Eye Injury + Healing. **WARNING** GRAPHIC PICTURES BEHIND LINK INCLUDED

[MeketatenBun]

Hello everyone. Two weeks ago Meketaten hurt her eye somehow. My boyfriend and I left the house and when we came back four hours later, her eye was suddenly swollen shut and oozing white discharge. We still aren’t sure what caused it, but I’d like to post what happened and how we treated it to maybe help someone else who this happens to. I got the idea of posting it because as I was frantically searching the web, I found a similar post on another bunny forum of a pet rabbit who had an ulcer resulting from a kick from his companion. That post helped me believe that it was possible she would get through this. I read over the forum rules and hope this is within the rules to post this topic. 

To clarify: this post is in no way meant to be used as a substitute for veterinary care, nor is it meant to dictate exactly how a rabbit should be cared for in similar circumstances as all eye injuries need immediate veterinary care that is tailored to your bunny’s specific needs!!

Day 1 Day 1 Day 1

On Sunday August 14th (her birthday of all days) I left the house with her looking completely healthy and came back a few hours later to these pictures. I first noticed something was wrong because she wouldn’t open her eye. Upon further inspection, I found how swollen her eyelids were while trying to open her eye manually (first picture). There was a lot of white discharge that had to be cleaned every few hours. Under a fluorescent stain, the vet found no scratches, abrasions, or ulcers. We all assume she whacked her face on something causing her eye to become inflamed, but didn’t actually cut her eye in anyway. The vet prescribes gentamicin drops twice a day and enrofloxacin twice a day as well. Warm compresses are suggested both to help clean the fur around her eye, but to alleviate swelling. While the vet could tell there were no abrasions, he could not properly see her pupil due to the severe swelling.

Day 8 Day 8

On Sunday August 21st, her eye is opening much easier, but now I’m seeing this horrible cloud of white covering her eye. Fearing the worst, I’m thinking the infection was too strong and now she’s going blind. Another call to the vet says that he saw that cloudiness when he was inspecting her eye and that he’s certain it will go away. However, after a week I should be seeing much more improvement than this and that he wants her in for another recheck.

On Wednesday the 24th at her recheck, the vet noted that while she is overall improving, the swelling in her lids is still pronounced, her pupil is smaller than in her good eye, and that the cloudiness is (I think he said this) the pus/discharge attaching itself to her cornea to heal; he is still adamant that it will go away with time. He noted blood vessels are forming between her iris and cornea with assume healing is underway, however she is not where she should be. He’s not completely ruling out e.cuniculi or pasteurella, but noting how fast this happened and how it’s only affecting her one eye with no other issues present, he chooses to treat this as an injury/infection. If I see no improvement, we may have to take more drastic measures for other treatments. The vet prescribed gentamicin to 3 drops a day, flurbiprofen drops 3 times a day, enrofloxacin twice a day, and metacam once daily (boy does this stuff stink!!). 

Day 16 Day 16

This is Sunday August 28th. I was feeling pretty heartbroken because I haven’t seen much improvement since starting her new medication regime. Her eye is still clouded over heavily, but I’m noticing brown along the edges. Hoping that’s her iris and the cloudiness is going away. Vet plans to call on Wednesday to check in on her, trying not to freak out because I’m seeing no improvement.

Day 19 Day 19 Day 19

While giving her her meds this morning, I noticed her eyes appeared more clear than they have been. Taking her into more light, I snapped these pictures. The improvement these past few days are the best I’ve seen these two weeks! It appears the brown I thought I saw on Sunday was most likely blood vessels rushing to heal the eye, there’s an area on the top of her eye where the white looks to be completely gone and I can see her pupil again. There’s still that big glob of white, but I’m sure that will be the last to go away because it’s so thick. I’ve yet to hear from the vet today, but I will keep this thread updated with her healing.

Like I said, I wanted to post this in case anyone else’s rabbit goes through something similar. It’s scary when our pets are sick, especially when it’s something as delicate as their eye. I’m hoping this post can bring hope and maybe answers to someone who may be dealing with an eye injury.

[MeketatenBun]

Update: I just got off the phone with the vet and he confirms it sounds like she is getting better. We set up an appointment for her to get checked again in two weeks, but he’ll call again next wednesday to be certain. He mentioned the blood vessels starting to cover her eye are very good and that they will probably cover her eye before receding. We will be keeping her on the same medication regime until her next vet visit when we will begin to wean them off.

I’m so happy I could do binkies myself! When this happened I was so, so scared, but now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it sounds like my baby (6 year old) girl is going to be okay!

[LBJ10]

This is completely fine. In fact, it’s great! Very informative. I’m glad to hear there has been tons of improvement. I think this will give others hope if they come here looking for info on a similar situation.

[Bam]

Totally agree with LBJ, this is great – very useful + hope-inspiring. Thank you for posting it!

Continued-healing-vibes for (((((Mekateten))))))

[MeketatenBun]

Update: One month! Sorry for the long response without updating, but her medication and healing has been pretty steady these past two weeks.

Today marks one month since Meki’s incident and she just got back from a vet appointment! The vet was very excited to see how well she’s been healing. The past two weeks have shown an increase of blood vessels covering her eye, then receding, and my concern was that the receding vessels seemed to leave her eye cloudy again. While looking at it, the vet believed it to just be scar tissue, but to be certain he took a scraping of the cloudiness (which looks kind of red now because he did it with a razor!!! I was squirming more than Meki was, lol) and confirmed no inflamed cells or bacteria – just healing scar tissue! The swelling in her eyelid is normal, her pupil is back to normal, and there are far fewer vessels covering her eye. The ones left are going towards the scar tissue so it should be healing up. I can now take her off of Metacam (oh man, she’s gonna be so happy) and I will finish the last few doses in the bottle of her enrofloxacin. We are reducing the gentamicin and flurbiprofen eye drops from three times to twice a day.

A concern that has popped up, which may or may not be related, is red urine she has had the past few days. I have been feeding her carrots a lot lately to win back her love from the medication, so it may be that. The vet also noted that sometimes in dogs and cats the Metacam can affect platelet count, and now that she is going to be off Metacam to keep an eye out to see if the red urine goes away. She is an intact female, so I am fairly concerned. The vet, however, doesn’t seem too concerned at this point and told me to let him know if the coloring of the urine continues! 

In the pictures, it’s hard to see the extent of the scar tissue. It’s actually just a 3mmx3mm spot on the left side of her pupil in these pictures – the rest is a weird reflection from the lighting in my bathroom that makes it look much bigger

[Vienna Blue in France]

Poor sweetheart. I didn’t see the post the first time around….. How on earth did she do that? What a mystery. So glad she seems to be getting better!!! Well done you with the daily meds.

[MeketatenBun]

We still have no idea exactly how she did it! The vet was mentioning today that he was certain that there was no scratch on her eye, but here she healed with a medicine regime to treat a laceration. Inspecting her cage, I’m thinking the only thing that could have happened was her wire hay rack has hooks on both top sides, I have no idea why. But while getting hay, she must have turned her head, sensed something near her eye and closed it, and whacked her closed eye on the hay rack… that’s my only guess! So I’ve taken her hay rack out for now, put her hay on the floor of her cage, and plan to either try to bend the hooks down or just get her a wooden rack or something else to hold her hay. Regardless, I am SO happy that she healed nicely. When it first happened, the vet was ruling out having to remove her eye, or e. cuniculi, or other scary possibilities!

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