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Snoopy Update

[Sep. 24th, 2011|02:57 pm]

joandirk

[

Current Location

US, Washington, King, Shoreline, NE 145th St, 3059

]

Snoopy had his vet visit on Wednesday to get his mouth examined, teeth clipped, nose flushed and endoscoped, and ears cleaned and endoscoped.

He is so much happier and it's awesome. He's eating like he used to and he's just happy.

The vet just called me with the culture results. Good news, they were able to grow a culture from the sample they took deep in his nose while he was sedated. Bad news, "there was some Pasteurella in there."

Gentamicin was included with his nebulizer medications, but my vet said that she would put together gentamicin for sub-q injections for me to pick up Monday to do in addition.

I'm confident in the nebulizer (we start tonight), but now I'm a little worried about the Pasteurella. Do you think this was the initial problem ~3 years ago and the culture, which wasn't as deep, just didn't catch it? If he's had it for all of this time will we be able to fight it?

Ack.

I'll post pictures of Snoopy's tooth clipping procedure soon. I was lucky and my vet let me be there the whole time and I even got to help out a little.

Wish us luck!

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Nebulizer

[Sep. 16th, 2011|02:23 pm]

joandirk

My bun Snoopy has had a chronic nasal infection for quite sometime now, since I joined the community. We tried all different kinds of medications, including sub-q bicilin, but nothing worked and he didn't seem to get any better or worse. It also didn't seem to bother him much, either, other than the sneezing. A culture had been done but nothing was found, so we decided to just let him be and stop the meds.

Coming back to the present, his infection has gotten worse and is causing him more difficulty with his breathing, so we went back to the vet. She recommended a nebulizer, which I remember hearing about in this community, so I was all for it.

But how do you pick a nebulizer? Is there a difference in the $30 and the $100 ones?

Can I get this cute penguin compressor which is only $30?

While at the vet this afternoon, we found that he also has malocclusion and will need his front teeth clipped and his rear teeth examined. So he's going back next week and they're going to sedate him to perform that prodecure. While he's sedated, they're taking that opportunity to use the endoscope to look up his nasal passage and also will take a culture sample.

I got the estimate for the nebulizer costs and a prescription to purchase a nebulizer, but no medication yet, so I assume that will be handled after the appointment on Wednesday.

Back to my original purpose in this post, is there a difference in nebulizers?

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a chapter ends

[Aug. 1st, 2011|11:44 am]

wendyzski

[

mood

exhausted

]

For those who have not already heard, the Mighty Pepper Bunny - who was the original reason I formed this community - died last Thursday afternoon. She was nearly 7 years old, I had had her for nearly 6, and she had battled chronic pasturella for nearly 4 years. She fought to the very end, and received the very best vet care, but in the end it was simply too much for her overtaxed body

The vet offered to do a necropsy free of charge, and I consented. I wanted to know what had happened and wanted to add to the general realm of knowledge about buns. I will post the results beneath the cut.
( Necropsy report on Pepper )

Of course, I am devastated. Pepper was my first real animal companion (hamsters are cute but you don't exactly form a relationship with them) so I am grieving terribly. Her final expenses were quite high, so I am really not in a position to adopt another rabbit any time soon. But I have donated her unused medical supplies (and a big load of greens from my organic garden) to the bunnies at the Red Door shelter, and will be fostering buns for them as soon as I am able.

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5 weeks

[Mar. 9th, 2011|08:25 pm]

mystic_13

[

mood

crushed

]

Bella is only managing (less then) five weeks off of medication before she relapses.

Advice? Encouragement?

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Snuffles

[Jan. 5th, 2011|01:08 pm]

mystic_13

[

mood

worried

]

So Bella has been diagnosed with snuffles, as I previously mentioned. However, it has already relapsed. In my mind, in my mind it seems a bit soon, but I am kinda new at this so I was looking for some opinions.

Here's what has happened so far:

Bella was diagnosed - started Trimel (2 doses daily for 3 weeks)

Approximatly 2 weeks later symptoms had stopped improving. She had gotten even worse then she was before treatment started. Went back to the vet, they added Baytril on top of the trimel (2 doses daily for 3 weeks)

In total she had been on medication for 5 weeks.

