he didn't, he doesn't seem bothered by it at all. He's not been shaking his head around like they sometimes do when they have an itch. I thought about it being a pain/ pressure response, and maybe the little stumble could have been it messing up his balance a bit. The bits I can see are the same as before that the vet said is earwax, I showed her the bottle of vetzyme ear stuff and she was ok with that but maybe I will hold off using it anyway, I didn't use it much, he hated it!
That sounds promising.
 
I'm no expert on ear infections however my bunny Mischief is currently recovering from a nasty ear infection and I could touch his head and ears all over including the base of his ears and he didn't ever seem to mind. So I wouldn't take that as meaning his ears are fine.

I hope Shadow is fine though. Good luck!

Sent from my SM-G361F using Tapatalk
 
I'm no expert on ear infections however my bunny Mischief is currently recovering from a nasty ear infection and I could touch his head and ears all over including the base of his ears and he didn't ever seem to mind. So I wouldn't take that as meaning his ears are fine.

I hope Shadow is fine though. Good luck!

Sent from my SM-G361F using Tapatalk

Same with my Inspector Morse, He showed no signs of pain when any part of his ears/ear bases were touched but deep in his ear canals was full of pus x
 
Same with my Inspector Morse, He showed no signs of pain when any part of his ears/ear bases were touched but deep in his ear canals was full of pus x

Hi, how did the vet find that out, was it just from looking in the ear? And what did they do about it? My vet already looked in Shadows ears with the scope thing, could see the wax but didn't clean it out and wasn't concerned. It's not my favourite vet as she has left, I think she would have investigated further. This vet is usually good too though, she treated my dads dog when he was ill and did a good job and had seen my bunnies a few times. Do you know if vets normally take appointments to clean bunnies ears (I've never had this problem before). I was thinking I could book him in to get them cleaned and ask them about infection then? I don't want to take him back with the same problem for the vet just to look briefly and not do anything.
 
Hi, how did the vet find that out, was it just from looking in the ear? And what did they do about it? My vet already looked in Shadows ears with the scope thing, could see the wax but didn't clean it out and wasn't concerned. It's not my favourite vet as she has left, I think she would have investigated further. This vet is usually good too though, she treated my dads dog when he was ill and did a good job and had seen my bunnies a few times. Do you know if vets normally take appointments to clean bunnies ears (I've never had this problem before). I was thinking I could book him in to get them cleaned and ask them about infection then? I don't want to take him back with the same problem for the vet just to look briefly and not do anything.

https://www.vettimes.co.uk/app/uplo...itis-externa-media-and-interna-in-rabbits.pdf

https://www.veterinarywebinars.com/...oads/2016/03/Study_Notes_Ear_Nose_Rabbits.pdf
 
UPDATE video of twitching

Shadow did the same again yesterday evening, I managed to video a bit of it. Unfortunately my phone was zooming in and out to focus so makes it a bit more difficult to see. I also have another video which shows the twitching above eyes more clearly. The movements you see here are a bit bigger than the movements he was making at first and bigger than last time. This time his eyes remained open but the last 2 times his eyes were slits throughout. Hopefully you can make out the small twitching he does above the left eye, very small little twitches that he doesn't seem to be controlling. He did this for a few minutes and continued with the slightly more noticeable head twitches for a minute or 2 after. He had just been running around like crazy just before this episode, I wondered if the dashing around was moving the ear wax/ infection if he has one and brought on this episode. I phoned the vet today but they are emergency only until monday so I will be phoning monday to get an appointment. I'm going to show the vet the videos too so hopefully that will help. Fingers crossed this video upload works, I'm not great with technology!
 
Just a quick update, I managed to get an appointment for Shadow on wednesday. He has an ear infection, in both ears but worse in one. The vet wasn't concerned with the video I showed her, she suspects it was from earache so that's a relief. He has a week of antibiotics but as they are trying to cut down on appointments (coronavirus), she won't do a follow up like she might have otherwise, unless I am concerned for any reason. Fingers crossed this clears it up!
 
Aw, poor Shadow, having infections in both his ears... Lots of vibes for him. I hope the antibiotics will help him feel better soon. It's good that the vet wasn't concerned with the twitching. I just watched the videos and I'd never seen a rabbit do that before.
 
Just a quick update, I managed to get an appointment for Shadow on wednesday. He has an ear infection, in both ears but worse in one. The vet wasn't concerned with the video I showed her, she suspects it was from earache so that's a relief. He has a week of antibiotics but as they are trying to cut down on appointments (coronavirus), she won't do a follow up like she might have otherwise, unless I am concerned for any reason. Fingers crossed this clears it up!

He will probably need a much longer course of abx. Sometimes 4-6 weeks. Has he also been prescribed some Metacam to address the pain and inflammation ?

ETA - just seen the videos. Is he responsive when the twitching occurs ? They look exactly like the epileptiform twitches one of my Rabbits has. He has a neurological disorder.
 
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Aw, poor Shadow, having infections in both his ears... Lots of vibes for him. I hope the antibiotics will help him feel better soon. It's good that the vet wasn't concerned with the twitching. I just watched the videos and I'd never seen a rabbit do that before.

Thankyou :)
 
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