The vet didn’t have an appointment available but they said they could squeeze him in for a drop-off consult. So he’s there now, they have the history from the ER vet and the vet will give me a call for more info once she gets time to do her assessment of him.

Just wait and see I guess, there’s not really much to assess him on unless he has an episode.

…and he had an episode while he was in there. Ultimately that’s good that they got to see it first hand. They’re running bloods just to double check organ function. She said she’s not going to treat yet unless he has another at home again. A little frustrating but as she seems to think they’re seizures rather than symptoms of E.c or an ear infection where the symptoms would be more continuous. Because he switches on and off so fast.

If he has another then she wants to do advanced imaging, I’m assuming to check for tumours or similar. Then probably start him on Panacur as a precaution. But because he’s 100% normal outside of the episodes she’s not convinced of E.c.

More wait and see. 🙂  Thanks so much.

Yes, I think that’s fortunate. I assume it’s only a matter of time before he has another but we’ll have to wait and see. I have lots of questions for the vet about that, but I think she wants him in for imaging if he has even one more.

I remembered I had a little indoor security camera thing so we’ve set that up to film the bunny pen so I can check on him from bed if I hear noises and can also record overnight to review footage etc.

Picking him up in an hour, hoping he hasn’t had another seizure before then. I’m so worried about him, he’s always been such a healthy bun.

Thanks Bam, I think imaging is the next step. I only got to speak to the vet once on the phone while Apollo was there, and only saw a nurse when I picked him up. She wanted us to just monitor him for now, but did mention doing imaging next, I think after the blood results come back which will be on Thursday. Normally we’d have them back tomorrow but that happens to be our vet’s day off this week.

Haven’t seen a seizure since he’s been home, I flicked through the night footage from their pen but may have missed it if it was short. It’s so worrying seeing him so well and happy, doing binkies etc but then having these episodes.

Good news/ bad news.

Apollo hasn’t had another seizure that we’ve seen. His bloodwork came back all clear.

The bad news is that if he does have another seizure we move on to imaging, she said the best imaging for him would be MRI which runs from around $4000. So now I’m really hoping he doesn’t have another seizure. 😬

Thank you both. The vet seemed reluctant to start on Panacur, I can only assume due to lack of other symptoms. He has stopped eating tonight though and is showing signs of pain. Fortunately I’m able to look through the security camera footage and it hasn’t been very long since he ate recently, so will see how he goes overnight and ring our vet in the morning. I don’t like our chances of getting seen but we’ll see, they did manage to squeeze us in last time.

I’m assuming it’s related but you never know with rabbits, could be a bit of fur block due to his shedding. At the very least if he’s still unwell in the morning I’m sure we’ll end up with an xray to check for blockage, at which point I might ask them to take an image of his head as well while they’re at it.

Apollo had a bad night, in pain, not moving much, but I checked on him lots and around 6am he was happy as a clam eating hay again.

It’s a relief but just adds to the confusion but have at least avoided another vet visit for now.

Thank you Bam 🙂 No he’s not on any pain meds as he’s not showing any signs of pain now (just that one uncomfortable night).

The strange thing is, he’s better than ever. Please tell me if I’m reading too much into this. He seems more active, he’s been doing occasional naughty things that he’s never done before (chewing a plastic storage tub, trying to push the playpen, and also chewing on the seagrass mat that has chew toys attached that’s been on the side of their cage for about 5 years but they’ve never really touched it before!

Now he’s also lost a bit of weight, which is great, however he shouldn’t have because I had to stop regular salads a month or so ago to keep in our budget. Normally even with twice daily salads he is a real challenge to get any weight off.

I’m just going to keep track of things for now, I only weighed him yesterday after he was weighed about 2 weeks ago at the vet, but I’m going to increase that to twice a week just to be safe. If he keeps on losing I’ll have to book him in to the vet again. He hasn’t lost a huge amount, just went from roughly 3.30kg at the vet to 3.19kg at home, but still 100g is reasonable amount for a little bunny.

As I said though, I might be completely over thinking things. Will just keep observing for now 👀

I’ve spoken about this in the chat thread but wanted I update in here for my own reference so everything is in one place.

Monday 2nd January 2023 Apollo had another neurological episode. The camera shows him struggling to walk around, stumbling to his left. He wees on the rug (seemed he couldn’t jump into the litter tray) and then lays down. Slight head movement on the video suggests horizontal nystagmus. After 10 minutes he got back up and was still stumbling to the left, he lays back down again. I forgot to check if he was like it when he got up again next time in the video.

We saw the vet on Wednesday 4th, no treatment, didn’t seem to think E.c was likely due to history and no residual symptoms. Suggested blood test for organ function and CT scan. We have a blood draw booked for today (Friday) and are just waiting on an estimate for the cost of a CT scan. Apollo is normal otherwise. We’re not aware of any other episodes that may have occurred.

Thanks Bam, it will be interesting to see if anything comes up on the blood test. Seems they sent away for two although it doesn’t say what the second is, and they also managed to get a urine sample as well. I think they’re going to run the E.c test just to see (even though I know it’s not that simple). The vet did mention strokes as a possible cause as well.

You make a very good point about the cost of the CT scan vs the benefit, I have thought about that a lot. The trouble is I’m very science-minded and I like to know things 😆 I’m fully aware that the most likely scenarios are we get him scanned and it shows nothing, or we get him scanned and it shows something but we can’t do anything to treat it. In terms of anesthetic, they have had some success with small animals and no anesthetic by placing them in a small dark box, whether it would work for Apollo is another matter. It bothers me to not know the cause, even if the cause can’t be treated at least I’ll know what I’m dealing with. Maybe that’s a waste of money, I don’t know.

I was also very pleased to find that my favourite rabbit vet did his blood draw. She left her previous clinic to open her own exotic practice (still in the works) and I didn’t know she was at my other regular practice as a locum at the moment. So that was a nice surprise 😀

I definitely cope better with things knowing what’s going on, even if it’s something I can’t do anything about.

I just heard from the vet, his blood work is amazing, no concerns there. She said at this stage age-related epilepsy is most likely, whether that’s brought on chemically or physically by growths is unknown.

On the plus side, if I wanted to have a head CT done, she said in the next couple of months the imaging clinic is looking to hopefully bring their price down to around $650 for that, at the moment they’re still refining their procedures for scanning rabbits without anesthetic, but are improving their technique and should bring the cost down as well. So that’s super exciting.

So all that we need to do is monitor him, she said unless he’s having one or more a month there’s nothing to do preventatively. Treatment for epilepsy is sedatives, and it’s better to only use when necessary. I might do some research into preventative care, or things I can do to help make the enclosure safer such as soft bumpers etc just in case.