Hey everyone, I posted about a month or so ago about my girl and her struggle with EC. We’ve been extremely lucky that her symptoms were mild and I’m so excited to share that it looks like after about a month and a half of medication she has mostly regained control of her bladder again! I just wanted to share in case anyone is dealing with a similar situation and looking for information.
Our bun’s bottom used to be completely soaked, causing urine scald. Finally after 3-4 months she actually has a fluffy tail again! I just want to share a couple subtle EC symptoms so hopefully other bun parents won’t have to worry about extreme side effects of EC (head tilt, weak hind legs, seizures, kidney damage).
White spots/cataracts in the eyes: if a kit has inherited EC from their mother this symptom may show up when they are approx 3-6 months old. This is how my vet diagnosed my rabbit (blood tests followed).
Urinating outside of the litter when trained or a consistently wet bottom: this really can mean a few things, and if this has begun I urge you to make an appointment ASAP. If it isn’t an infection, and there is no sludge in the kidneys, ask about EC. If it is EC then the earlier you catch it, the less likely there will be kidney damage.
Calcium in urine: you should be able to see this when the urine has that strange creamy orange colour. This might not be the case with all rabbits, but ours had very creamy orange urine until finishing her meds. Again, may not be EC, but if you are stumped because your rabbit’s diet is balanced and their urine should be normal, ask your vet about it.
I really do encourage anyone whose rabbits have mysterious cataracts to check for EC and see a very rabbit savvy vet. Apparently our girl had EC for years laying dormant until for whatever reason it was triggered. After many trips to our regular vet and the symptoms continuing to get worse we were referred to the vet who diagnosed her. It took this vet two minutes to diagnose what the other vets couldn’t, because this vet specialized in small animals. If we had received the EC diagnoses three years ago we probably never would have spent approx $2000 trying to find out what it is.
Wishing you all some very happy holidays. The white rabbit (Rogue) is the one who kicked EC’s butt!
