kidney disease, advice please

[Bec]

Hi everyone, new here and was advised to come here for some answers.
My 6 and a half year old baby girl has just been diagnosed with kidney disease.
My vet has advised me that there is no cure, but we can only prolong the hard decision.
she has given my rabbit 12-18 months until she passes.
She is on penicillin twice a week now.
Her UPC (urine protein creatinine ratio) is 0.78,
Its obviously higher than normal, but is it chronic kidney disease? She is drinking about half a liter a day and urinates a fair bit but she isn’t losing weight or losing her appetite, she is still her happy self, the only reason we picked it up was because of the urine test.

I originally had gone to the vet for an abscess at the base of her ear,
but when we did a urine test it came back with high numbers of protein.

I’m really stuck on what to do, i feel like it is my fault.
i feel like i should have noticed the symptoms
Her history is when she was 2 she had EC for a few months which we treated and she only has a slight head tilt left from it.
I was just wondering if anyone could give me extra information, advice or any treatments they have tried.

Thanks everyone

[Bunny House]

I’m so sorry you’re doing through this. With the little research I know, and not knowing much about EC( I know can cause issues like this) what kind of hay are you feeding? And what veggies do you feed? And how much of each?

[Asriel and Bombur]

EC is never cured either, so I’m willing to bet that her current kidney condition was caused by EC. It’s not something that she has for a few months and then goes away with treatment. It stays with a bunny for their lifespan and they can have one or several flare ups throughout the course of their life. Bombur has kidney complications due to EC and I’ve been told by my vet he will probably have the same prognosis as your bun with kidney disease. You can help her by asking your vet to give you panacur or Oxibendazole. These will help with any incontinence and excess thirst caused by the EC. It might take a while to kick in but it should help overall.

[Cheeko&Abby]

Hi Bec, my 10 yr old bunny has chronic kidney failure too, as well as a head tilt the vet thinks is EC. He also has some pretty severe arthritis. He was diagnosed with kidney failure back in July and although he drinks and urinates a lot, not much has changed since then. It’s his arthritis that seems to be slowing him down more recently.
The vet told me that kidney failure isn’t painful for them until the end stages when they can no longer filter out the toxins and they can start having seizures. I know other people’s rabbits have lived another 2 or more years with kidney failure, so it’s not something that will happen suddenly. The vet told me when it gets close to the time to say goodbye, we will know.
As far as lifestyle, there are special kidney failure diets they can go on, I think it’s supposed to be low protein, so Timothy hay, Timothy pellets and lots of veggies like romaine lettuce (try to avoid alfalfa). I’m sorry you’re going through this, hugs to you and your bun!

[FlemishDad]

Don’t be hard on yourself for missing it, because kidney disease has no symptoms even on routine lab tests until it is fairly advanced. Protein in the urine definitely means kidney failure; the kidneys won’t let it through until they start failing.

Strongly second the EC treatment recommedation. A month of pancur brought my bun from 2-3 quarts of water per day to less than 1, which is only slightly abnormal for a Flemish giant.

For diet, keep protein, calcium, and phosphorus low. That means go easy on pellets and avoid alfalfa hay; other common hays are fine. Good veggies are lettuce, especially romaine, cilantro, and bell peppers. Avoid spinach, parsley and basil. Carrots are good for the kidneys but fattening. Fruit treats are usually pretty good on calcium but not always phosphorus although you probably shouldn’t give enough to make a difference. My bun starting peeing a lot more when I gave him a lot of watermelon rind – I checked that it wasn’t bad on sugar or calcium, but it has a lot of phosphorus. Whoops. I stopped it and he went back to less than a quart.

In people kidney disease can be stable for many years if they are strict with diet and treat the underlying cause. Nobody has done studies on buns but don’t give up.

[Author]

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