protecting his eye injury from himself

Question
I have a large lop eared bunny named Benny who got a cat scratch on his third eye lid a couple weeks ago. We went to the vet and got antibiotics for the infection and the vet snipped off a little sliver of hanging tissue. It seemed like he was healing just perfectly until last night. I came home to find his eyelid bleeding and slightly swollen again. Im guessing it is because he scratched at it. How can I protect his eye from himself while it heals? I know that he would panic if I put one of those cones on him so I don't want to do that, but its not like i can just throw a bandage around his head :( any suggestions? and do you have any suggestions on how to keep it from getting reinfected? Thank you so much for your time.

Answer
Dear Reggie,

Rabbits do not do well with E-collars, so I would not recommend that.  And I would not assume that Benny injured the eye himself.  It could be that the antibiotics are not doing the job, and he has suffered a relapse for some other reason.  I have really never known a rabbit to scratch at an eye injury so strongly that he damaged himself.  It just doesn't seem likely after he's been healing for this long.

If this were my bunny, I would take him back to the vet for examination and appropriate treatment.  If the cat is your own pet, then I hope the cat didn't do another number on your bunny.  :(  This has been known to happen with playful cats, and their resident bacteria can be *deadly* to rabbits.  If there is a possibility of a re-injury from the cat, and the bunny is not still on antibiotics, I would consider this an emergency and get him back to the vet right away for treatment.

I hope this helps.

Dana