Epiphora and Scarred Tear Ducts

[Tessa]

Hi everyone!

I recently adopted my bunny, Daisy, from a local animal control center.  She has an excessively watering right eye which I have been taking care of daily by gently washing and drying the surrounding fur.  I am currently supervising bonding dates between her and my other rabbit, Casper, in the hopes that he can take up some of the responsibility of keeping her eye groomed and clean.

Her vet report from the shelter states that the vet was unable to cannulate and flush the tear duct due to scarring at the tear duct opening, and that the condition is not bacterial related or contagious.  It further states that her right eye will always have tearing issues, and that no further eye medication will be necessary; the area simply needs to be cleaned and taken care of daily.

I have read advice and anecdotes from bunny parents with similar situations, but I found that few of these addressed potentially permanent tear duct scarring.  Is it worth taking Daisy to another vet for a second opinion, to see if her tear duct can be accessed and flushed out?  Given how far veterinary care has come, it seems unlikely to me that a blockage caused by scar tissue can’t be removed or treated.

I do not mind taking care of Daisy’s eye every day–I find that it is a good opportunity for us to bond, and that she often enjoys being groomed and will purr while I clean her up.  However, the skin around her eye is starting to become raw and she is losing fur, and I think it is causing her some discomfort.  If there is some avenue of treatment that I could take in order to help her feel better, I would like to take it.

Thank you!

TK

[Dface]

I had my vet explain this to me thoroughly before with my rabbit so the general gist of what I got is –
what your rabbit has(according to your vet) is permanent scar tissue, removing it isnt an option.
If she had a previous infection that caused a blockage that didnt get treated, it caused damage to the duct, a simple, narrow drain to the the back of the throat. Once it was blocked it started to become damaged, the longer the blockage persisted the more extensive the damage.
Now what has happened is that the tissue that has formed is the new lining for the tear duct, but it is no longer the correct tissue
(think about how scars on your own skin do not look like the rest of your skin)
It has caused a permanent narrowing of the tear duct and it cannot drain the excess fluid away. The way tear dut flushing works is to thread a tube through it and force the blockage down. If the ducts are as narrow as the vet thinks, it’s probably not going to improve her overall problem.

Now.
My rabbit was given a diagnosis similar to this. He had weepy eyes, they unblocked the tear ducts and his eyes remained weepy-the scarring was extensive.

He was given that diagnosis in January, and I began a life with a rabbit with chronic weepy eyes,
I got him a mate in the end, who was amazing for keeping his eyes clean.
It’s ten months later and about a week ago his eyes stopped being runny, for no apparent reason.

In terms of what you can do-how often do you dry her eyes?
I found that it was not enough to dry them, I used warm water(boiled to sterilize then allowed to cool) and using cotton pads I thoroughly washed away all of the discharge from his eyes , then after that was done, excess water was removed with dry cotton and dabbed with tissue. I made sure it was absolutely dry aswell, and this was done morning and evening everyday.
After that I would leave it for a few minutes to let the skin get the air, and then would also add a very thin layer of vaseline to stop the moisture getting to the skin.
During the day he would get sporadic eye drying, so I left tissue near his cage, and everytime I walked past dabbed his eyes dry.
And additional vaseline if there was irritation that i could see.

It’s important that the skin is given access to air when dry so do be sure to wash off the vaselin thoroughly

[Tessa]

Thank you for the advice! I will try some of the techniques that you described.

As far as what I do for her now, I dry her eye with tissues throughout the day and wash the surrounding fur with a saline solution once or twice a day, which is what was recommended to me by the shelter.  The fur around her eye will become wet and clumped up from her excessive tearing, and washing it helps to remove some of the buildup from her tears.  I then comb out the fur and dab it with a cottonball until dry.

Daisy and Casper are not yet bonded, but while they are together he will occasionally try to clean her affected eye.  However, he is usually a bit rough and she ends up jumping away, so I fear that his attempts at grooming are actually worsening the problem, and that he may be pulling out some of her fur.  Hopefully in time, he will become gentler.

I will try putting a little vaseline on the red, irritated areas, and see if that seems to help.  Thank you again!

[Dface]

You’re welcome!
As a side note, I would actually advice against saline solution. Saline is used to sterilize the area, as it prevents bacteria from colonizing it, but the unfortunate side effect if it is prolonged use is that it actually can become corrosive (I’ve used it on piercings and on my rabbit and i found that it ended up causing skin irritation to both of us if used long enough and not completely washed off)
you might notice a white almost crust like formation aaround the eyes, that’s sticky in the fur but comes off in a fashion like powder? That is a build up of salt residue from tears(and other associated tear substances), Sampras(my bun) had a lot of it, and it took a lot of time to get it all off of the fur and the skin, but it meant he never lost the fur around his eyes(thankfully)

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