Alright, so this is going to be a bit long, but I seriusly don’t know where to turn anymore. I have gone with severall vets in my city (in the mexican southern area, so there isn’t really a buch of vets that can provide care for rabbits with huge confidence. As mean as it may sound, it’s sadly true, at least in my area), non has been able to give an exact answer and the treaments they give us don’t work or barely help.
The story is: a couple of months ago I noticed my bunny, Amapola (Poppy in english), had watery eyes and within a day the fur around the eyes was sticky and her eyelids a bit swollen and irritated. I quickly contacted my usual vet and took her to an appointment, he gave her the usual check-up and looked inside her ears, checked her mouth and nose(tried), he told me all seemed alright or “mild” and gave us eye drops to apply for a week twice a day. Didn’t help at all. Went back, and he only told me to keep going with the eye drops, that it would go away “eventually”.
Unsatisfied I booked an appointment with a diferent vet. Short story short, he congratulated my rabbit’s dental care and told me that everything looked fine superficially. He did measure how much tears her glands were producing by putting some paper thingys in her eyes, and told me that maybe her body was compensating for dryness in her eyes(notice that until this point, the tears were clear/transparent) he gave us more eyedrops, an ocular lube called LagriVet and tells me to clean the area daily (which i was already doing :/ )
Another week passes, we go for another check up, I tell him I’m noticing the tears going a little opque and milky, the sticky hair its getting so bad that it looks like she has bald spots and her eyelashes ARE FALLING OFF. Says he doesn’t see the tears having color or being dense and that the hair and no eyelashes it’s a normal response from being wet all the time, repeats the same check-up and gives me a diferent brand of eyedrops and a the ocular lube again. The irritation in her eyelids went away for a bit, that’s the only thing I’ll give him. But it didn’t cure her. Reapeted this process with other “exotic animals” vets that charged me QUITE a sum just for checking her up and telling me that the treatment i was giving her was fine or that they would give me the exact same or smthg similar. Then I even tried with the medical care of “big brands” here in Mexico and they stright out told me that they “can’t help” with bunnies. Which made me MAD AS HELL because I know my mom got my bunbun at one of them (You sell bunnies, but dont know how to treat them?????) By this point 5 weeks had already passed.
FINALLY decided to go with the one my mom takes our dogs with, a really old veterinarian that works with cattle and farm animals, he told me he coudn’t give me diagnosis but that it looked like a regular infection, so he gave her more eyedrops and antibiotics. There’s no doubt that experience does make a difference in many cases, the antibiotic helped A LOT, the symptoms disappeared about three weeks and her hair was getting better and eyelashes where even coming back. But out of the blue the tears came back, AND MUCH MUCH WORSE, we repeated the treatment but this time it didn’t help, even after giving her a higher dose. The vet agreed with me that it was wiser to look up for a site like this and ask people that may have already gone throught this or that may know more than us (yeah, he’s a peach).
Finally, I’m gonna share a few pics and a video, if I can, of the symptoms and weird things I’ve been noticing later, whatever it is has certainly progresed… Not only does she have irritation and watery eyes, but now i notice that every time she bends her body, be it while grooming or playing, a BIG WHITE TEAR comes out of her tear duct. SNEEZING, it wasn’t a symptom at all until the last few days, she’s had days where she doesn’t sneeze at all and others where she has some big sneezing attacks (It’s not normal for her) and this worries me a lot. Also, while cleaning her, I noticed that she has some sort of blood crust, or red scarring in the edge of the eyelid wich horrified me, I can’t help but think that with so many eyedrops, creams and whatnot I used on her eyes it may have caused tissue scarring or smthg. But what WORRIES ME THE MOST it’s a behavior I’ve noticed for a week and a half now, maybe two by now, one that i’ve never seen in her before nor seen in videos or while reading posible diagnosis. It’s almost as she’s having muscular spasms or a tik in her lower jaw… but the moment it goes too far to a side, she jawns and gets it back in position, this happens in a similar way to the sneezing, some days she doesn’t do it and others… she spends around 10 mins with this jaw thing going on. Oh, but if i try to get near her while this is happening she moves and it stops ????? seems like it only happens when she’s not moving much. Aside from that, nothing, her appetite it’s the same (she has free access to timothy hay, pellets and water, I used to give her some cookies called “complete crock” from Versele Laga but stopped a bit after she got sick) and her behavior it’s the same, she’s still the pretty blinky bunny that runs around chasing me and bites my feet when she knows I’m playing videogames insted of petting her(lol).
For general info she’s gonna be a 6yrs old Neerlandés Dwarf in october and last time we weighted her she was around 2.2kilograms, she’s neither vaccinated or neutered due the lack of vets willing to do it. Most tell me she doesn’t need it since she’s a house rabbit that doesn’t go outside much 😡 (I’m well aware of the risk this two things represent, and they only add to my worry on this condition she’s dealing with).
A pic of the white tears(this is a small one, actually one of the smallest i’ve noticed):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1v-rc6ss1OJ3tNRp2XIOUfkGRM9SZimLT/view?usp=sharing
The video of the jaw stuff:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-2ToluzK7B8Jy3r1_KGAKiC4sujd1W42/view?usp=sharing
The red scarring in her eyelit:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_X0QWQDlkQIh0j5o8xfUnppIU2EJaCGD/view?usp=sharing
Thanks all of you in advance
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