Like many people, when my rabbit vet recommends a treatment, I rush to see what the online consensus is. What I found about using children’s Benadryl with rabbits was sparse and generally negative, but weighing alternatives and having trust in my current rabbit vet, I went forward with the recommended treatment and wanted to share my ongoing experience.

My rabbit Fable (American Sable, ~7lbs) has a high breathing rate. This has been since we got her in Sept. 2019, and it was sometimes audible. We attributed it to her being easily stressed and fearful, which she does exhibit in other ways aside from fast breathing; however, fast-forward a year and although her other anxiety behaviors have faded, the breathing rate stayed rapid. Her breathing did not include any discharge or labored breathing sounds– simply a very fast rate and at times, a whistle/wheeze. No worsening or improvement since having her.

Our vet had been aware of this, and we now moved forward with bloodwork and a chest x-ray to identify a problem. Both looked fine (slight haze on the lungs, but a specialist said it was not abnormal), with the bloodwork showing an elevation in basophils, which can be a sign of allergies (in addition to many, many other things, so we discussed what is most probable, based on her symptoms). The recommendation was children’s benadryl to see if it could clear things up.

Fable is now on 1cc of children’s benadryl, twice a day (12 hours apart). The only available flavor was bubblegum, and Fable enjoys it. Notes on flavoring: Cherry and grape are the other flavors and are a better go-to because their flavoring uses a safe and well-known sugar substitute (sucralose) . The bubble gum is fine, but it uses sorbitol as a sweetener. Xylitol is what is not OK as a sweetener. It is similar to sorbitol, but the difference is significant enough that one is safe (sorbitol) and the other isn’t (xylitol).

Fable has been on benadryl bubblegum for over a week, and while her respiratory rate has not decreased, there has been symptom alleviation I didn’t expect:

1. Since getting Fable, I have frequently noticed her third eye lid peeks out very often. My other rabbit is a dwarf (smooshed face), so I thought this was a natural consequence of a rabbit whose face is more narrow. Since on the benadryl, her third eyelid has generally stayed out of view.
2. Since getting Fable, I noticed she has bigger eye “boogers”. Again, relative to my small dwarf, I assumed the larger boogers were due to her larger size/larger eyes. Her tearducts would look slightly irritated from the boogers, but they were not oozing nor not “functioning” as expected. Since on the benadryl, her eye boogers are minimal– similar to my other rabbit.

… I brought these up to my vet, who said it is possible the benadryl is clearing up some congestion around the eyes, which was causing pressure in the area that prevented her third eyelid from moving properly and her eye boogers to be more extreme. We are continuing the benadryl to see if it helps with respiratory rate. In terms of long-term, we will likely discontinue the benadryl to see if it has permanently resolved the eye-related congestion. If it comes back, the vet said it is OK for her to be on benadryl life-long, safety-wise.