suggested food for post anesthetic? (plus an angry rant )

[Dface]

I sent my two rabbits in for separate operations in the vet today. My female needed neutering, and my male needed his teeth extracted. While signing the consent forms I took the liberty of writing in their colours on the form, just to make sure there was no confusion , Sampras my male is grey and white and a lionhead cross, Yumi is fawn with dark brown ears and an angorra cross-so essentially a fluff ball.

Anyway they mixed them up. The started the spay on my MALE rabbit, before realizing. As in shaved and cut open and now he has stitches in his tummy. He also has stitches in his mouth as they preformed the extraction.

This vet has seen Sampras and Yumi before for separate things. I have brought Sampras several times to this vets, and 3 times to the exact vet preforming his surgery to have his teeth birred down. This vet clinic is actually the one that Sampras had been neutered in before.

Im so furious and he is very obviously not happy, and for the last three hours can not be persuaded to eat any of his favourite things, no type of hay (including dried nettle, meadow herb and dandelions-fresh and dried) wont eat his treats, or the vegetables in the house and not his regular food either. 

Anyone got any tasty treat suggestions to help them along?

Sorry for the rant, Im just so upset atm 

[Muchelle]

OMG that’s horrible! I hope you didn’t pay the bill for the “marvellous” service received by your boy!

Is he on heavy duty pain meds? My bunny when he had a molar extracted was put on subcutaneous Altadol/Toradol (not sure how the product is called abroad) and even that wasn’t enough to calm his discomfort. He resumed eating almost normally after some days and needed to be force fed with critical care. He was hungry but chewing was too painful, he barely drank by himself.

Be patient and monitor him closely (maybe a banana/water mash to see if he’s interested?) but do resort to critical care if he’s not eating yet. Watch out for GI stasis and/or colics

I hope everything turns out for the best <3

[Bam]

Fragrant herbs like cilantro, parsley and mint are often appreciated. Willow, dried or fresh, apple leaves, canned plain pumpkin, baby food (veg or fruit/berry) are other suggestions.

But if he doesn’t start to eat soon, you must syringe feed. Pellets soaked in water is fine if you can’t get Critical Care. You can mix it with banana or baby food or canned unsweetened pumpkin. 

I certainly sympathize with your rant. 

[Dface]

They assured me they both had an injection of pain relief! But they didnt give me any to orally administer. They also said they could give me critical care, but they wont have it til tomorrow.
Im distraught because this vet’s have been so fantastic to deal with up until this point!
He started drinking water by himself there and Yumi is still a bit reluctant on food so i’ll stay up tonight and keep a very close eye on the pair of them and will syringe feed him if it comes to it -though I really hope I can tempt him with anything else !

[Muchelle]

uhm, so you mean the both of them don’t have any pain therapy at home?
I am not an expert obviously, but for the same surgery my rabbit had heavy painkillers on a 12 hours schedule + antibiotic 3 times a day and he still ended up having post op troubles. Not saying this has to happen to your little guy, but just to explain how huge his pain was.

Dental pain in rabbits is terrible, please do discuss about this further with your vet :/

While you wait for critical care, do try to make a puree with fresh vegetables and see if they lap it up. Possibly watery, so it’s easier on the boy’s hurting mouth

[caudex]

Not saying it is fair or right, but mine were both sent home post surgery with injected pain killer and no additional meds. The sad reason is that my community has such a drug problem that they gave as little as possible. Maybe that’s why, maybe not but it’s not unheard of.

If you can’t entice either one to eat, give the vet a call. Sophie was happily eating parsley dipped in water that night, but Liam was in bad shape, wouldn’t eat anything. They had me bring him in after 24 hours and gave him another shot, no charge, and that got him through.

Don’t be afraid to fuss a little. At this point they definitely owe you some customer service.

[Muchelle]

Posted By caudex on 7/19/2016 4:15 PM

Not saying it is fair or right, but mine were both sent home post surgery with injected pain killer and no additional meds. The sad reason is that my community has such a drug problem that they gave as little as possible. Maybe that’s why, maybe not but it’s not unheard of.

Oh thank you, I didn’t know about that issue! 

[Dface]

Thank you for your replies! I spent the whole night up with the two of them, and had to call in sick to work this morning!
I convinced him to eat two mls of stewed apple strained through a sieve and then offered from a small syringe plunger and some oatmeal that I made up for him with a natural sweetner to try and tempt him (it did work and he lapped some of it up). I am waiting on the critical care for him, but he’s been attempting to eat food. ( I found force feeding him nearly impossible cause I was afraid of 1) holding him too tight and damaging the sutures in his tummy or 2) Not holding him enough and causing damage to the wounds in his mouth – he likes to protest!!)
I brought him back to the vet due to a breathing complication (blood had clotted up his nose, and convinced them to give me anti inflammation medication for him 

Honestly I could not feel more sorry for him having to go back to the vets this morning with a very sore mouth AND tummy, and I barely got an apology for it, although I refused to pay them for the additional medicine. ( I looked like a mad rabbit lady, as I had been crying and had no sleep…and Im sure I had bits of rabbit food all over me!)

Yumi on the other hand is my little ray of sunshine in all this and is a model patient! Loving her attention and hand fed vegetables! 

[Bam]

I’m glad Yumi is doing so well, and I hope Sampras will perk up soon, poor little guy =( That he is attempting to eat fod is really great of course.

[Dface]

So just a quick update –
since getting more pain medication and anti inflammatory Sampras is doing much better! He was syringe fed some critical care and after that started to accept curly Kale (his favourite fresh treat) and is back nibbling his hay (very tentatively )

Thank you guys for all the suggestions and support!

[Bam]

Thank you for the update! I hope he’s on the way to recovery now! Nibbling hay and kale =)

Regarding what caudex said: The painkiller you most often get for bunnies, Metacam (meloxicam), is the veterinary version of diclofenak (brand name Voltaren), an anti-inflammatory NSAID. It’s not addictive and doesn’t give a “high”. There is another bunny painkiller called bupenorphin that’s an opioid, that could be attractive to drugusers, but that one isn’t used as much these days since opioids slow down the gut as a side-effect. For severe pain, tramadol can be used with buns, that’s another opioid. But you don’t need to worry about your bunny becoming addicted to metacam.

[kirstyol]

Meloxicam is an NSAID but it is not dicolfenac, meloxicam can be prescribed for humans too although it is less common than other NSAIDS such as dicolfenac or naproxen. Bunnies (or humans) wont get addicted to an NSAID, but they are not good for the digestive system in long term use.

My Bramble gets regular tooth trims and almost never eats the same day, we always have to syringe feed him for at least the first day. Its a horrible thing to have to do but unfortunately we are used to it now. I am so sorry for what your vet did – that is completely unacceptable and I hope you have complained. It doesnt matter that you took two buns in, what if they just happened to have two buns from different households in and mix them up! In human medicine we call this a ‘never event’ which means its something that should just never happen and any instances need proper investigating so they can make sure it never happens again. I am glad he is eating now lots of get well vibes sent your way

[Bam]

Kirstyol, I’m sorry, I was being unclear, thanks for pointing out that diclofenak and meloxicam are not the same thing. They are just the same class of meds, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS). Meloxicam has fewer GI side effects than diclofenak.

[Author]

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