Keeping Her Comfortable Until Vet

[bonnie_bunny]

Bonnie decided yesterday that she didn’t want to eat. I gave her breakfast around 8:45 and returned around 6:45 to see that her pellets were still there, her water bowl was still full, the hay didn’t look as if it had been touched, and she was hunched in the corner grinding her teeth. Her favorite treat is banana and when I offered it, she not only refused but completely turned her head away. I feel awful because I’m not usually gone for that long, but I’m currently training to be a resident assistant at my school and my hours are long. She was fine the first few days so I didn’t think I had to worry. I fed her Oxbow Apple Banana Critical care last night and every three hours throughout the night, she’s been getting 1 ml of Simethicone every 1-3 hours. I’ve been giving her belly massages. She’s pooping but only small slimy pellets. She’s been sitting in her litter box, grinding her teeth, and sitting as if she was trying to poop but couldn’t. She has a vet appointment at 6:30 tonight but I don’t know if I can do anything else to make her comfortable until then. I’m very stressed about this and the little sleep I did get didn’t help.

[sarahthegemini]

Tbh it sounds like you’re doing all you can. I would just double check that she isn’t feeling cold.

When you are feeding her the critical care, do you make it thick or quite watery? If you make it thick, it might be helpful to syringe her some water too just so she doesn’t dehydrate.

((((Vibes for Bonnie)))

[bonnie_bunny]

The vet told me she’s constipated but there’s no full blockage. She’s on 100ml CC per day (20ml every five hours), syringe fed water, and pureed pumpkin. Unfortunately, while they have rabbit savvy vets where I am, they do not stock up on exotic pet meds because they don’t see a ton. I have to wait until Saturday so she can get gut motility drugs. I tend to make her CC a little runnier because otherwise she fights me a lot in taking it. They gave her sub-q fluids for now hoping the dry waste would soften and pass, but I’m annoyed she can’t get any real help until Saturday. I’m exhausted from staying up all night last night and now I’m not banking on more than five hours of sleep tonight.

Thank you for the good vibes. I’m not sure what stressed her out. I changed her hay from a local Timothy/orchard/etc mix from VT (where I live) to a Timothy/redtop/clover mix from NY (where I go to school). She didn’t seem to mind the change. It’s also very hot in the dorm rooms during the day. She has a fan and some ceramic tiles to lay on. I’m also wondering: does anyone else’s rabbit not eat if there’s not someone else in the room? Sometimes Bonnie will start breakfast but if I leave to brush my teeth or shower, she’ll wait for me to get back before she finishes. I’m wondering if me being gone for so long discouraged her from eating and set the whole stasis/constipation process in motion.

[Bunny House]

Hi,
I’m actually going through the same thing with my bun. She had an ear infection which made her not eat and then become dehydrated and so all her poops got stuck and dried up. So I’ve been doing sub q fluids everyday and force feeding. A vet should have meloxicam ( only short period of time as it can cause liver and kidney damage) and buprenorphine( can slow down the gut but you need to help lower her pain until everything is hydrated and then stop it) on hand as they are used in dogs. Gut motility drugs are bad for a blockages ( or dried poops)as it can cause horrible cramping and you can’t push out dried poops. you need to over hydrate her which might take 2 days before you start seeing poops because they need to hydrate back up so they can easily move out of the gi tract so they don’t cause her horrible pain(imagine pushing something dry and hard out, ouch)and then continue until she starts to eat on her own and then decrease it. That’s what we did with my lop and she is doing much better but she is on buprenorphine due to her ear infection and dried poops but we are lowering the dose every day.

[Sirius&Luna]

I don’t think gut motility drugs are inherently bad for stasis, Bunny House. My very rabbit savvy vet prescribes Meloxicam and Zantac, and Luna recovered well while on that combination. She also had IV fluids while at the vet.

Bonnie, it could be that she’s lonely if she’ll only eat when you’re in the room. Once she’s recovered, it could be worth looking into getting a friend for her if you’re going to continue to be out for long hours. Sometimes there’s no obvious cause of stasis, it just seems to happen sometimes! Agreed that the vet should be able to give you a dog painkiller, meloxicam though.

I hope she continues to improve!

[Bunny House]

S&L trust me, we use Cisapride for patches so of course it’s not bad! But you shouldn’t use them with blockages or constipation as you need to moisten the poop up so it can move out the gi tract, then of course you can use gut motility drugs as it moistens up to help get them out faster but not initially as dried poop is hard to move out

[Bam]

If there is a blockage, the intestine can rupture if the bun is given guy motility drugs. This is why it’s so important to get x-rays when a bun is in stasis. The majority of GI stasis buns don’t have a full blockage, but you can’t know for sure without x-rays. For a gut slowdown without blockage, motility drugs are excellent.

As S&L says, Zantac works as a motility drug and can be given to buns. It’s an OTC med for humans, much used to control excess stomach acid in gastritis-prone humans. The dosage has to be recalculated for buns, but it’s a commonly available drug. Your vet might think that could be an alternative until you can get prescription motility drugs, most often metclopramide (Reglan).

