By sharing the story of my beloved brown mottled dwarf lop eared rabbit, Fred, I hope to make bunny owners more aware of the bone disease, osteomyelitis, the prognosis when first diagnosed, and its long-term consequences.
Osteomyelitis is said to be a form of bone cancer in rabbits. In a nut-shell, it is an abscess appearing as a hard lump in the jawbone. There may be more than one, usually in the mandible, though the lumps can appear anywhere on the head. It is though to be hereditary, but I personally remain skeptical about that fact, in that it is actually of a bacterial nature.
It is important to carry out weekly health checks on your rabbits. Rabbits, being prey animals, are very adept in concealing signs of illness, often until it is too late. Therefore, one must be extra vigilante in looking out for any abnormality, unusual behaviour, loss of appetite and weight. Your rabbit should feel symmetrical on both sides, the front teeth should be nicely aligned - malocclusion can often occur at any stage of a rabbit's life, so look out for that. He should be bright with a good appetite, with no signs of dribbling from the mouth or discharge from the eyes. The latter could well be an indication of the onset of dental problems.
Fred was born in September 2002. He was a loving and affectionate rabbit, and he shared his short life with a spayed doe called Wendy. They were truly a couple, looking out for each other, licking each other's faces and there was always perfect harmony between them.
I first noticed a lump in Fred's lower jaw in March 2004. It started off to be about the size of a large pea, but rapidly progressed to the size of a small marble. A couple of months before that, I noticed that he had developed reverse occlusion of his incisors, so I began trimming them to the correct size every couple of weeks. Rabbits teeth grow 2-4mm per week.
I took him along to my vet and x-rays confirmed my fear, that it was indeed osteomylitis. I had read about this bone disease and knew that it would be the start of extensive veterinary treatment with ongoing problems. Veterinary surgeons differ in their opinions and methods of tackling osteomylitis. Some vets carry out radical invasive surgery, by actually going into the bone and draining the pus and then putting the patient on antibiotics. This method is usually temporary. It invariably reoccurs, often in other places in the jaw or anywhere on the head. My vet agreed that this sort of invasive surgery would be futile, and that it would be better to put him on a six week course of Baytril and see where we go from there. Baytril is a safe and generally a very well tolerated antibiotic by rabbits, though it can have limited effects of abscesses that occur in soft tissue, bearing mind that rabbit pus is as thick as toothpaste, making it difficult for antibiotics to get through to the abscess capsule. Baytril is also the least harmful antibiotic to the gut flora in the rabbit. Some rabbits who have a severe form of the condition can have Baytril every day for the rest of their lives to keep it in check. Once osteomylitis is diagnosed, I'm afraid it most often means that the bunny is not going to make old bones. One thing seems to lead to another, which I'll explain later in this article. The advice everyone gave me was to enjoy him whilst he still has some quality of life.
Fred was prescribed a long course of Baytril and it did seem to considerably reduce the swelling in the jaw. My vet seemed convinced that the infection was now under control, but said that Fred would always have residual swelling in that area. This swelling was still quite big though. A few months later, he developed a swelling on the other side of his jaw. Baytril did seem to arrest the infection, but he was now left with swellings on both sides of the mandible. I still continued to trim his incisors every two to three weeks, but in time, I noticed that he was having difficulty in chewing his food, his jaw would make strange circular movements whilst chewing and he began to ignore even his favourite vegetables. This was an obvious sign of overgrown molars. The problem with his molars became apparent six months after he was first diagnosed with osteomylitis. Though I could manage to clip his incisors, I did not have big enough gags to enable me to clip his molars, so that meant another trip to the vet.