Sick bun - ears and eyes

Question
Dear Expert,
I'd be really grateful for an experienced opinion on my little 6 month old lop, Bob.
Most recently he has been depressed, and stopped eating and drinking.  I noticed he was going to his food bowl and sniffing/ mouthing the pellets, but was unwilling or unable to eat them.  So I have been making a soft mush of pellets and water, which has is now eating.  But he still won't drink.
He is still urinating a little, and poops seem normal.

By way of history, he has been ill from day 1.  The day after we brought him home in January, he had bad diarrhea.  This responded well to 7 days of baytril, but on the final check up the vet picked up an ear infection.  This seemed to respond to 7 days of Canaural - at the final check up the vet said there was a residual plaque of pus in the ear canal, but the infection seemed to have cleared.
So she prescribed 2 weeks of ear cleaning drops, Ottoclean.  The check up after that was fine, but shortly after stopping the ear drops, Bob went back down hill and stopped eating again.

A further vet visit showed the ear infection was back.  The vet did a culture of the pus in his ears, but this came back with 'no growth'.  Possibly because we were still using the ear cleaning drops.
After 10 days of Aurizon, the vet says his ears are looking better - again, just residual plaques of pus in the ear canal.  

However #poor little Bob#, he started squeaky breathing, sneezing and coughing.  So, now Bob's on 4 weeks of oral Baytril, plus the ear cleaning drops again.

And this brings us back to this morning.  Bob seems to have gone further downhill - will now eat mushed up pellets, but won't drink.  This morning his eye was weepy and gunked up.

We live in the middle east, and Bob is a house bunny.  Could the air conditioning be exacerbating his problems?  Could he be so unlucky as to have had #1# diarrhea, #2# 2 ear infections #3# respiratory infection and now #4# teeth/eye problems, all in the space of 3 months?  Or is there likely to be one underlying problem that hasn't been found?  I don't feel like the vet is necessarily doing everything possible for him - the only antibiotic licensed out here for use on rabbits is Baytril, and I get the impression the vet has a sort of 'kill or cure' attitude, and just prescribes that rather than diagnosing the actual problem.

We're off to the vet for another visit today, and I will ask them to look at his teeth.
I'd be really grateful for any advice.

Bob's mum x

Answer
Hi,

sorry to hear your bunny is sick.

To me, it appears that there are several antibiotics and such you have tried that will work against what he's suffering from.  The problem is that the treatment of these problems has been WAY TOO SHORT!!!!  You cannot just treat a rabbit infection for 7-10 days and expect it's gone.  You cannot cure a rabbit in 7-10 days, they are not cats and dogs.

He needs treatments for his problems for at least 30 days.  Since you've started and stopped treatment several times, he may need a second full month of treatment in addition to the first 30 days of treatment with antibiotics, because what you've done by stopping treatments prematurely and leaving bacteria alive, is leave the stronger bacteria alive in him, so he may need 60 days of antibiotics to knock off the bad bacteria he's got.

Baytril is a good broad spectrum antibiotic for rabbits, and since he was improving on it, it's probably okay for use.  He will need whatever the strongest dose of baytril for his weight, for at least 30 days.  He will also need the same amount of Aurizon or Canaural, 30 days, whichever one is safer for him, as both seemed to be effective against his ear infection.

You may need to have the vet give him sub-q fluids because you don't want him dehydrated, that will kill him too.  Make sure the vet gives you another oral syringe so you can, if he's still not drinking on his own, to syringe feed him water - just do it very slowly, you don't want him to get any water in his lungs.  You can always give him a little pedialyte to make him want to drink/drink more.  You normally have to watch sugar but in a critical situation like this he needs liquid to live.

THe infection in his ears and head probably make it painful to chew and move his jaw.  The vet also needs to provide you with pain medicine for him.  Pain manangement in sick rabbits is very critical.  The vet needs to give you about a week's worth of metacam (drug: meloxicam) in order to keep bunny eating and drinking.  When rabbits are in pain, they stop eating and drinking.  He needs to have this.  If the vet can't or won't you'll need to get flavored (cherry is good) baby aspirin, crush one up in a bowl, add 6-7 drops of clean water, suck this liquid into a oral syringe, and give to your rabbit.  The aspirin can help, it won't be a good as metacam - so get the metacam.