Rabbit eye problem

Re: Rabbit eye problem

Vikki Halliday LLB — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 00:14:21 GMT

Oh and btw keep up the fucithalmic if you think it helps, it is a great lubricant and will help against secondary pathogens.

Re: Rabbit eye problem

Vikki Halliday LLB — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 00:12:37 GMT

Will try to give you some more ideas tomorrow, as just back from a very long day and a late hospital transfer, but autologous serum can be kept if placed in a sterile container and refrigerated for up to a week. I'd use as often as you can, 2 hourly if poss although in a rabbit it may be 4-6 times daily is achievable without hospitalisation. Certainly if you are seeing significant neovascularisation the cornea is trying to heal, but I would also still try and look for a cause, so maybe at a future debride get a scraping for cytology if possible?

Re: Rabbit eye problem

Camilla Edwards — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 21:53:49 GMT

Hi Vikki,

Thanks for your quick response! I will try and answer the questions, but quite a few colleagues have seen this case, and they don't always write fantastic notes!

The rabbit is 9 years old according to our notes but was a rescue a couple of years ago... It is up to date with vaccinations, last had cylap and myxi in August. Prior to that it's major problem was urinary calculi, which has been well under control for a while now.

Looking back, it first had some pus in the right eye in May this year, but since 2 weeks after it's August (nobivac) myxi jab he has been almost constant with either discharge or ulcers.

I don't think there have been any visual disturbances which could have caused it, but I will ask a bit more about behaviour etc. He is going to be seen later this week.

We have been using fucithalmic, and recently I tried when it just seemed to be a build up of sleep but no ulcers using off licence lacrilube - after which it developed the biggest ulcer he's had so far! This time he was started on fucithalmic and also autologous serum (as a one off sample though, so not long term at all - how often would you suggest taking the blood - how long does the serum last, and how often to use it?) and seen a week later, the ulcer doesn't look any better, and appeared indolent, so I debrided with a cotton bud and removed a lot of loose cornea.

There's no corneal oedema generally but as this ulcer is healing and there are blood vessels, there may be the beginnings of oedema.

Thanks for your input - really useful!

Camilla

Re: Rabbit eye problem

Vikki Halliday LLB — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 14:15:48 GMT

Hi Camilla,

How old is the rabbit? Is it vaccinated? Is it housed with other rabbits? Is the rabbit visual, or is there a problem with vision that could cause repeated injury to the cornea?

Is there any associated corneal oedema?

Assuming you have checked for distichiasis/trichiasis, these can cause chronic irritation. Also what treatment have you been using? I know a lot of people use Gentimycin for rabbits, but this is toxic to the corneal epithelial cells and over a long period of time can cause epithelial necrosis. Many of the other drops contain benzalkonium chloride which also damages the corneal epithelium, it acts to increase the uptake of the drug into the globe via corneal absorption. I was also asking about age and corneal oedema as there could be an underlying basement membrane dystrophy, which would be a feature of age. Vaccination as I believe that presence of the mxoma virus can cause ulcers, so wondering if there has been some reaction to the vaccine if used.

If the tear ducts are patent then you are less likely to have a reservoir of infection than with a rabbit suffering from dacrocystitis, but a corneal scrape may show the presence of bacteria, and you could have a low grade reservoir of infection in the lacrimal ducts.

I would suggest debriding, and possibly take it off topicals for a week and try autologous serum (you could take it from a cat or dog and use that if you can't get enough blood from the rabbit). Also juducious use of lubrication may get it to heal. You could also use systemic antibiosis rather than topical for this period.

Would love to see some piccies if you can! Sounds really interesting!

Vikki