Chronic Ear Infection – Holland Lop

[ClarBun]

Hello bunny parents!



I have a 7.5 year old Holland Lop. In mid-July he had a reoccurrence of an inner ear infection (it first popped up the summer of 2015. The vet thought it may have been an abscess and we treated him with penicillin injections every 48 hours for one month. This cleared it up for 11 months.)



This July he started exhibiting signs of an ear infection again. Slight head tilt, meatloafing, less social. The vet wanted to try other antibiotics and leave the penicillin as our last option. He has since been on 2 courses of Baytril, 2 courses of SMZ-TMP and he tried doxycycline but it upset his stomach and caused GI stasis. As of last week we got him finally started on the penicillin injections.



At this point, he has had 5 shots of penicillin  but it doesn’t seem to be having the same effect as last year this far into it. I understand that once holland lops have an inner ear infection that it will never really be cleared and that surgery is usually necessary. We have opted to forgo surgery up until this point because I heard its really stressful and painful and I worry about his age and what his chances are that he would recover or even make it through the anesthesia.



Does anyone have any experience with this? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

[MoxieMeadows]

Sorry, I don’t have any help, but thought I would *bump* this thread up so more people would see it….Good luck!

[jerseygirl]

Hopefully the penicillin will work for him again. Its good that he tolerated it well the first time around.
Have you ever had a culture test done to identify what’s causing the infection?
Does his ear need to be cleaned out at all? Sometimes doing a wash and adding drops along with the injected antibiotic can be successful.
Is he on an anti-inflammatory med at all??

Your avatar pic is ADORABLE! It would be a good one to enter in the photo thread comp we having going in the Lounge.

[LittlePuffyTail]

I don’t know much about inner ear infections but my lop has almost constant outer ear infections. When there is a particularly stubborn one, we usually get it cultured to pinpoint the type of bacteria and best course of antibiotics. A few times he needed oral antibiotics along with the ear meds.

I hope you can get this situation resolved soon. Ear infections are no fun.

[LBJ10]

Megabunny’s Gus had the surgery. As far as I know, it was a success.

[ClarBun]

Thank guys. We are going to the veterinary university tomorrow that handles the surgery for a consultation. I will keep you updated.

[Author]

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