rabbit dental problems

Question
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Followup To
Question -
Hi there,





Hi again,

the tooth problem as you suggest is causing some problems, but due to his last episode, our vet is unlikely and unwilling to put our poor dougal through more surgery if it is still his teeth causing the problems. xrays are not conclusive,antibiotics, steroids etc, are not doing much at all, his eyes are gunking up to the point he cant see, this is several times a day. I clean his eyes first thing on getting up in the morning,(around 7ish) by mid morning, hes blinded by the gunk again.

I have saught advice from another vet, however, in dumfrieshire,  vets dont like treading on other vets toes so to speak and will give no comment, so these forum things are really the last ditch attempt to find asomething we perhaps hadnt thought of or tried, i like to give all our residents the best outcome i possibly can, in wee dougals case, im not sure what that is anymore.

Thank you for replying so quickly, i just wish i knew what to do next.

Donna
Scotrat Animal Rescue
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/scotratrescue
Answer -
Have all the infections in his mouth been cleared up?  If the teeth issues haven't been cleared up, has your vet tried antibiotic beads?

We have a bunny with chronic eye problems and her tear ducts are scarred so they can't be flushed out, and we have to clean her eyes several times a week.  I am not the one who takes care of her, I could find out what she uses.  I have also hear of using a colloidal silver mist, but have not tried that myself.

I can get more information if you like.  He will obviously always be a special needs bunny, ut maybe you can get him to the point where he just needs the gunk cleaned a few times a week.

Kim

Answer
I talked with my cohort here, and she had these suggestions:

There's the allergy angle, though if he's in a shelter that's hard to check, not many places to move him I would think. I just use saline solution to clean; have used a very mild mixture of eyebright tincture (let the alcohol evaporate after you drop it in a warm saline solution first) to soothe the eyes and help with cleaning. Worked OK, but as little as I do it now it doesn't seem worthwhile. I did find with Cindy that if you cleaned twice a day, it got worse twice a day. He might try gradually cutting down on cleaning, or actually just remove what is blocking vision and don't clean the tear duct area for increasing amounts of time. What I think happens is that the ducts plug up and don't allow any more gunk out, or slow it way down. What works for Cindy is once a week; every once in a while I have to do it twice if she gets really bad. And she used to be blinded every day when I was doing it every day.