Treating for arthritis, but suddently not eating well

[Jeffany]

Hi, this is my first time posting here, so I hope I do this right. I’m having a problem with my rabbit Nougat, and although I’ve been to the vet several times lately, nothing is changing.

She’s at least 12 years old, and she has a lot of arthritis in her knees and some in her lower back that the vet confirmed with an X-ray. I’ve been living in Japan for the last four years, and only visited at most a couple times a year, so I’m not sure about the progression of this. But I’ve been back since the beginning of September.

I noticed her splaying her back legs as when I came back for the first time. I guess the arthritis added up, but there were contributing factors like my *lovely* sister deciding to cover her whole floor area with slippery plastic…. My sister refuses to let me remove the plastic, but now I’ve got her whole hallway area that she lives in covered in reusable puppy training pads.

Anyway, in August before I got back, there had been an issue with her not eating well, but my sister didn’t realize the severity of it and I finally convinced her Nougat needed to go to the vet immediately. She got an antibiotic and recovered, although in recent years, her appetite has been going down a little and she’s lost some weight. That’s another thing I’m working on with her, and I got her to gain some this past week, but back to the main issue.

Ever since the Monday before last, I started to notice a sudden change in her. She’s leaving her salads in the morning and sometimes doesn’t eat any until during the next night. I am giving her Critical Care and a separate pellet mush recipe (from Colorado HRS), and she loved that at first. But even that now she’s not excited about. She’s not excited about any of her favorite foods anymore. She is eating, but not really enough. She barely touches plain pellets or hay.

Apart from that, she does that characteristic small animal thing where they sit with they’re eyes squinting and acting uncomfortable. She’s started to do that a lot since around that Monday. I’ve also been bathing her butt every day because she’s stopped using her litterbox mostly, and she had a bad unaddressed skin issue when I first came back that no one noticed. 

Now, I keep taking her to the vet, and she has been on Medacam since mid-September or so. She was doing well on that until this rather sudden change. She has some white/clear eye discharge, so I got her some eye drops for that at first, but it seems like that discharge is just from her cataracts. So I took her back to the vet, and we tried some Gabapeptin as a pain reliever for the arthritis, but there is no recommended dosage the vet could find, so he made it up and it might have been too weak. No real change on that. So I took her back to the vet, and that’s when he did the x-ray and some blood work. She’s been on Tramadol since Wednesday, but I’m not noticing any real change. 

Like I said, the x-ray showed her arthritis. The bloodwork showed nothing of note, and the vet said all her organs seem to be doing well. However, her WBC (white blood cell) count is up from her last bloodwork in August (8.98), and it’s slightly outside of the normal range (5-12) at 14.93.

I’ve been wondering if she could have some sort of infection like a UTI or sludge. Since I put the puppy pads down, everywhere is soft, so she ends up peeing everywhere and sometimes sits in it, even if it is absorbed. So I’m wondering if that could have contributed to her getting an infection. The vet hasn’t mentioned anything about an infection, but I’m wondering if that’s what it could be.

The vet seems convinced it’s just arthritis, but it doesn’t make sense to me. She was doing fine on the Medacam, and there was that rather abrupt change which doesn’t seem like it would happen if it was just arthritis. And pain medication has had no real effect, so it just seems like it should be something else. There are of course risks with antibiotics in rabbits, but I wonder if I can convince my vet to just give that a try. I’m at a loss.

I’m sorry that was very, very long and all over the place, but I’m not sure where to turn. I appreciate your help, and I’d love to hear your thoughts. Thank you in advance, everyone. 

[tobyluv]

If she is acting uncomfortable, she may have gas. That can be very painful. Infant simethicone drops are very helpful to relieve gas. It is safe to give the drops, they don’t cause any side effects, so even if she didn’t have gas, there would be no harm in giving them. She may not like another syringe in her mouth, but she would like the relief she gets if that is the problem. The dosage is 1 ml every hour for 3 hours.

You didn’t mention her teeth. Not wanting to eat pellets and hay might mean that she has teeth problems. Her molars could have high spots. Those make eating difficult and can cause pain if the teeth are poking into her cheeks or gums. Normally, a vet can only get a good look at the back teeth if a rabbit is put under anesthesia. At 12 years of age, anesthesia might be risky. Maybe he could try to get a good look without putting her under. If she does have high spots on her molars or if her front incisors are occluding correctly, she would need to have the high spots ground down and maybe some correction on the incisors too.

