TinyHops
New Kit
Hello! This is my first post on the forum so I hope I'm in the right place. Back in November ones of my bunnies, Poppy, was diagnosed with snuffles at the vet. I have had two cultures done, one was inconclusive but the second identified a combination of two different bacteria, and we are now on our second antibiotic (marbofloxacin) as there was no improvement on the first (trimethoprim sulfa). She is being nebulised twice a day for 20 mins each, and is also on metacam and a decongestant. She had a blood test and everything came back fine. She was on a moderate dose of the marbofloxacin for 4 weeks with very minimal improvement, and so going into the 5th week we upped the dose to the highest we can go I believe.
I'm so worried that there's going to be no movement again, even on this higher dose. She is improving but extremely slowly, and sometimes it feels like we've made no progress at all! For example back in November she couldn't go 20 seconds without a sniffle or a sneeze whereas now she can go anywhere from 2-10 minutes, and they are generally a lot quieter/less violent. That just feels way too slow though - I would much prefer her sneezing to have improved to once an hour or a few times a day after such a long 4 weeks of antibiotics! But no luck yet. I'm so worried about her. I'm wondering if it's possible that the bacteria is just incredibly resistant and that maybe the next step is to change antibiotics. I did a bit of research and both of the bacteria are gram negative and seem like they may be tough to shift.
The strange thing is that I have three other rabbits (two of which are bonded with Poppy, so closely sharing the same space as her) and none of them have shown any snuffles symptoms, only her. I don't know whether I'm just lucky that they've not caught it, but I think the vet is starting to wonder whether it is snuffles at all. Her main symptom is the very frequent sniffling and sneezing, only discharge I've seen were two yucky looking globs on the floor back in November on separate occasions, and I've seen nothing since - not even a runny/snotty nose. Apart from that she's acting like herself with no other symptoms. We've started her on Piriton at the same time as upping the antibiotic dose in case she has an allergy to maybe the hay dust or something else, but I haven't really seen much improvement so far with either medicine since starting on Saturday.
Anyway, I wanted to ask if anyone else out there has struggled with a persistent snuffles battle and what your experience was? Or has anyone ever had a snuffles bunny where the cause ended up being something else entirely? I feel like I really don't know where to go from here! I've spent many nights just crying because I don't know what more I can possibly do for her, or whether I'm doing something wrong for her not to be improving like this. The vet suggested she could have some hay or something stuck up in her nose and recommend maybe having a CT scan if her symptoms don't improve any more over the next 10 days, but it's £1300 (!!) and I'm hesitant to do so when she is technically improving - just really, really, slowly. I feel like my whole days at the moment are consumed with trying to desperately research and think of ways to make her feel better, but I just don't know what to do at this point.
I'm so worried that there's going to be no movement again, even on this higher dose. She is improving but extremely slowly, and sometimes it feels like we've made no progress at all! For example back in November she couldn't go 20 seconds without a sniffle or a sneeze whereas now she can go anywhere from 2-10 minutes, and they are generally a lot quieter/less violent. That just feels way too slow though - I would much prefer her sneezing to have improved to once an hour or a few times a day after such a long 4 weeks of antibiotics! But no luck yet. I'm so worried about her. I'm wondering if it's possible that the bacteria is just incredibly resistant and that maybe the next step is to change antibiotics. I did a bit of research and both of the bacteria are gram negative and seem like they may be tough to shift.
The strange thing is that I have three other rabbits (two of which are bonded with Poppy, so closely sharing the same space as her) and none of them have shown any snuffles symptoms, only her. I don't know whether I'm just lucky that they've not caught it, but I think the vet is starting to wonder whether it is snuffles at all. Her main symptom is the very frequent sniffling and sneezing, only discharge I've seen were two yucky looking globs on the floor back in November on separate occasions, and I've seen nothing since - not even a runny/snotty nose. Apart from that she's acting like herself with no other symptoms. We've started her on Piriton at the same time as upping the antibiotic dose in case she has an allergy to maybe the hay dust or something else, but I haven't really seen much improvement so far with either medicine since starting on Saturday.
Anyway, I wanted to ask if anyone else out there has struggled with a persistent snuffles battle and what your experience was? Or has anyone ever had a snuffles bunny where the cause ended up being something else entirely? I feel like I really don't know where to go from here! I've spent many nights just crying because I don't know what more I can possibly do for her, or whether I'm doing something wrong for her not to be improving like this. The vet suggested she could have some hay or something stuck up in her nose and recommend maybe having a CT scan if her symptoms don't improve any more over the next 10 days, but it's £1300 (!!) and I'm hesitant to do so when she is technically improving - just really, really, slowly. I feel like my whole days at the moment are consumed with trying to desperately research and think of ways to make her feel better, but I just don't know what to do at this point.
The reason I mention her is that she never passed it on to her bonded friends either. To me it seems some buns are susceptible, most seem resilient.