My bunny Milo passed away on October 24th, as some of you might know already from my previous posts he had Pasteurella for about a year prior that never fully went away I did manage to keep it in a controlled state though with using Echinacea. His eyes every once in a while would start to get gooky/red and irritated and I began to see what looked like facial asymmetry on the one side of his face, which is the exact same side where the Pasteurella started to affect his left nostril before it became both nostrils. During this year Milo was treated with 3 Penicillin G shots once a week for three weeks (suspected spyphillis) as his genitals were looking inflamed, now I know this can actually go hand in hand with Pasteurella as this happened again before he died. Azithromycin, Baytril, and Doxycyline. Not one of these medications ever cleared it up and I was told that it was probably chronic snuffles at that point and it probably would never completely clear up. I refused to believe that, I know that isn’t true. Long story short, I had to push pretty hard for him to get these medications when I was told he would need them every few months for his pasteurella, as the vet I was taking him to was now convinced he was showing symptoms of E. Cuniculi, which was hard to determine as A). He was albino B) He was doing very frequent what looked like head scanning but also at the same time it was very rapid and did not look normal. The vet did a culture at the time I think on his nasal discharge, and then later said it was his ear, she used a q tip to check for mites/any infection at the time because he was frequently itching and shaking his ears. No mites, nothing at the time but for some reason put down a diagnoses later on that she found otitis externa (this was false) and never communicated to me at the time.
June 2021, I noticed what looked like yellow/white pus in his left ear (the same side as everything else that was being affected) I brought Milo back to the vet, I asked several times to have a sensitive culture done for his ear and each time I was ignored until the week before he passed on. Very sad. So this was allowed to go on for months, I was never referred anywhere else. Milo never had any bloodwork done, x-rays, c-t scans, no ear flushing done early on, no dental work, nothing. The vet never actually even once used a flashing or otoscope to look in his ear. These things were never offered to me even when I asked about his teeth and getting them fully checked, I was always given the same medication, goat dewormer fenbendazole and always repeats of antibiotics (baytril, doxycycline) when they did feel like giving them to me. Later on when I received the results after his passing, he tested positive for pseudomonas aeruginosa, the baytril was resistant, I guess that is why his ear would always begin to clear up and then get worse again. There was also tresaderm for a week as well as an ear solution I had to use all of the time to clean his ears.
His condition went downhill rapidly in the beginning of October. He began to have a head tilt, lose balance, had GI Stasis, an inflamed infected eye, and then began circling until he began rolling (the rolling occurred in-between my first vet visit). Milo could no longer walk at this point. I was syringe feeding him water and critical care, giving him metaclompramide, metacam, MORE dewormer, Doxycycline again, followed by Baytril again (Just in case of an ear infection) yeah ok. I would say he was pulling through the stasis pretty well but what I didn’t know at the time and I did not know until I saw Milo’s medical history was that he had Cachexia (muscle loss and wasting). I could not figure out why he was losing muscle and weight so rapidly, the vet told me on his first visit he was dehydrated, they gave him lactated ringers, she still continued to tell me he was a little dehydrated despite me doing everything to give him water, and never again gave him any more lactated ringers. There was a point during the first two weeks around October 11th and onwards… that Milo began to lift his head up for water and his whole body, that he was trying to kind of scooch around using his back legs but could only really propel his body forward, he was putting his face into my hand after feedings, and showing signs of trying to move around and now interested in eating hay and pellets for me, but still he could not drink water on his own no matter what I put the water in. His Pasteurella was the worst I had ever seen it during this time, I was round the clock clearing his nose and even putting water into the air with some vicks, he was sneezing a lot (which is one of the symptoms when i first brought him in with the rolling) and his chest sounded rattly. I asked what I could do for this to the vet who more or less told me “nothing” and I knew, they could do “something”. Somehow the pasteurella seemed to start calming down, however… Milo’s weight loss was bad as well as muscle. He went from 4 pounds straight down to 3, and he was a holland lop.
The first time I noticed something was really off before all of this started was when I found a puddle of urine under my bed which Milo never did or peed outside of his litter box. On and off he was also having some urine stain on his feet/legs. I had always had to clean his butt as he had a problem with sticky poops anyways. I was never able to figure out what was causing it but I do know if he was given a little sugary treat it would set it off. He would drink a lot and pee a lot for a while, I believe I mentioned this to the vet but not really sure what was the cause unless he was having renal troubles/or possible uti/bladder stone… he never appeared to be struggling while peeing and I never saw a lot of calcium or anything.
The night before he passed away and the day before, his awareness did seem a bit dull, he wasn’t trying to put his head into my hand anymore after feedings, he was still taking the critical care quite happily for me, but other than that, he wasn’t trying to move anymore, his breathing looked a bit staggerish, he started emitting what looked like a watery mushy poop (when he first had the gi stasis he passed two abnormally big poops matted with my hair and his) and weird big squishy poops every morning thereafter) it was very watery looking and smelled bad, I was doing everything everyday to keep his butt dry as he was urinating on puppy pads (and very frequently when I gave him water) I read in dehydrated rabbits you wouldn’t be seeing them pee a whole lot, well Milo was despite the vet saying he still seemed dehydrated (via the skin tent test). His genitals looked a bit red as well, probably irritation just from everything, I was very good about making sure he was always on a clean puppy pad, the only time that would have been an issue was when I finally went to sleep at night but I made sure he peed before I went to bed each night. Another weird thing, I don’t believe he had peed since 5pm the night before he passed away, I still don’t understand that at all unless his kidneys totally malfunctioned as well as all of his organs. I gave him metacam and metaclopramide and baytril as usual, the dewormer earlier in the day, when I woke around 8:30 the next day he was gone. One thing I did notice is he had his mouth open slightly on and off in-between the Pasteurella, with his teeth kind of clenched together, he only seemed to do this mostly when his nose was blocked and would go back to normal afterwards. When he passed on, his mouth was back into this kind of position. His top cheeks on his lips looked a reddish color, his lips only looked faintly purple.
My thoughts are that, because he couldn’t seem to hear me anymore, he had ototoxicity and or deafness from such a poorly treated ear infection, this probably ruptured his tympanic membrane in his ear, and allowed the nasty infection of pseudomonas to travel up into his cerebral region. I believe it caused sepsis/encephalitis. The vet noted that nystagmus won’t be seen if the rabbit is moving its head side to side, its only in the eyes, and also put it down to some “seizure activity” which I don’t believe was the case. He was also diagnosed with “otitis externa” somehow in the notes on 10/4/21 right when everything began. I’m more than certain he had otitis interna/media which caused a slew of issues as well as the Pasteurella and muscle and weight wasting. I believe all these conditions on their own, made him very weak and he could not keep up anymore.
I was just wondering if anyone here had any other thoughts or insight into what else may have occurred, I especially don’t understand why his urine stopped the last night and the random mushy stools. I also wanted to note I had taken Milo to another vet when I became very frustrated with the one I was seeing, the other at least looked into Milo’s ear but then he was prescribed albon for “cocci” bacteria which I saw albon is also used for coccidia which is weird when it was his ear that was cultured, as well as prescribed tresaderm again. I didn’t feel I was getting much better help here either, I really had no choice but to go back to this main vet as there was little to nothing around in exotic vets.
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