Some pain medications can depress a rabbit’s appetite. I know that Metacam can. So another reason that she might not be eating well may be because of the pain relievers she is on.

The vet would need to have a urine specimen to check for a UTI. Have you noticed that she is straining when she goes to the bathroom, or have you seen any blood in the urine? Those would be signs that she might have a UTI.

I hope that you can find out exactly what is wrong and get some help for your bunny.

[Hanna Banana]

I have a bunny that was paralyzed about 2-3 months ago. During her recovery period, she started peeing randomly on my rug (which she has never done before). I brought her to the vet who was unable to collect any urine on her but gave me Baytril just in case. The Baytril completely cleared up the problem within just a few days so it must have been a UTI.
If your bunny’s symptoms have had a sudden onset, it does not sound like arthritis would be the main problem. I would see if they could get a urine culture and get her started on Baytril. In my experience, it has been a very safe antibiotic. My only word of caution is that antibiotics in general can cause stomach upset so you may have to really watch her appetite to make sure she keeps eating.
Good luck! I hope she feels better soon!

[Jeffany]

Posted By tobyluv on 10/15/2016 1:25 PM

If she is acting uncomfortable, she may have gas. That can be very painful. Infant simethicone drops are very helpful to relieve gas. It is safe to give the drops, they don’t cause any side effects, so even if she didn’t have gas, there would be no harm in giving them. She may not like another syringe in her mouth, but she would like the relief she gets if that is the problem. The dosage is 1 ml every hour for 3 hours.

You didn’t mention her teeth. Not wanting to eat pellets and hay might mean that she has teeth problems. Her molars could have high spots. Those make eating difficult and can cause pain if the teeth are poking into her cheeks or gums. Normally, a vet can only get a good look at the back teeth if a rabbit is put under anesthesia. At 12 years of age, anesthesia might be risky. Maybe he could try to get a good look without putting her under. If she does have high spots on her molars or if her front incisors are occluding correctly, she would need to have the high spots ground down and maybe some correction on the incisors too.

I forgot to mention. The vet did look at her teeth. He said they all looked good. That was one of my worries, too, but it doesn’t seem to be the case. 

I’ll have to try simethicone. Do you know a brand name? Does eating primarily Critical Care or a pellet mash make them more susceptible to getting gas? I would think eating too many vegetables might do that, but I’ve never heard of rabbits having that problem, so I don’t know. I’ll go to the store and look for some of those drops for now. You can see results after 3 hours of giving it normally?

[tobyluv]

The brand of infant simethicone that I have is Mylicon. I got it at the grocery store on the baby food/supply aisle. I have only had to use it twice, but I saw results after the first dose, and could tell that my bunny was feeling better then. We went ahead and gave her a second dose the next hour, but that’s all she needed. When I used it on my other rabbit one time, he only needed one dose. If you haven’t seen any improvement after the third dose, then it probably wasn’t gas after all. But I was so glad that I had it, after seeing how much better my bunnies felt. I’m going to make sure that I always have it on hand.

Some people have said that their rabbits have a sensitivity to certain veggies, especially those in the cabbage family, including broccoli. You might want to do an experiment with the veggies, just giving one type at a time, so that you can see if any of them may be causing problems for your rabbit. I don’t think that giving the Critical Care or pellet mash would cause gas, unless maybe the syringe has some air in it. Whenever I’ve had to give CC or medicine in a syringe, I always make sure to push the plunger a little bit first in case there is some air in it.

Another thing that might be helpful for her, is a probiotic, such as Bene-Bac Plus. That is especially help if a rabbit is on an antibiotic, to keep their stomach flora at a normal level, but it could be that any medicines might disrupt the GI system and the probiotic would help to get it back on track. You mentioned a pellet mush recipe that you are giving her. That may be something that she is eating on her own in a dish. If not, rabbits will often eat the pellet mush or CC mixture from a dish instead of being force fed. To make it more tasty, add a little plain canned pumpkin or baby food.

The vet was able to look at all of her teeth without putting her under anesthesia? I wouldn’t think that he would put a 12 year old under. The front teeth are easy to see, but the back ones are not that easy to check.

