I've luer cannula causing ear necrosis

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This topic has 4sd replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 10 years ago by jerseygirl.

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- 04/23/2016 at 7:39 PM
  TH125
  Participant
  3 posts
  Hello. My 9 month old angora house rabbit was having some seizures last week and we took him first to an emergency vet who thought E.cuniculi and prescribed him 4 weeks fenbendazole. They suggested that we take him to an exotic vet just in case which he did and they kept in as inpatient over 2 days but he ended up with the right ear necrosis after an IV line for diazepam tissued. My sister and I were upset as they did not inform us of the risk of this.
  
  Since then they’ve been using subcutaneous diazepam and now he’s back home but with ongoing mini seizures (but not rolling as much). Still on subcutaneous metronidazole which they started and oral fenbendazole and he seems to be improving.
  
  The vet suggested getting getting an ear amputation later on when he gets better. Has anyone have this problem before and what are your experience from them?
- 04/24/2016 at 2:35 AM
  Bam
  Moderator
  17033 posts
  I’m sorry to hear this. I have no experience with ear amputations, but it is fairly common that rabbits lose one ear or both or parts of them due to bites from another rabbit. Ideally the ear should shrivel up and fall off of its own (dry gangrene). If it’s wet you absolutely want to get it amputated, but your vet will of course know this. It’s not nice at all, but compared to the seizures and rolling caused by e cuniculi it’s really rather minor, but being one-eared is a cosmetic flaw of course. I’m guessing they needed to get the diazepam into him really quickly to ease the seizing and didn’t want to wait for the slower acting sub Q delivery to take effect?
  
  4 weeks of fenbendazole is standard protocol for e cuniculi, but many rabbits also benefit from co-treatment with Baytril (according to Molly Varga, well-renowned British rabbit vet) even if the e cuniculi is caused by a single-celled microsporidian organism and not by bacteria. E cuniculi is still rather a mysterious disease that rabbit medicine knows a lot more about now than before, but still needs to know more about.
- 04/24/2016 at 3:13 AM
  jerseygirl
  Moderator
  22356 posts
  Oh I’m sorry that this happened on top of you having to go through seeing seizures and rolling. Very stressful.
  
  I believe it can happen if the med used irritates the ear vein, but it can be just due to the catheter.
  Is he an English angora? I’m curious if they are more susceptible to this happening because of the way the upper ear flops down.
  
  What are they doing to treat the ear? Or are the antibiotics he’s on enough to cover him from infection for now?
  Did they put your rabbit on any analgesic/anti-inflammatory medication?
- 04/24/2016 at 4:19 AM
  TH125
  Participant
  3 posts
  Yes he’s an English angora. He appears lots better in the last 3 hours since he can drink from his bottle and balance well enough to eat from his bowl without us going to feed him every 3-4 hours now
  
  I guess the subcutaneous metronidazole they gave us may be for the ear.
  They suggested getting an emla cream but he didn’t need it yet. Pretty happy to move around despite his poor balance.
- 04/24/2016 at 4:50 AM
  jerseygirl
  Moderator
  22356 posts
  That’s great that you are seeing an improvement! What a relief for you.
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