I’m so sorry for what you are going through. Don’t feel guilty, if you hadn’t adopted her I’m sure she would have met a worse fate. 🙁

It does sound a lot like EC, and the treatment (with panacur) can take a really long time. But then you are at day 25… I wonder if the dosage was correct? Sometimes also giving a pain med helps with the symptoms.

There could also be something going on with her teeth, which could affect the eyes and eventually the ears.

If you did opt to take her on the long journey to the vet, could you maybe stay the night in that area with her to give her some rest from traveling?

I don’t have a ton of advice, just sending some support because that is a really tough situation to be in.

I am so sorry for the situation you’re in. I understand where the guilt you feel comes from, but you mustn’t let it weigh you down.

I think when it comes to difficult choices in life, you need to consider the worst outcome of your choices. Which is worse, taking her or not taking her? If taking her on a 5 hour bus ride has the chance of her getting better than the current situation she’s in, I would probably go for it. Maybe you could try asking the local vet for some sedative to make the journey easier for her.

However you decide, it is not your fault. Sometimes we try our best and still feel that we failed. The imporant thing is not to give up.

You are obviously not a bad bun mum, but it feels that way when we have a poorly bun. They’re so small and we want to help them so much. You have done a wonderful job with your bun, and thanks to you, she knows what it is to be loved.

All her symptoms fit EC, which of course doesnt mean she cant have comorbidities. Since her eyes were first affected and she’s so young, I’d suspect she contracted the parasite in her mother’s womb.

The active substance in Panacur is fenbendazole, which is also used as a dog dewormer. It might be easier to measure up the correct dosage for a bun if you can get liquid fenbendazole for small dogs? (Your vet might very well have calculated the dose correctly, but it can still be hard to measure it up exactly because horses are so huge). Standard EC treatment is 28 days, but some vet like to do 6 weeks.

For EC, Baytril (enrofloxacine) can have some additional effect againt the EC parasite. Meloxicam is often given to reduce inflammation, since EC causes tissue inflammation.

I hate that you are essentially having to self-diagnose the problem. That must be very frustrating. I can see how it makes you feel defeated! As the others said though, you are most definitely a good bunny mom. If you hadn’t taken her home, it’s likely she would not have ended up in someone else’s home. At least this way, she knows love.

I agree that everything you are describing fits EC. Some bunnies are just susceptible to it and become very ill. Considering her age, I agree she probably got it from her mother. I’m worried that perhaps the dosage of the Panacur isn’t correct. I would think that would be hard if the vet started with a horse dosage and tried to take it down from there. According to MediRabbit, dosage for rabbits is 20 mg/kg. Did your vet go by this to calculate dosage? Or did they simply look at the horse dosage and calculate based on your rabbit’s weight? The reason I’m asking is because the Panacur sold for horses actually has a lower concentration (10%) and dosage (5-10mg/kg) than, say, Panacur sold for dogs (22% and 50mg/kg).

I tried calculating the dosage. I have dog fenbendazole of the same strength, 10%. According to the label, 1 ml contains 100 mg fenbendazole.

If you give 0.15 ml, it contains 15 mg fenbendazole. (100 ×0.15= 15).

This is a bit low for a bun that weighs 1.35 kilos. Standard dosage of fenbendazole for e cuniculi is 20 mg per kilo body weight. A bun of 1.35 kilo would require 27 mg fenbendazole per day (20 ×1.35). That means she should have 0.27 ml Fenacur/day. (The recommended dose for horses per kilo body weight is just 10 mg, as LBJ says, so this could be the source of error).

Medirabbit is a trusted source and has tables with safe drugs and their dosages. Here’s a link, for meloxicam, click on analgesics. Meloxicam is an NSAID, meaning it is both a painkiller and an antiinflammatory.

http://www.medirabbit.com/Safe_medication/Safe_drugs_main.htm

If you get antibiotics, its very important to double check its safety for rabbits and the dosage. Route of administration is very important too, some antibiotics should only be given as injections. The antibiotic mostly used for ec (and ear infections) is Baytril (enrofloxacine), which can be given orally.

The ey is bad, but you know that of course. The headtilt might or might not resolve, but many rabbits live long good lives with a tilted head- it looks uncomfortable to us, but for the rabbit it soon becomes the new normal.