[Jeffany]

Well, it doesn’t look like it’s gas. I gave her three doses yesterday of the Walmart brand of simethicone (had to go to four stores to find any!), and she ate a little bit after the third dose, but I don’t think it made a real difference. I gave her another dose this morning, but she’s still not really eating. 

Yesterday and today, she’s not even wanting to eat the pellet mush or CC, which she used to love. She just ate a small amount on her own, and I’ve started syringe feeding her since yesterday. And right now she basically refuses to eat any pellets, hay, or vegetables whatsoever. Although, I did catch her eating a few lettuce leaves on her own last night. 

The vet used a scope to check her molars and said they looked good. I do still slightly wonder if there could be something happening with her jaw or something, though. She occasionally grinds her teeth randomly, which I imagine is due to pain. But she also has a rather loud grinding noise sometimes when she eats. She’s also been making that noise pretty consistently after each mouthful of food I give her in the syringe. She chews it normally little, then there’s a loud tooth noise. Maybe it’s normal for how she feels, I’m not sure. But it seems odd. Do rabbits normally make a loud tooth noise after getting syringe food?

Now that we’ve basically rules out gas, the only other thing I can think of still is a UTI. It’ll probably be impossible to get a sample from her since she hasn’t been using the litterbox, but it seems like there’s still a good chance it could be that. Even if she’s on the Tramadol for arthritis pain, I’m guessing a potential UTI could still make her uncomfortable. Does anyone have any idea about that?

[Jeffany]

Here’s an update. My vet ended up giving me Orbax for a possible UTI even though he said he didn’t believe she has one. I’ve been giving her that and Benebac. Whether that has had any effect, I”m not sure, but there are new concerns. If you have any thoughts, I’d appreciate it.

I stopped giving her Tramadol last Tuesday because my vet said it could cause stasis. I was worried because she still wasn’t improving. On Wednesday she had less poop and weird shapes, and on Thursday she had almost no poop despite eating plenty on Wednesday.

I took her to the vet Thursday evening because she seemed to be in some state of stasis. The vet basically agreed and was concerned and said if she didn’t turn around in 48 hours, she probably wouldn’t make it. He gave me fluids, although I’ve never done that before.

She responded fairly quickly to the fluids and started eating a bit more, so that was good. I’ve given her fluids three times now, but I’m not doing a good job. The vet said to give her 50 mls twice a day, so that’s what I’ve been trying to do. The last two times I’ve given them to her, it’s ended up sinking down to her stomach/chest area, and it’s not absorbing very quickly. I’m afraid she’s not getting the moisture she needs. The vet said the bubble should go away in a couple hours or so, but it’s just sitting there on her stomach, and she’s not acting quite as well today as she did yesterday. She’s still eating a bit and has had some pee from the previous fluids. But there is basically no poop today either.

Should I be worried about the fluids on her stomach? Has anyone had this problem?

[Jeffany]

I forgot to say, I started giving her Tramadol again on Thursday because my vet said to. 

I’m really worried. She’s better than she was, but the lack of poop today and the fluids sitting on her stomach for about 7+ hours so far makes me anxious. She’s always been a strong bunny, but I need to make sure I’m doing everything I can. 

Thanks for your help, guys.

[Jeffany]

When it rains it pours. This morning for her butt bath I noticed her toe was sideways. I looked and she has a very swollen foot. There’s a wound on the bottom that I pulled a scab off of. There is very thick white stuff inside which I imagine is pus, but I’ve never seen something so thick. It won’t even come out.

I called the vet’s emergency line (today, a Sunday), and of course the exotic vet isn’t there. But one of the vets who doesn’t normally see rabbits is on call and willing to look at her foot. I’m worried about the stress of another vet visit, but it’s probably better to just get some treatment for her foot.

She’s been responding well to the fluids and medicine for her stasis, so I’m praying she can make it through all this. Please send positive thoughts to my bunny.

[Jeffany]

Further update: Vet cleaned out her foot and told me to wash with medicated shampoo I already had for her dirty butt. She was already on Orbax as an antibiotic for the potential UTI or other infection (although vet didn’t think she had it).

So hopefully that with the continued treatment for the stasis can straighten her out. She’s always been such a little fighter. She was even eating some greens in her cage at the vet despite everything.

[Author]

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