Mini Rex with Snuffles

Question
Several years ago I had a Mini Rex given to me by my 7th grade science teacher.  I had him for about three years when he came down with what the Vet told us was Snuffles.  We treated him for two or more years before he passed away.  I was away but my mother told me that when she found him he was laying peacefully with his head on his paws like he used to do.  About a year before he passed away he also had an abscess on the side of his jaw that came on fairly quickly (I don't remember exactly what time frame but it couldn't have been too long as we are very cautious pet owners).  After the surgery the vet said he removed 3 abscessed teeth.  Mr. Honey immediately felt better and started eating significantly more (he went from 3.5 to about 5.5 lbs which is probably too heavy).  About six months before he  died he pooped some blood clots (which terrified me but he never did it again after that night so we didn't do anything about it).  What was my poor little bunny suffering from each of those times?  What exactly is Snuffles, was the tooth thing related, do you think the blood clots had anything to do with his death?  I've studied biology in college quite a bit so I'm passably familiar with some technical terms.  Could you explain these problems clearly and from a technical aspect (I mean as opposed to what the vet told me as a 14 year old "He has snuffles...here, feed him these pills" and that was it) or do you know of any good web sites to look at?  Thank you so much for your time and sorry this is such a long question! (Rather *many* questions!)
Samantha

Answer
Oh yeah, I can give you a good website to look at.  www.morfz.com has a section called Rabbit References, and if you look under Health and Medicine you can find all sorts of references.

Snuffles is a generic term.  It could mean pasteurella, or it could mean the vet had no idea what he had.  If my rabbit had that, I would ask if they did a culture and sensitivity to determine what antibiotics the condition was sensitive to, rather than just taking some antibiotics and hoping that cured it.

Jaw abscesses caused by abscessed teeth do occur, I took care of a friend's rabbit who had no teeth left on one side of his mouth because of that, and had antibiotic beads implanted in his jaw to kill the bacteria.

I've never heard of passing blood clots, if it only happened the one time, and six months elapsed before he passed away, it likely was not a contributing factor.  

Did you have a necropsy done to see what was the cause of death?

You can also check out www.rabbit.org and www.medirabbit.com, they also have useful information on health conditions.

Kim