I have my Daisy – a holland lop bunny, since July 2014. Since she was a little ball of fur she always had problems with her ears. First vet visit since I got her and we found out she has fungus on her ears. 6 months treatment was completely useless as she was too small (2 months) to get antibiotic. At 6 months old she got antibiotic and fungus disappeared in couple of days.
(Here is where I planned to add a pic of Daisy from 2014 but due to unexpected circumstances I lost that part of data on my external drive and didn’t have a copy.)
As she has long heavy ears they don’t ventilate well and all the wax stays inside the ear. So each month when I go for a nail trim to vet office she has her ears cleaned as well. And once every 6 months to 1 year she has her ears deep cleaned- she gets anesthesia, goes to sleep. Which of course is a scary thing for me as the owner- as the bunny is little- only 4 pounds.
Last time she had her ears deep cleaned was May 31st, 2019 in Miami Beach- Eco Deco hospital. Then in September I started seeing a lot of wax in her ears already so I flew to NYC and first thing I did was a vet visit (Avian Center for Exotic animals in Upper West Side where she is a patient since 2016). I asked for a deep clean but was advised she gets 2 antibiotics to make it better.
Nothing got better- and I was injecting those 2 meds for 3 weeks in Oct. On Dec 10 I flew to Poland and went to visit my polish vet. Within 30 seconds of examination doctor told me she has a tumor, because so much wax didn’t find place to be removed so he had to do a surgery. When I asked how could this happen- as I go to vet visits every month and she just was treated with antibiotics- that didn’t help at all, he responded- this tumor was visible minimum 2-3 months already.
Not that this is very relevant but the visit in NYC office was $300 and surgery and meds in Poland was $100
Next day after surgery she didn’t eat nor move which was driving me nuts as I picked probably the worst day for surgery- Dec 23rd. So the Christmas Eve dinner was stressful for me to leave the house and her. Now the treatment will take at least a month- so whole Jan 2020 I will be driving for vet visits every other day.
Lesson learned- always go to multiple doctors, always make sure your animal is properly diagnosed and don’t allow your baby to be in pain. Daisy started peeing all over the house- something she never did- not long before I had vet visit here in Poland. I thought maybe it’s because its a new house (not really the case as I lived in 4 places this year and that hasn’t happened before) but the doc said she must have been in a lot of pain and now she lost her hearing in this ear.
If you can take it, here are some videos I took after surgery. I do have doctor clean her ear wound and fur every 2 days as I must use this orange antibiotic for the wound- I try not to touch this side of her face as I don’t want her to be in pain.