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re: answer to rabbit eye problem

22 9:46:49

Question
re: answer to "rabbit eye problem" date 3/3/2012.
Dear Dana,
Thank you for your answer. We took our lop rabbit 'Kenny' to a vet that deals with "exotic animals". She was somewhat helpful,but she did not come across as 'rabbit-savvy'. However, she did advise that we see a vet ophthalmologist and she also prescribed Ciloxam 0.3% #Ciprofloxacin hydrochloride opthalmic solution and ointment antibacterial agent#, at two drops each day for ten days. She told us Kenny has cataracts in both eyes, which is strange for a 3 year old mini lop. She also said his cloudy eye has an ulcer and his retina is no longer convex but now just a thin line of the colored part of the eye, almost concave, when she looked at it sideways. Also there were many blood vessels growing from around his eye toward the center. She did not give us a clear prognosis. As far as we could tell, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the rabbit until almost three weeks ago when his eye got scratched by our other rabbit overtop on his brow and his eye ball became infected again. We have plans to go to the eye vet tomorrow. Other people have recommended drugs like Acetylsystine  for ulcer damage or chloramphenicol for a much longer period of around 2 months. What do you think of these drugs? And what do you think about what the vet told us? Should we ask the vet eye doc about these other two drugs? And what do you think about the vet prescribing ciloxan, even with the ulcer? And what would the prognosis be for the concave coloured part of the eye and ulcer? She also said that there is a tear dropped shaped 'sac' around the ulcer that is probably holding bacteria. I know these are a lot of questions, but you were always right in the past and we really respect your opinion. We want to try, as much as possible, to save Kenny's eye. Thank you

Answer
Dear Mimi,

Tough to say what's going on, but I'm glad you can get him to a veterinary opthalmologist.  That's really the best person to know what's going on inside the eye.

As far as acetylcysteine is concerned, it's a mucolytic agent that was proposed to help with corneal ulcer healing by breaking up mucus in the eye.  You can read a paper on an experiment with rabbits here:

www.iovs.org/content/32/11/2958.full.pdf

In short, (1) it depends and (2) the jury's still out.

Ciloxam is safe, and probably a good choice to keep things under control until you can get Kenny to an ophthalmologist.  And by all means ask about all those medications.  Chloramphenicol is rabbit-safe, and might help.  But it's pretty much impossible to get a culture if the infection is actually inside the eyeball.  

I hope all turns out well, and that the vet ophthalmologist can finally prescribe treatment that will resolve Kenny's problem.

Dana