Front Paw Fracture experience

[Wick & Fable]

Unfortunately, Wick had a bad landing while being handled. He fell 5ft and tumbled into an NIC grid against a wall (we use for rabbit-proofing). He stopped putting weight on his left front paw immediately– no other abnormalities seen. It was 9PM and while staying up until 11:30PM for observation, he still didn’t put weight on it. He was still acting normally, eating, going around, grooming himself (though limited movement in the left paw). Because there were no signs of pain/imminent risk, we decided to limit his space to only flat terrain for the night and take him to the vet the following morning. An emergency vet is over two hours away in my area.

9AM the next day, he is exactly the same, in terms of left front paw being held up, but energy and appetite is still exactly the same. Upon feeling the paw, the elbow was swollen, though externally it looked the “same”.

At the vet, it was noticed he could still extend and contract the foot, but indeed was only gingerly putting weight on it. The vet suspected most likely soft tissue damage, but it would be good to get an x-ray. We definitely wanted the x-ray, which was good because a complete short oblique fracture of the left digit 3 mid metatarsal was found. In laypeople terms, his middle finger fractured.

Treatment is complete confinement (restricted space to limit running, playing, jumping) for two weeks, with an expectation that it may go for even two months, depending on healing. What will prevent it healing properly is him accidentally making it worse, so while it is unfortunate for a free-roam rabbit, it’s what’s best. Incurring more damage may lead to needed correction surgery or removal in general. Meloxicam is being given once a day for inflammation and pain, and Tramadol is given twice a day for add’l pain management as well. For the first week, Tramadol will be given since it’s the most painful week, but after that, I may adjust (either reduce/eliminate if it makes him too sleepy/groggy or increase if there are signs of ongoing pain).

He is set-up in my bedroom in a small, fabric x-pen with a litter box and water dish. He will be separated from Fable, my other rabbit, but they were never truly bonded to begin with, so I don’t have concerns about their separation at the moment. Fable may become lonely, but we will be at home and give her more attention to compensate. The plan is Wick gets no free-roam for two weeks and we will consider expansion following that.

Read below for updates on treatment and progress.

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.

[Hazel]

Aww, poor Wick. 🙁  Sometimes these things happen unfortunately. I hope he won’t take the confinement too hard, and will heal quickly. Managing the pain meds can be a balancing act, we don’t want them to be in pain but also not feeling so well that they are too active. Sending lots of healing vibes!

I fractured my middle finger in a bowling accident as a kid, it’s no fun. 🙄

[LBJ10]

Oh no, poor Wick! Rabbits are wiggly things sometimes, so don’t be too hard on yourself. It’s hard because pain management and confinement really is all you can do. I don’t even know if they could splint that successfully.

[Susanne]

Aww sorry to hear about Wick. Sending good vibes that he heals quickly.

[Wick & Fable]

We have two upcoming appointments scheduled for check-ins at 1 week and 2 weeks later. In case people find it interesting ( I did), here is the xray, showing the fractured finger. It is the 3rd finger on the left paw, near the base of that finger:

Wick is on and off of when he seems more comfortable putting some weight on it. It may involve when he’s feeling the pain medication versus not, but energy and appetite wise, he is still the same. Very energetic and hungry… always.

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.

[Ellie from The Netherlands]

Poor Wick, I hope he gets well soon!

Bunnies are so fragile, but on the other hand they put up a real fight when they’re being handled. Sometimes I think that they have very poor self-preservation instincts.

I’m sorry that you had to experience it, but thank you for sharing the knowledge.

[Wick & Fable]

As a follow-up: Wick is all recovered!

He is back to full free-roam. Thankfully, his recovery was steady with no hiccups in his energy or appetite. The only lasting consequence is that the finger sort of sticks “up” when he lounges (i.e. it doesn’t touch the ground naturally), so I suppose it’s like he’s constantly prepping to flip the bird, haha. All is well!

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.

[DanaNM]

Yay Wick! I’m sure he’s so happy to be able to roam again!

. . . 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.  

[Hazel]

Well, if there’s any animal that would flip one the bird, it’s a bunny! 😆

So glad he’s all better. 🙂

[LBJ10]

Yay! Glad to hear he is doing well!

