Bunny’s 3rd abcess surgery isn’t helping

[Bunny House]

Hi guys,

I have a one year old New Zeland bunny who is female. Back in November of 2016 she had her first jaw abcess surgery to remove the abcess, they removed 2 teeth. It is on her right side. We did a course of Pen G for a week and then 2 weeks later she had another surgery to finalize everything inside. Now jumping to May of 2017 she had another abcess in the same area reappear. I moved down to Texas A&M for school ( June) so I took her there for an evaluation. They did a CT scan and saw the abcess, they said it was very deep in the jaw. They did a course of Pen G, once a week for one week and also gave me Metacam and Enroflaxcin, gave twice a day for a week. She went into surgery the week after to remove the abcess. They continued the Pen-G once a week and all other meds for 3 weeks  and continuing now after surgery. Now, there is another abcess coming back. I don’t know if I should tell the vet that we should do Pen-G once a day for a month to see if it combats it because all my research says it is cost effective and has erradicated many abcesses like hers.

Someone please give advice. I am taking her in tomorrow and I don’t know if I should have her get another CT Scan.

[Bam]

I think you could tell the vet about your research and if possible, bring with you the articles (or a list of links to them) that you’ve read. The vet might find the approach worth a try. Maybe you can get a painkiller/anti-inflammatory like Metacam for your bun to use in combination with the antibiotics. I’ve sent an alert to the other leaders, I know a few of them have dealt with abscesses in their buns.

[jerseygirl]

I personally think it is worth you pushing for longer period on penG. The injectable antibiotics are better for treating these things, and oral along side that is not a bad idea.
It’s been a while since I went through this, but my rabbit that had lower jaw abscess on penicillin for about 6 weeks i think. More recently, I had another rabbit with facial abscess abs he had short acting penicillin every day for week then spaced out to every 2-3 days. The vet I saw always goes in fast with heavier duty antibiotics right away because infection moves fast also.

I’ll have to look over the history more closely as to how frequent the penicillin was post surgery and get back to you.

But to me, one shot of penicillin then oral baytril only isn’t enough to combat jaw infections.

Had the vet discussed leaving and antibiotic beads in place or anything like that? With the facial abscess bun, the vet left gel sponges in place that had an antibiotic on them.

What kind of aftercare did you need to do after the abscesses site was debrided?

[Bunny House]

So we did another surgery to remove other dead teeth and now from her most recent CT scan, she is almost fully rid of the infection , it was anerobic bacteria so the only way to kill it was Pen-g shots, we did beads a year ago at a bad vet and that is what caused her initial surgery to not kill the abscess.  SO the whole time, she has been on Pen-g shots and enrofloxin and bupernophine( if she had pain) and metacam. This has almost healed up all the way

I think the first vet screwed up by not knowing how to test bacteria or even testing at all or doing ct scans. 

These “exotic” vets these days, always gotta do your own research

[Bam]

Yay! This is so great to hear! Thank you for updating!

[Author]

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