swollen eye

Question
Our male rabbit,Daisy (named prior to proper gender id), is approx. 1 year old and is a "Dutch" type small rabbit.  About 5-6 weeks ago, we noticed his eyeball appearred quite swollen and it didn't look like he could close his eye and part of his eyelid remained visible in the tear duct area of his eye.  We took him to a vet who appears to work on horse sized animals and wasn't too familiar with rabbits.  He gave us some oral antibiotic which we had a hard time administering (finally figured it out on the last dose) and of which we ran out quite early.  The eye does not appear quite as swollen, but now the cheek area below it is swollen and there is slight drainage from his tear duct.  After reading some of the notes on this web site, I did put saline drops in his eye tonight which rinsed the dustlike stuff off his eyeball.  I also noticed that the bit of eyelid that doesn't disappear in the tear duct area is now redish as is a bit of the eye there.  Nothing appears tender to the touch, and his coat is still healthy, he is eating and runs about. We do have some Neobacimyx Opthalmic ointment from a previous eye injury a year ago in the other eye.  I also have some human Tobrex 0.3% opthalmic ointment  and some human Bacitracin/Polymyx opthalmic opintment.  What do you recommend for Daisy?

Answer
Dear Connie,

You might be surprised to learn that what Daisy very likely has is not an eye problem, but a *dental* problem.

The symptoms you describe are consistent with a retrobulbar abscess (i.e., an abscess behind the eyeball), which is pushing the eye out of its socket.  Because the cheek under the eye is swollen, the most probable cause of this is a molar root abscess.  The molar roots are located directly below the eye socket, and problems with the molars very often manifest as runny eyes, or--in more serious cases--a bulging eye.  I would give 99% odds that this is the problem your Daisy is facing.

In the past, the only treatment for this would be to remove the eye and treat the abscess behind it topically.  Fortunately, rabbit medicine has come a long way since then, and medical treatments are available.  These should be tried for several weeks before any surgery is attempted.  

If there is any pus coming from the tear ducts, or draining from the molars, it should be sampled and sent to a laboratory for culture and sensitivity testing:

www.bio.miami.edu/hare/culture.html

The results will tell the vet which rabbit-safe antibiotic will be most effective at treating the abscess.  You don't say the name of the antibiotic the first vet gave you, but it's a good sign that the abscess apparently started to retreat (as long as the antibiotic wasn't anything ending in "-cillin"!  Oral penicillins are usually deadly to rabbits.)

In many cases, jaw abscesses respond to treatment with bicillin--injectible only.  This is a combination of Penicillin-G Procaine and Benzathine, and can be very effective.  However, there are some very rare jaw abscess bacteria (e.g., Morganella; we actually have this in one bunny!) that can be made *worse* by bicillin, so if it's possible to do a culture and sensitivity, that's the best way to approach this.  You can read more about jaw abscesses here:

www.bio.miami.edu/hare/jawabscess.html

Please share the information with your vet, if s/he is receptive to such things.

You will need a rabbit experienced vet to help you with this.  You can find one here:

www.rabbit.org/vets

I hope this helps.  Please write back if you have any other questions.


Dana