So Poppy (2 1/2 years old, she’s the grey one) is getting over her second bout with GIS, I caught it early, but still ended up at the hated VCA as an emergency, since no other vets had any appointments soon enough, and yes, I did try them ALL, including my longtime cat vet, but she’s no longer allowed to see anything other than cats and dogs.
In the midst of massive amounts of utter face diaper insanity, they kept us – well, her, I wasn’t allowed in because Bill Gates….- there quite literally all day and at the end of the horror movie, we were sent home with a host of meds (butorphanol, enroflaxacin, metoclopramide, sodium chloride subcue fluids) as well as infant gas relief and an electric toothbrush (?) I was instructed to get at Walgreens, the vet looking very much like something out of a Japanese sci-fi movie from the 50s telling me she needs to get spayneutercastrated ASAP. Predictable, these people.
Poppy was pretty much back to normal the next day, but we’re still doing meds, the enro and meto bottles being quite large, and she’s also getting Oxbow Critical Care via feeding syringe, all of which she hates.
She is free roam, sleeps under my bed, gets timothy hay and fresh greens (kale, collard greens, spinach, celery, parsley, that sort of thing, organic whenever possible) and a little piece of apple, peach , carrot or some other sweet veggie for a treat. Her and her brother Peachy do, of course, chew on cardboard, books, clothes and all that, there’s really no way I can completely stop them from doing that, they do have enough wooden chew toys for a whole herd of rabbits, but cardboard boxes seem to be the favorite.
Managed to get a non-emergency appointment at a vet recommended for ‘exotics’ (what’s exotic about rabbits ?), more slave rag craziness, tracking device (code name: ‘smart phone’ ) conference from the car while they examined Poppy, told to stay on meds, this vet being much less Marxist gung-ho about the castration, told me uterine cancer is actually pretty rare and the biggest problem with unspayed females is aggression. I told the vet (phonewise, that is…) that some aggression actually helps her, because there’s also a cat – whom Poppy chases…..This vet was also honest enough to admit that no one really knows why some rabbits get GIS while others (like Poppy’s brother) don’t, because she doesn’t really have any excuse, diet being almost ideal , stress levels low, etc.
My question is if there’s anything I can do to prevent any further attacks, looking at maybe giving her some Bromelain or Papain every now and then, one paper I have on GIS says some lactobacillus might help, maybe frequent tummy massages….
Any ideas ?
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