[SweetPotato]

Aww that must’ve been a really tiring experience! Glad your precious boy is doing fine! 😀

[Wick & Fable]

Unfortunate follow-up: Wick is back to confinement 😥

Wick had been free-roam from 5/01 thru 5/28, with what seemed like no problems. On the morning of 5/29, I noticed he was not putting weight on the paw again and upon closer examination, it was swelled. We got meloxicam from the vet that day to help with pain until we could be seen on 6/02 (today!).

It seems that with Wick’s 3rd finger healing upward and fine, it’s not really usable weight-wise. The vet suspects Wick has been putting more weight on his 2nd finger, which is now very swollen and red. I do feel bad for not noticing it because when we returned home and I looked at it, it was very swollen. I usually do daily checks of Wick’s whole body, but I stopped when he injured his paw because I feared messing up recovery. Alas.

So his 3rd finger is all healed and well, though crooked, but now his 2nd finger is swollen and the vet mentioned some of the bone looked “fuzzy”, which could indicate general swelling, infection (from him licking the swelled finger, though no visible open wounds to see), or osteomyelitis, which is an infection eating away at the bone specifically. If it’s the latter, then we need to amputate that 2nd finger.

Right now, the action plan is restricted pen like before with the same 2 pain medications/anti-inflammatories and also an antibiotic to treat any potential infection that may be there and is treatable. A new x-ray will be taken in 2 weeks to see how the 2nd finger looks.

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.

[SweetPotato]

Oh no! I’m so sorry Wick. I hope he gets well soon! Aw, please don’t feel bad for not noticing. It’s definitely not your fault!

Best wishes to you and your sweet bun.

[Wick & Fable]

Below are the X-ray progressions:

1) 03/18/21 – initial visit; no treatment

2) 03/27 – After 1 week of restricted cage time + meloxicam & tramadol medication

3) 06/02/21 – After 4 weeks of free-roam and no medication

… It is very clear on the latest x-ray how swollen the 2nd finger has become. The hope is the swelling and fuzziness decreases in two weeks.

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.

[LBJ10]

Oh no! Poor Wick! Hmm… what about arthritis or joint degeneration? That would make the joint look fuzzy on x-rays. Perhaps he was putting all his weight on that finger and it caused too much stress on the bones/joints?

[Wick & Fable]

It was the vet’s opinion that it could be the weight distribution thing, which is a bit problematic I think because what’s the alternative if Wick doesn’t learn to redistribute the weight? His other digits are fine on that paw, so I guess worst-worst case scenario is that his 2nd digit gets amputated and then hopefully he finds a good way to distribute the weight among the other 3 fingers…. sticking with it day by day though.

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.

[Wick & Fable]

Update! It’s been a while, so I thought I’d recap as this is actually still ongoing:

Wick had stopped eating for separate reasons in December 2021, which prompted us to go to the vet. While doing an x-ray of his GI, I asked for an x-ray to follow-up on his x-ray from July (not posted here, but it showed no swelling in any toes and the fracture pretty much close to healed). I was completely blind-sided to learn that between July and December, Wick fractured the same toe again! The x-ray from December looks identical to the one pictured above here in February — as shown, you see there is bone loss and a bulb where the bone did indeed callous and heal, but then it broke at that point again. Thankfully, Wick shows no sign of pain, swelling, nor impact on his movement (hence why I was so blindsided!). It is reportedly a bit unusual that the x-ray from December to now (late February) show absolutely no healing of this new fracture. The veterinarians suspect due to Wick’s age and just “rabbits”, perhaps it is taking longer for this particular break, so we will revisit for another x-ray in 6-8 weeks.

Until then and likely after then, unless something significantly different expresses in Wick, the plan is going with Wick’s behavior (which has been consistently “I’m fine” through all of this) and simply letting the toe be, regardless of its state, and I have meloxicam to administer if at any point he seemed to have strained the toe particular hard one day. This will be in conjunction with the daily checks I’ve been doing for swelling and skin breaching. To date, he has not needed any meloxicam for expressed pain since what was required for his not-eating episode back in December, so it’s been close to 3 months of demonstrated no-need for pain medication related to his toe fracture. As a non-professional, I expressed concern about having a broken toe and bone just chilling in there, especially since there is significant bone loss. The vet assured me that as long as the skin stays intact, the likelihood of infection is quite low, especially since the bones themselves do not show signs of being actually open within the toe.

So, in short, Wick re-broke the toe and it is taking uncharacteristically long to heal. That being said, the likely course of action is to just leave it be and treat with pain medication if anything comes up that seems problematic.

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.

[Author]

Messages