Problems after sterilization - not urgent situation.

Question
Dear Mrs Dana Kempel.....
I got my first two rabbits in springtime this year. They live in our house and garden as free rabbits.
When I wanted to have our female rabbit sterilized, it was difficult to find a vet who wanted to do it, but finally I found someone who has a special interest in rabbits, and how to sedate them properly.
My female rabbit stayed 24 hours by the vet after the sterilization, before she returned home.
After her home-coming, both her ear, where the sedation-needle had been placed and her throat swelled to nearly double size. After 3 or 4 days the swelling came down - the ear was normal - the throat still a bit swelled compared to before the sterilization.

Her ear started to dry out in a size of 2x2,5 cm around the place where the sedation-needle had been placed. The needle-place was near the backside of her ear, and also the edge of the ear dried out. The vet asked me to check the varmth of her ear. I should contact the vet if some areas of her ear turned cold. The vet could not tell me the reason of the drying out the back-side of the ear and why my female-rabbit suddenly had a thicker throat than before the sterilization.

Our rabbit had some painful days, but her ears stayed warm.
The places where the ear dried out became very stiff and hard.
After 4-5 weeks, I saw that the ear healed around the stiff and dried out places, and some days ago the dried places simply fell off.

My question is if you have heared about problems like this before?.......can it be a reaction of the sedation?
And her thicker throat......do you have an idea of why that happened after a sterilization ??

My problem is that I don't dare to let her under sedation again......?

I look forward to know what you think about this.

I'm sorry for my poor English :-)

Yours sincerely

Trine.
Denmark.  

Answer
Dear Trine,

Wow.  It does not sound as if the vet who did this surgery was very experienced with rabbits.  I have never known a vet to put a catheter in the ear for any reason, and it appears that the catheter damaged the vascularization of the ear in that area badly enough that the area necrosed and was lost.

If the vet intubated the rabbit for gas anesthesia, then it's possible a tube too large for her trachea was used, causing inflammation and swelling.  This is very painful and miserable, and I'm glad your bunny has recovered well from this.

I would be very reluctant to ever let that vet do surgery on my rabbit again. I am not sure you can find a more rabbit-savvy vet on this list here:

www.rabbit.org/vets

but I would try, in case you ever need medical help for your bunny again.  

The vast majority of rabbit-savvy vets in the U.S. use an injectable pre-medication such as buprenorphine, and then just gas anesthetic administered with a mask, not via intubation.  Intubation is better, but only if the tube is the right size and the vet can intubate without traumatizing the rabbit.  Sounds as if your rabbit suffered undue trauma from this procedure.  :(

I hope she will be well from now on.

Dana