Hi All,

I’m absolutely at a loss with my rabbit’s current stasis episode, and looking for some guidance on where to go from here. My almost 5 year old Lionhead has been battling stasis for over a week now. She gradually slowed down eating over 2 or 3 days, and then went into full blown stasis. She’s had 3 setbacks over the last week where she will completely stop eating and pooping, and takes 12+ hours to start eating again. However in between these times where she completely stops eating/pooping she’s acting quite strange. She will do very well eating food overnight and into the early afternoon everyday. Not eating her usual amounts of food, but is doing a good job eating hay and some pellets and drinking water. She will be jumping around and seem quite playful at times as well. Then every single night for over a week now at about the exact same time (early evening) she starts showing signs of bad stomach pain/gas. She will just press her stomach to the ground and refuse to eat or drink anything and is clearly very uncomfortable. This can last for a good 8 hours before she starts to perk up again before bed, and then will seem to do really, really well overnight. The fact that this is happening in such a set cycle is very concerning to me, but I have absolutely no idea what the issue could be here.

We did see the vet earlier this week, who said her stomach felt fine. Her bloodwork came back showing 1 elevated kidney value, but it also showed she was dehydrated. She is going back to the vet for a followup in 4 days to recheck her bloodwork, and obviously we’re hoping it was just from dehydration and not kidney disease. But I cannot for the life of me understand why this pain is coming on in such a set cycle. She is receiving Cisapride, Metacam, Gabapentin, and regular syringe feedings. The last 2 days she seems to have been improving throughout the day and eating more hay and showing more interest, but these nighttime pain waves are still coming on and it’s scaring me. Has anyone ever experienced anything like this? I’ll obviously be bringing it up at her followup vet appointment, but I don’t even know where to begin with guessing what the issue here could be.