my Ollie’s poor watery eyes and nose

[BunBun Mom]

Hi everyone 🙂 first off, thank you for being here. Many times I visit your Forum to have my questions answered but this time I can’t seem to find what I am looking for, so here I am. My Ollie (an 11 year old mini lop) has been battling a stuffy nose sneezing and watery eyes for some time. He has been on azithromycin before and now Baytril but always it seems to come back. He has had xrays & a dental exam and all seem fine. He has been on Baytril for a month and a half now and his symptoms seem to be leveling out; however, I just noticed when I went to wipe his eyes he has a bit of an sore by his eyes, from what I can only assume is the tears that run from them? He does have a bonded friend, Willie, who is good about cleaning his eyes and I am wondering if that could be attributed to the sore there. In any case, I’ll leave going to the vet in a couple days but in the meantime is there something I can put on his owwie by his eye or should I just leave it alone? Thank you for any thoughts and help on really anything mentioned here 🙂

[Bam]

You can put plain neosporin cream on sores, but not the kind that has a painkiller added (toxic to rabbits). Or just leave it alone, you can rinse it with human eye wash (saline). Sometimes rabbits do over-groom ecah other, so the bonded mate could very well be the culprit.

As for the runny nose an eyes – the immune defense is always a little less good in the elderly (and 11 years – admirable age!!! – is elderly for a bun). That means funghi and bacteria have better chances to take hold. Some buns (as well as some people, and dogs and probably other species as well) need to be on life-long antibiotics, because their own immune defense isn’t strong enough to fight off infections. Antibiotics have an immuno-modulatory effect as well as a bactericidal (meaning abx helps the immune defense perform better, at the same time as they also kill bacteria). Some of the bacteria that cause runny nose/eyes in rabbits are very difficult to get at with antibiotics, because they have the ability to go into a dormant state and/or to excrete a certain enzyme that stops the abx from working.

[BunBun Mom]

Thank you for all that great information 🙂 I appreciate you mentioning the possibility of lifelong antibiotics because that was another question of mine too… I didn’t know if it would be possible given their rather touchy gi system. He is currently on Baytril now but think the azithromycin he was on before was working better… is that ok for long term as well? Again, thank you for your help!

[Bam]

I don’t know if azithromycin is suitable for long-term treatment. It is the same type of antibiotic as Baytril (enrofloxacine), but it has some additional action on anaerobic bacteria (bacteria that don’t need oxygen) so it could potentially be more useful in treating bunny URIs. 

I think you could ask your vet why Ollie was put on Baytril instead of azithromycin, if you felt the azitromycin was more effective. It could be the (known) risk of azithromycin killing off such a lot of the good GI bacteria that really bad bacteria (f ex clostridium difficile) can “hi-jack” and colonize the gut, which can be lethal, because those bad bacteria produce very harmful toxins. This can happen with erytromycin too, but it seems the risk is lower-I’m not at all sure though. Baytril is generally first choice abx for many bunny ailments caused by bacteria.

Here’s a little bit of info from the House Rabbit Society about appropriate use of antibiotics in rabbits:

 http://www.rabbit.org/health/antibiotics.html

[BunBun Mom]

Again, thank you for all that great information! I will be sure to ask about the switch at his appointment today.

[Bam]

Best of luck with the appointment! (((((Ollie))))) We’d very much appreciate an update!

[Author]

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