Medical advice for abscesses?

[Gina]

Hi girls-  I have been very busy this past month with my bunny Chewy.  If you may remember, I was concerned that her jaw abscess came back.  They operated, but fluid was filling back up after the operation because of the irritation.  They opened her back up again, and they put a drain in.  It looks terrible, it looks like 2 pieces of penne pasta are coming out of the sides of her neck.    My poor frankenstein bunny.  They plan on keeping the drain in for about 5 more days.  In the mean time, I have to put hot packs on it twice a day to hopefully keep the drainage happening but nothing is really coming out.

I know its a long shot, but maybe someone here knows.  My vet won’t be in until Monday.  Would it help if I did the hot packs more often?  Should I massage the area or will that make it worse?  How hot should the compresses be?  I have been using a warm washcloth.

I know if this doesn’t work, she is done for.  (tear!)   She means so much to us.  I don’t know why, but I feel this way more about her than my other bunnies.  Maybe because i rescued her myself, I dunno…

[jerseygirl]

You mentioned in another thread she has a lower jaw abscess. I’m just curious, are the drains on the same side?

If the fluid has turned to pus, I wouldn’t have thought heat would help it drain. Rabbits get that thick pus – you may be familiar!
Are they doing any flushed with a medical solution or able to access the abscess site to scrape it out since the operation?

[Kafrn]

My bunny has just been through all of this also. So many vets told us to put her to sleep, until we found this one awesome vet who has put her onto flagyl.
The puss is like a thick cheese and would not drain. For months i had to squeeze my bunnies cheeks every hour and all the puss would come out her nose and she would be ok for another hour until we had to do it again. Now that she’s on flagyl, .5 ml twice daily, it has made the puss go like water, and there is much less of it, so it drains itself now.
Our vet says not to use drains for puss because it is too thick to drain. But stu is lucky because her nose is acting like a natural drain. With your bunny mYbe you can either flush it out with a saline solution in the drains, which works really well, or get bunny on to an antibiotic that loosens the cheese.
Is the infection near her lungs or esophagus now? Is that why they are draining through the neck?

[LittlePuffyTail]

Just wanted to send your bunny some ((((((Get WELL))))))) vibes. Hang in there!

[Gina]

I was checking this post for days and all of a sudden I had 3 responses!  Thank you girls!

Her drain is coming out both sides of her neck, not sure why.  We are praying that the doctor says that it looks positive tomorrow.

They have done the scraping before but its definetly in the bone.  He said it looked positive this last time because it was very liquid-y.

I have never heard of Flagyl before.  Maybe you can tell me a little more about it?  Where is your bunny’s abscess?

[jerseygirl]

Flagyl is also known as metronidazole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metronidazole

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