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Urgent: Red Eye Membranes, spread to other eye. Unsure if vet gave proper treatment

22 10:06:52

Question

Norman's eye
Hello -

I have a buck who recently started having the membrane around his eye turn swollen. I took him to the first vet available in our area ASAP (she doesn't see rabbits often) and she prescribed Quadritop Ointment which is made up of Nystatin, Neomycin Sulfate and Thiostrepton. She believed it to be a fungal issue, or that he was just rubbing his eye too much.

My concern is that whatever is causing this swollen eye has now been transferred to his other eye, and his original eye is getting more swollen and red. I have attached a picture of what his eye, the one originally affected, looks like now (4 days after seeing the vet). His eyes were never weeping and they still aren't; what you see on his fur in the picture is the ointment he's rubbed on himself when grooming. There's also a bald patch of skin on his back that's almost like scar tissue but is crusty, the vet told me to put the same cream for the eye on that patch. I don't know if it's related at all to his eye. He's eating and acting normal but I am very concerned that nothing has changed and that it might be something else. He is an indoor rabbit and we do have another rabbit in the cage with him who is not exhibiting these symptoms at all.

Thank you so much for your time, I greatly look forward to hearing from you-
Brittney

Answer
Dear Brittney,

You need to get Norman to a veterinarian who is more familiar with rabbit medicine, and will take him more seriously as a patient.  He needs better diagnostic work than just a casual look and a pronunciation that this is a "fungus."  If it's fungus, then why did the vet prescribe antibiotics, which will *not* address a fungal infection, and in fact can make a fungal infection *worse*!

There are many possibilities:  bacterial infection, mites, rabbit syphilis (any lesions on the lips or nose?).  Each of these has a different treatment, and will not respond to the wrong medications.  If you were in the UK or Europe, I would be worried about myxomatosis, but this is not found commonly in the U.S., except in a few areas in northern California.  If the vet can't determine what's wrong from a physical exam, then a small biopsy might help, with the sample sent to a good lab for histopathology.

But in any case, you need a vet who will really try to find out what's going on.  Check the list here:

www.rabbit.org/vets

Once the problem is identified, appropriate treatment can be prescribed.

I hope this helps.

Dana