SAFETY OF LONG TERM USE OF ZITHROMAX ON RABBIT

Question
Hi. Thank you in advance for helping me with this. I have a 7 year old english
angora spayed female who has lived with chronic sneezing, runny eyes, nasal
discharge in varying degrees on and off for at least 3 years now. Her brother,
who passed away this last december (at age 7) had the same symptoms. I did
do a culture & sensitivity on him and it came back positive for a few things,
one being pseudomonas. He passed away from a tumor in his small intestine.
She, however, has been on injectables, compounded cipro, baytril, naxel and
now zithromax 1.5cc/day of the 200mg/ml 15ml bottle. I have seen more
results with this, but she has been on it for at least a month now. I am about
to switch vets and am wondering if I should continue to push for her to
remain on this. We have not tried amikacin or tetracycline (which we were just
about to try when the vet thought we should give zithromax one more
try)...she had been on that before as well. She still sneezes, but much less
than before. Her eyes still leak a bit at times and her nose is primarily dry
now. I was just wondering if I am causing OTHER internal problems by the
length of time on this drug. What do you think? Thanks so much! Rebecca &
Tater

Answer
Dear Rebecca,

Staying on long-term antibiotics of any kind isn't a great thing, and should be done only if the bunny is utterly miserable without them.  Eventually, you may breed resistant bacteria that just don't die in the presence of the antibiotic that's been given for weeks or months.

Zithromax (azithromycin) can cause some adverse side effects pretty soon after being started, with most common side effect being inappetance.  No one really knows the long term effects of this drug in rabbits, so I won't pretend to know, either.  :(  

Note that many rabbits with chronic URI are suffering from a blockage in the maxillary sinus, and no matter what antibiotics you use, the problem will be chronic for life.  We have a bunny who was rotating every conceivable antibiotic for this, and I finally just took him off altogether when he was sneezing big, white snot balls despite all the meds.

And you know what?  He's *better*!  I suspect that all the antibiotics really mess with the normal, healthy flora that helps keeps opportunistic pathogens at bay.  Just a thought.

I hope this helps.

Dana