URGENT...need help with female bunny whose sickness can not be figured out. been to vet 4 times.

Question
Hi,
  I am hoping you can help me or at least give me some insight to the problem with my pet bunny.  My pet bunny's name is Mattison. She will be four on jan 24th. She is a mini lop.  I have taken her to the vet four times and the vet is still not sure what is wrong with her.  I love my vet but there are no real rabbit vet experts near me in montana. my vet has had rabbits before and when she can't figure things out she looks up things on internet. Mattison has been acting lethargic and less ambitous then usual.  She does not run and jump around like she usally does.  She lays by my bed at night and sneezes and sniffles.  Her eating is still normal as well as her stool. Her eyes have what seems like a normal white discharge and occasionally her noise has a clear discharge but does not happen that often.  When i had taken her to the vet the first couple times she had a high fever and we kept an eye on it and last week at the vet it was normal.  We thought she was sitting in her plate of salad greens everyday to cool herself off.  I find it odd that she sleeps on the salad greens and even started sleeping in her litter box. I even caught her eating her stool and it was not the soft ones they are suppose to eat it was the hard ones.  The vet has done xrays, blood work and several exams.  Everything came up normal except she had to file her back teeth down. Oh, i also forgot to mention that Mattison is frequently grinding her teeth or moving her mouth alot.  The last visit to the vet she decided maybe she had a sinus infection so the vet gave her a steroid shot and gave me an antihistime to give to her daily.  Mattison still seems less active and still moving her mouth constantly but her sniffling seems better.  I have done several searches on the internet and so has the vet trying to figure stuff out. On rabbit.org i found a scary article about thorax masses.  Do you think this could be Mattison's problem or would the xrays show the mass?  Do you have any idea what could be wrong? I feel helpless trying to figure this out.  Thank you so much for your time!

Answer
Dear Melissa,

I'm not sure why your vet didn't put two and two together here.  I high fever and pus-like discharge add up to bacterial infection.  Was Mattison put on antibiotics?  If not, I would suggest this be done IMMEDIATELY.  Baytril (or ciprofloxacin) and *injectable* dual-acting Penicillin G Procaine/Benzathine are safe and usually effective against abscesses originating in the head.  NO oral penicillins such as amoxycillin, as those are deadly to rabbits.

For pain, which she clearly seems to be having, metacam is safe.  But if the pain is severe, then a shot of Banamine can really help.  It is approved for horses, but also good for rabbits, though not for dogs and cats.

If she is working her mouth, please see:

www.bio.miami.edu/hare/dental.html

Also see:

www.bio.miami.edu/hare/sickbun.html

Steroids are really not recommended for rabbits.  I hope you can use the list here to find a vet who is more experienced with rabbits and who can help with proper diagnosis and treatment:

www.rabbit.org/vets

I hope Mattison will be better soon!

Dana