mystery illness

[mollypeppa]

Our dwarf rabbit “Molly” started getting lumps on her back so we took her to the vet. The vet shaved back her fur in places and revealed that they were abscesses and drained them. The following week the abscesses were back and bigger. Most notably a large one on her cheek had sprung up. The vet instructed us to drain them daily, cover with anticeptic cream, give her an anti inflammatory orally, and injected her with penicillin. The vet explained that she had no idea what the cause was but that it should clear up. She gave us another shot of penicillin to take home and inject 5 days later, which we did. We also stopped allowing Molly to play outside in case she was allergic to something or was eating a poisonous plant or something. We also made sure she was cool as its quite hot where we live. A few weeks later and the abscesses have appear to have scabbed over and are healing. Great. Then a week after that i find new lumps forming under the old healing scabs! Even worse, 3 golf ball size ones pop up on her neck almost overnight. Back to Vet who still has no idea but says the lumps are more abscesses, gives me a different oral anti biotic and tells me to come back in 2 weeks to have them surgically removed. In the last week all lumps have doubled in size. Poor Molly looks terrible and hates me for all the squeezing, yucky tasting medicine, and general harassment she’s been getting. At this stage im not sure surgery is realistic. She has so many to lumps (about 8 or 10) we’d have to have multiple surgeries and it’s just not affordable. We’ve already spent a fortune for no result. We have another rabbit who is fine, we’re careful with her diet, and besides looking lumpy Molly seems quite happy and bright eyed. Our vet has contacted colleagues who are all stumped. Obviously we will get a biopsy done when the 1st surgery is done but has anyone ever heard of this before?

[LongEaredLions]

Abscesses tend to be very resilient, but this does sound yucky.
Since they keep coming back from the inside, my guess is they are not getting flushed out properly. Abbesses need to heal from the inside out, and if not flushed out properly will just reform. I would see if you can visit another vet for another opinion. I would wonder what the cause is…

[mollypeppa]

I was squeezing them out daily then rubbing and annticeptic cream right into the ‘crater’ left behind. But yes, i agree they havnt been flushed out properly. These things are so huge now i dont have the heart to keep squeezing her. I was surprised at how thick and paste-like rabbit puss is!
Unfortunately we live in a remote town and get a mix of locum vets. Getting a biopsy done now so we know what we’re looking at and then she’ll go under the knife. Did some research on poisonous plants for rabbits and read “anything with bulbs”. We have a few in the garden where we used to let her run and she’s clearly been eating them. So my suspicion is plant poisoning but i actually dont know what a symptom of that would be? As i write she just cracked out a huge binkie so still seems happy

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