Week 1 - trimel
Week 2 - trimel
Week 3 - trimel +baytril
Week 4 - baytril
Week 5 - baytril

So now, here we are, 5 weeks after she has finished a 5 weeks course of medication, she has had a relapse. Normal? Opinions? Experience?

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Bringing out the big guns

[Jan. 1st, 2011|09:05 pm]

wendyzski

[

mood

determined

]

Well, for more than a year now we've had Pepper's symptoms under control. Every 5-6 weeks she'd start sneezing again, but after 2-3 treatments with nebulized amakacin in the "StinkyBox" she'd be fine again. But a few weeks ago she started sneezing more, and even after 5 treatments over the course of 2 weeks she was not only not getting better but she seemed to be getting slightly worse over time.

So off to the vet we went...

She took a look over Pepper's chart and we talked about various options. Since I have VPI for her, I was able to leave cost to a large extent out of my calculations. We decided to do a nasal flush and culture - mostly to see if it's the same bug flaring up or a secondary infection. I had stopped the nebulilzer treatment a week beforehand, so while there is the chance that it will be harder to culture anything because she'd been exposed to antibiotics recently, since there had been a pause I hope that we'll still be able to get some good information from the culture.

But since she's already immunocompromised and we've tried all the usual (and some of the unusual) antibiotics with her, the vet felt that is was time to consider the "big guns", as it were.

We're going with .65ml of injected PenG every other day, while upping the nebulizer to every other day as well. Of course I also have a Probiotic to give her so that all of this doesn't throw her tummy off - I'm not too worried about that since she's always had a cast-iron tummy. I'm also supposed to up her ear-cleaning to weekly instead of monthly as she's looking a touch goopy. I admit that I'm a little woogy about having to give her shots, but I will manage. The vet showed me some really good techniques, and enough raisins and nutriberries will eventually earn me forgiveness.

Honestly the most difficult part is going to be the fact that I'm committed to going to a friend's memorial in Kentucky on the 15th and because of this whole regimen I'm going to have to haul her with me on the trip - I can ask a neighbor to stop in and top off her veggies but inject-able medications are another story. The vet recommended 2 weeks of treatment but we had to go for 3 because I have to make this trip.

We're on 2 days of this and while she is still sneezy her energy level seems up a bit so I'm hopeful we're on the right track here. I won't get the culture results until later this week, and the vet will tell me if we need to change things up at that time.

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Is pasturella contagious?

[Dec. 9th, 2010|03:44 pm]

mystic_13

Is pasturella contagious to other buns?

Bella was diagnosed a couple months ago, she's 1/2 of a bonded pair with Alex. Just wondering if I need to be prepared for them to both end up with it.

Also, is it contagious to other pets? More specifically, cats and dogs?

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Does Leah sound like she has the snuffles

[Jul. 25th, 2010|04:46 pm]

jedisakora

Hi.
I have a question since i think Leah may have the snuffles. Does these symptoms sound like it:

1) Constantly cleaning her face.
2) Heavy breathing.
3) Falls over when shakes head (She'll shake her head and lose complete balance. Giving me many small heart attacks).
4) Very little appetite.
5) Feels hot even when i had the fan on full blast and her own my bed in the high air conditioning.
6) nose sound congested and feels wet to the touch.

I've been to the vet 3 times in the last week. Her ears checked out fine and Dr. Carrie said her lungs sounded normal. She gave me some pain meds and she's on critical care, gas meds,and pineapple juice. Dr. Carrie was reluctant to give her antibiotics at first since she is afraid to mess up her system. I plan on taking her back to the vet tomorrow since the whole falling over when shaking is making me a nervous wreak. I just want to know if i should bring up the subject of the snuffles first.

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Good article on Pasteurella

[Apr. 23rd, 2010|10:52 pm]

wendyzski

[

mood

hopeful

]

Came across this on Facebook today - it's the newsletter of the Columbus House Rabbit Society. There is a GREAT article there on URIs and/or pasteurella - I'd have been a lot less panicked when Pepper was first diagnosed if I'd had that as a reference.

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My setup

[Jan. 15th, 2010|06:19 pm]

wendyzski

[

mood

working

]

I finally got around to taking pics of the nebulizer setup I have for Pepper's treatments, and figured that it should go here for reference. Feel free to link.
( pics )

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