You have received some wonderful advice here. I just wanted to add in regards to the eyes if they look like they are bulging out, you may need to get them pressure tested (not every vet has the tool for this). If the pressure in the eye is too high they can rupture, the eye may need to be removed if the pressure is too high to prevent rupture. I know that’s scary, but with the large cataract over the eye vision will already be very poor if anything.

Yes, the eyes do look bad. It may be too late to do much for them, except trying to stop the inflammation. Azerane is correct that severe uveitis caused by EC can lead to secondary glaucoma.

I have read some articles talking about steroid eye drops to help with inflammation. Steroids should be used with caution in rabbits. But the topical kind (eye drops, ointments, etc.) as less problematic.

Rabbits with headtilt stop feeling off balance after a while. It looks worse than it is once the balance organs stop signalling wildly and the vertigo goes away. A bun that has vertigo tends to spin and fall over. The website Disabled Rabbits has some tips on how to make a head tilt bun more comfortable:

http://www.disabledrabbits.com/

As LBJ says we are not vets and cant say what’s best to do do regarding the fenbendazole. There are some rare but serious side effects.

Your vet couldve gone with 10 mg per kilo bodyweight because that’s the often recommended dosage if you are deworming a rabbit with fenbendazole. The meloxicam dosage is correct (Medirabbit says 0.3 -1.2 mg per kilo body weight and day). They say 30-50 mg/ kilo body weight for azitromycin. I’ve never heard of it used for ec though.

The main problem with eye removal would probably be the anesthesia. Your vet is unlikely to have bunny safe anesthethic drugs and equipment. Rabbits are difficult to put under safely and your bun is obviously not very strong. They could have experience performing the surgery on cats or dogs, though, since its a fairly common procedure when a dog or cat has injured an eye badly. Hopefully it will not be needed.

It would be great if you could connect with a local group of bun enthusisasts. They might have local info that isnt readily available to you.

It is difficult to get the azitromycin correct.

Could you ask to buy azitromycin for a small child? The recommended dose for a child would be 30 mg/kilo body weight. Sometimes a pharmacy can make a suspension of an adult-dose med so it gets the correct strenght for a child. I do realize that it could be pretty difficult to ask this in Spanish though. A suspension is way safer than what you get if you simply dissolve a pill in water.

Technically you can dissolve a pill in a known amount of water so you know the concentration of pill per ml (CC) water, then pull up the dose you want in a syringe. This is however very risky if the pill you start with contains a toxic amount of the active substance. A pill dissolved in water doesn’t form a suspension, so theres always a risk of “catching” too much (or too little) of the substance in the syringe. When I’ve had to do this for my buns (since a lot of meds that vets prescribe are dog- or human meds), I’ve always started with a strenght of pill that wouldn’t be toxic even if every molecule of the pill happened to find its way into the syringe. Even if you split a 500 mg pill in 4, you’d have 125 mg of azitromyzin in the vial and thus risk giving her up to 93 mg azitromyzin per kilo body weight (125/1.35). I can’t say if this would be a toxic dose, but it’s roughly double the recommended highest dose. You should also always mix a new batch for every new dose, meaning you should never save dissolved meds for later use (unless a doctor or vet has specifically told you to), since stuff can start to happen when a med is dissolved in water and the various molecules start to interact.

I think it’s more likely that the head tilt is caused by EC. This doesn’t mean an antibiotic would not help though. It’s been documented that Enrofloxacin does have some effect on EC. It doesn’t cure it though. This is why you hear stories of a rabbit having an “ear infection”, they are treated with Enrofloxacin, they get better, and then once the antibiotic is stopped the “ear infection” comes back. It’s because the rabbit was misdiagnosed. Some vets will treat with both Enrofloxacin and fenbendazole because they are unsure of the diagnosis, but also because they can benefit from both medications if it is EC.

I’m really glad to hear that the swelling seems to be subsiding in her eye. That’s definitely good news!

I’m sorry you have to do this alone. You are doing great though. I agree with LBJ that her symptoms are consistent with ec. Fenbendazole is the absolute first choice in battling ec. Other drugs might alleviate symptoms, but they wont adress the root cause.

Its wonderful that the meloxicam seems to help. Ec is an intracellular parasite that causes the cells to erupt when the parasite multiplies and eventually takes up too much space.. This means the cellular contents spill out into the extracellular matrix. This in turn sends out a red alert that attracts inflammatory agents etc.

We’re here if you need us. We’re very happy to try and help.