Hello Everyone.
Springs mate Pompeii died 3 months ago from E Cunniculi and ever since then it has been non stop problems. And as you can expect, it has been a really hard time for me and my husband as well. After Pompeii died we treated her with panacur just incase.
About a week after he died, we woke up one morning and her head was slightly tilted. We booked a vet appointment so that we could get more baytril ear drops (she can’t take oral baytril as she completely stops doing everything) and booked a vet appointment. By the time we brought her in, her head was not tilted anymore. we got drops and started giving them.
Then about a month later, we woke up again and she had a head tilt again. We thought it was probably like last time and gave her ear drops Me and my husband hoped it would fix itself and we had to go to work. My husband got home at 1pm and let me know that she still had her head tilted and her right eye that was pointing down was leaking and looked like she couldnt close it. He decided to call the vet but said they couldn’t fit us in and made us an appointment for the next day at 5pm. When I got home at 4pm, Her 3rd eyelid was out and the eye was all red. Her right side of her mouth started to droop and it looked all puffy, her ear was also laying right back. I called the vet back and said it was much worse than this morning and was afraid to wait until the next day at 5pm. I guess he heard the desperation in my voice and said he would move around the schedule and call me back.
They were able to get us in at 6:30pm. So we went and the vet took a look and was very thorough. Since spring had always had chronic ear infections, we figured it was an inner ear thing rather than E Cunniculi. Unfortunately because of the ear drops, she couldn’t take a culture. We were kicking ourselves for that. She said she had paralysis on her right side. She was already on TMP (? – I think is what is is) for her nose (sneezing and running). So she put us back on that for another month and gave us some Metronidazole and hoped that would work. Also, we were to give the ear drops. We also got some gel for her eye. She cleaned out the ear, which could be why the drops weren’t working, it couldnt get through all the gunk in there.
We brought her home and the next day the head tilt was pretty much gone which was good. She would twitch her head quite a bit, we think it was because she was trying to blink her eye. She doesn’t do it much now, and if she does, we put gel in her eye.
It has been about 5 days later and her mouth still droops and her eye still wont blink, although her ear seems to have gone up a bit and her right eye seems to not be wide open anymore. Its like she is almost closing it or relaxing it. She has stopped eating pellets because we think her mouth is bothering her. She eats vegetables once in a while but I haven’t seen her eat hay in a while. She doesn’t drink water either. We have been feeding her critical care and syringing her water. It almost takes an hour to do all the medication and feeding, etc..each time we do it.
I guess I am just wondering if anyone has had this problem and if the drooping had gone away? The vet said it could be permanent, which I really hope is not true because she mostly likes to sit in her box all day rather than on her bag that she use to always sit on. She just looks sad. She also is scared of us right now, because I think she doesn’t want us to come pick her up and give her her meds and force feed her anymore…she really hates it all. It is very hard to comfort a rabbit that gets scared when you come near her.
I have heard steroids help with the drooping, so I wonder why we were not given them? Maybe they don’t work with the medication we are already giving her?
Anyways, any feedback on the matter would be appreciated. Sorry this is so long, I just don’t want to leave any information out.
Thank you!
Alicia