Chewing Noise Emergency

Question
My bunny is 7 years old and has been experiencing multiple dental problems.  I have spent close to $1,000 going on surgeries alone, and nothing has worked.  It first started 6 months ago when I noticed her drooling.  I took her to the animal hospital and they told me she had overgrown teeth. I then got her teeth filed.  After that she grew an abscess.  They removed on of her front top teeth and drained the abscess.  Less than a month later another abscess grew and a different vet found part of the tooth still in my bunny's mouth that the previous vet "removed."  She went through surgery again to actually remove the tooth this time and drain the abscess again.  They also had to remove a molar.  The vet was afraid that we would have to remove almost all of her molars due to how over grown her roots were. She decided to try just filing them down periodically to see if that would fix the problem.  My bunny's roots have grown so far that I can feel them in her jaw.  She said we shouldn't have to file her teeth down again for a few months, but now she is not eating very often, and she is making a constant chewing sound (which from my research means that she is in pain).  What should I do????

Answer
Dear Lindsey,

It's not as likely that the source of your bunny's pain is the intrusion of her molar roots.  It's more likely to be inflammation from incipient infection.

In all of the treatments your bunny has gone through, I don't see any mention of antibiotics.  If she has had abscesses, this would be pretty much imperative to ensure full remission of her problem.  Most of our rabbit vets will prescribe injections of dual-acting penicillin every 48 hours for as long as it takes to resolve the abscesses.  I just heard of one bunny who has been on it for five years (and counting) and is doing great.

If you're not sure your current vet is up on the latest rabbit dental medicine, please use the list here:

www.rabbit.org/vets

to find another rabbit-savvy vet for a second opinion.

Hope this helps.

Dana