My rabbit Twizzler’s bladder sludge has gone from bad to very bad.

Basically her bladder is leaking – she cannot control herself and she has severe urine scald all over her stomach and on her feet which are starting to blister.

Tomorrow the vet is going to do a urohydropopulsion which is basically a bladder flush while she is sedated.  I’m a little afraid to do this but I’m not sure what other choices Twizzler has at this point as her quality of life seems worse.  I know she is leaking on herself because her sister’s fur is not scalded (I’m taking Toffee tomorrow for moral support and since the vet wants to keep her overnight).  She said sedating her will also make it easier to shave her urine scalded areas and around her tail which is always wet.

She wants to change her diet but reallly there isn’t anything to change – she doesn’t get pellets only hay and veggies – she does want me to cut out spinach, romaine, and parsley – I don’t feed them spinach or romaine anyway.  She gave me an article which I’ve alread read too – sludge is really just a mystery to vets because not all rabbits get this and some metabolise calcium differently – I asked her about metabolic bone disease (I always ask this too) and she doesn’t see any bone problems.  Apparently there have been studies done on this according to the article she gave me that dietary changes ALONE will not reduce the formation of stones or sludge in rabbits prone to this condition.  The rabbits were fed huge amounts of digestible calcium for months (far more than a rabbit would get on a completelty commercial diet – I guess they mean pellets) and these rabbits failed to get bladder stones or sludge…I’ll have to see if I can locate this study.

I think part of the problem with Twizzler is that she is not active, she is older, she is overweight now, and all the sludge has expanded her bladder and she is obviously not an upright animal where the sludge could flow out.  I know that human women can get their bladder lifted to help with leakage but I’ve never heard of this for rabbits and I don’t think it would help anyway since the sludge stays in the bladder and doesn’t flow out as easily since she’s not on 2 legs and the sludge doesn’t flow down as easily to the uretha.

I did the bladder flush on Jingles too and a week later he had renal failure – I’m not sure that it was related to the bladder flush, it probably was just a coincidence.

She also suggested giving them distilled water which has no calcium in it – so for those of you who have sludge rabbits this is something to consider doing as well.