Aspiration Pneumonia Help

[Bunny Dad]

Hello everyone,

First time posting here. Desperately seeking some help, information, or experiences others have had for my bunny suffering from what we believe is Aspiration Pneumonia. Some background information:

My rabbit, Whimsy, had a choking incident while eating her pellets this past Thursday (10/28/21). She stopped mid eating, and began frantically running around her x-pen, gasping and wheezing with a bunch of mucus coming from her mouth and nose.  I was able to dislodge the stuck food using the bunny Heimlich. However, afterwards I noticed she had calmed down some, but was still having labored breathing. I took her right away to our nearest emergency vet clinic, where x-rays were taken and she was put on oxygen. The vet found some matter stuck in her lungs through the x-rays, and determined Whimsy seemed to be suffering from aspiration pneumonia after her choking incident. Later that evening, her breathing had seemed to stabilize, and we were able to take her home with some antibiotics for the night.

When I woke up on Friday morning, Whimsy was starting to gasp and wheeze again, and began to open mouth breathe. I ran her back to the clinic and they put her back on oxygen. It is now November 1st, and she has been at the clinic on oxygen since October 26th. During her time there, she seems stable while in oxygen, but when she is removed or becomes stressed, she goes back to struggling to breathe. She is still luckily happy to eat, and is defecating and urinating regularly. We haven’t seen much improvement or further decline since admitting her, her condition seems to stay the same. The vet seeing her has experience with rabbits, but does not have any experience handling a case of rabbit  Aspiration Pneumonia. I’ve also had difficulty finding much information online about this type of condition with rabbits.

Here’s what we’ve done so far:

X-rays – Shows signs of gunk in her lungs. Will be taking updated x-rays soon to see if any improvement.

Antibiotics – She has been on Baytril I believe, (Will be double checking when my Vet calls today). They upped her dosage as of last night.

Oxygen – She has remained in oxygen, relatively stable in there, but having lots of difficulty breathing when removed.

Nebulizer – The Vet tried a nebulizer once, and claimed it made her a bit more mucus-y. (I would assume that this might happen with a nebulizer though because it’s suppose to help break up what’s in the lungs and get it out, so maybe this isn’t a bad thing)?

Contacting other Vets – I have reached out today to 3 other vet clinics in my area with Rabbit Savvy vets to see if anybody else can help give us more information, am currently waiting to hear back from them.

 

My question for others in this forum is have any of you dealt with Aspiration Pneumonia in your bunnies before? (Even experience with regular Pneumonia welcome). Did your bunny recover? What did you do to help them? How long were they on oxygen? What does the recovery timeline look like? Any experiences, knowledge, suggestions, or kind thoughts are welcome. I am so worried about her and am trying everything and anything to help her.

[LBJ10]

No personal experience, but I wanted to say I’m sorry you are having to go through this. While reading your post, I was actually going to suggest treatment with a nebulizer. You’re right, it might help dislodge the gunk in her lungs. With “regular” pneumonia, treatment/recovery can last up to 12 weeks. I’m not sure what the timeline would be for aspiration pneumonia.

[Bunny Dad]

An Update!

Whimsy has made a recovery and come home! She was at the Emergency Vet for a little over a week on Oxygen. I’m updating this post with information about her treatment in hopes it may help others in the future. I feel one of the only reasons we were able to save her was through limited information I found through forums and asking around.

About halfway through her stay, Whimsy’s health was declining. I found some tips online from other rabbit owners who have successfully combated pneumonia, and shot some of the ideas over to my Vet who decided to implement them. The changes consisted of changing out of of her antibiotics for a different one, and adding medications to her nebulization treatments rather than just a saline treatment.

She is taking two oral anti-biotics: Enrofloxacin & Chloramphenicol

(Chloramphenicol was the new antibiotic we added in)

And the meds we added to her nebulization treatment:

Aminophylline & Acetylcysteine (2-4 times a day; helps to open her airways)

Amikacin (2 times a day; an antibiotic)

After we switched to this treatment plan, she quickly showed signs of improvement and recovery. She is now at home and we have been slowly weaning her off her medications. I hope if somebody else goes through this, that they find this information helpful. Thank you to everyone who has offered me support during this tough time, I’m so grateful to have my bunny home. <3

[LBJ10]

I’m glad she is doing better! Thank you for the update! I’m sure this information will be useful to someone in the future. If they do a search, it should pop up in the results. 🙂

[Wick & Fable]

Thank you so much for the update and I’m so glad to read that she is doing better! This will definitely be useful for people in the future.

… If you wanted to upload any photos of your baby, please feel free 🙂

The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.

[Bam]

Thank you for the update! Wonderful news! And a very helpful post for others that might find themselves in a similar situation.

[DanaNM]

Thank you so much for the update! Wonderful news and great info for other rabbit owners!

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

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