Metacam is usually well tolerated by bunnies even for prolonged treatment, according to Medirabbit. As Bunny House says, it shouldn’t be given to buns that have poor kidney- or liver function. Blood tests will show kidney- and liver function.
Buprenorphine is an opioid and can thus slow the gut, but it’s still a drug of choice for buns in severe pain. This is Medirabbit’s list of bunny safe analgesics: http://www.medirabbit.com/Safe_medication/Analgesics/

Hydration is key, syringe extra water or make he CC less thick. If her ears are cold and it’s summer where you are, she could have a low temp due to lowered metabolism. She should then be warmed up perhaps by sitting her in your lap or by giving her the choice of cuddling up to a warm water bottle.

Many many vibes for your girl!

[bonnie_bunny]

Bonnie went to the vet yesterday and was given 100ml of subq fluids and instructions to give her 1/4 of a 5 mg pill of cisapride every 12 hours. She apparently has no blockage and some gut sounds but not as much as she should have. I’m going insane here. We think the issue was caused by her eating a litter I was using until I could get my hands on the regular stuff (a ferret litter to be precise) so she’s using hay as litter until the rush order for the old stuff arrives. After three doses of cisapride she is still munching on greens almost exclusively with a tiny amount of hay and is not drinking water. At one point I had gotten her to eat and drink slightly just before I started giving her the motility drugs and I feel like I’ve gone a step backwards. Her poops are painfully dry and hard and mucous covered. I’ve been trying my best to make her CC more liquidy and to give her 15 ml of water with every meal. I’ve noticed Bonnie is also licking up her urine, which is incredibly unusual for her. She also peed outside the litter box for the first time ever. She was sitting on her granite tile and didn’t even bother to move. I found the tile wet and covered in urine, as well as her fur soaked through. She’s been getting baths almost twice a day because she won’t stop laying in her pee.

The vet also told me that if this doesn’t work or if she suddenly gets worse, I need to take her to an exotic specialist which is over an hour and a half away and I don’t have a car. While I’m happy she has disclosed this, I’m scared and frustrated. I just want my bunny back. And my sleep. I’m going to bed at 1 am and getting up at 6 am to feed her. I’m exhausted and I don’t know what to do at this point. She bit me for the first time ever yesterday because the syringe stresses her out so much.

[bonnie_bunny]

And of course, every single vet, including the exotic one hours away from me, is closed today as it’s Sunday.

[Bunny House]

Like i said before. Gut motility drugs are bad if they are blocked or constipated. She needs to be given 200ml of fluids a day for a couple of days and be force fed. No gut motility drugs at all. Then after a couple of days everything should start to rehydrate and flow like normal. My lop just got her poops back to normal after 1 1/2 weeks of intensive care of fluids everyday and being force fed. If she doesn’t have enough fluids in her, her organs can’t properly function. She also needs to be on pain meds. The gut motility drugs are pushing her hard poops out which can cut up her gi tract and can lead to infection(one of my buns had this before and was horrible and painful for him)

[LittlePuffyTail]

Sorry to hear your bunny is so unwell.

I have nothing more to add exept to echo the importance of sub Q fluids. When I had a bunny really in a bad way, the vet showed my husband how to do the fluids at home and gave us all the necessary equipment. It`s not too hard to do if you are okay with needles. Just really need to make sure your bun stays hydrated while in stasis, and especially since you mentioned her poops are really dry.

((((((Get Well Soon))))

[bonnie_bunny]

I upped Bonnie’s water intake to 200 ml a day. Unfortunately things took a turn for the worse last night. The exotic vet was not on call so my local vet was my only option. She gave her a dose of meloxicam and urged me to get to the exotic vet in the morning. Bonnie did not make it that long. I woke up at 5:30 to feed her, but found her seizing and in distress. Despite multiple calls to the emergency vet lines, by the time someone trained in rabbits answered the phone it was too late. She was only two and she had only been in my life for four months. I’m shocked and devastated and generally a mess. I do appreciate all of the help I’ve gotten on this forum with her and I sincerely thank anyone who has ever answered a question I had.

[sarahthegemini]

I’m so sorry to hear Bonnie didn’t make it. Bunnies are so, so fragile that sometimes despite doing everything we can (which it sounds like you did), they leave us. Binky on little Bonnie xxx

[Bam]

I’m so very sorry, BonnieBunny. I sympathize with your feelings of chick and devastation. I couldn’t get my bridge bun to a rabbit savvy vet because he took ill on the weekend, I had to make do with the ER vet. But we can’t know if outmr buns would not have left us anyway, if they were to sick to be saved.

You did all you could for your Bonnie. She was very lucky to have you.

[LittlePuffyTail]

I’m so very sorry for your loss. It is such a hard thing to go through. Most of us have been there, sadly.

Agree with Bam. She was lucky to have someone who loved her so much.

(((((Binky Free Bonnie)))))

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