Anaesthetic complications

[Breadbun]

Hello everyone! This is my first time posting on here and I wasn’t able to post a new topic in the rabbit health section so apologies for this being in the wrong section.

We have a new bun who has just turned five months and we took her in to be spayed today. We had a call from the vet after a couple of hours to say that she has reacted badly to the anaesthetic and they couldn’t go ahead. They said her heart rate was much faster than it should have been to begin with and then slowed down way too much and was very irregular so they reversed the various anaesthetics and sedatives (sounds like it was a cocktail of 6-7 drugs).

I just wondered if anyone has had experience with this kind of complication? This is the first time we’ve had a rabbit spayed and we’re worrying quite a lot. The vet said it could be down to an underlying condition like a heart problem though she couldn’t see anything on the x-ray.

The vet has insisted on keeping her overnight because they said she took 4 hours to come out of ‘tonic immobility’. I assumed this was related to the anaesthetic but having googled it, it seems to be when a rabbit plays dead out of extreme stress and it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with anaesthetic, so I’m a bit confused/concerned about this. She’s apparently not eating so is obviously stressed and my instinct was to get her home ASAP but I didn’t want to go against vet advice. It’s a specialist rabbit vet.

We’re going to have to try the surgery again at some point as there’s such a high risk of uterine cancer for female bunnies, but this has really scared me and I don’t want to risk losing her. Any help/advice would be much appreciated!

[Bam]

You seem to have a good vet. I’m sorry this happened, I don’t think it’s fully understood why some individuals react badly to anaesthetics. Some do though,  humans included.

I hope they’ll be able to get her to eat soon. I think it was wise of you to let them keep her there, although I do so understand the instinctive wish to bring her home asap.

Uterine cancer is indeed a real risk for female buns. It doesn’t happen to all individuals though, and in cases like yours, you may have to just hope for the best. Maybe your vets will run bloodtests to check her liver function etc, to try and find the cause for her bad reaction?

 

[Breadbun]

Yes they’ve done some blood tests to check her organ function and for e cuniculi. It sounds like a lot of different issues could be the cause. If nothing shows up there, the next step is an ultrasound to check her heart in more detail. We’re just desperately hoping they won’t find anything and the reaction was just caused by stress.

The vet said she’s seen this reaction in only 5 other bunnies in her time as a vet, and of those 2 or 3 had underlying issues.

She’s home now at least and eating, pooping and (after a tiny bit of sulking) binkying round happily so we’re grateful that at least we didn’t lose her during the surgery.

[Author]

Messages