Meloxicam dosage stasis

[Lia]

My rabbit was diagnosed with Stasis. She was prescribed Loxicom 0.5mg/ml for pain. The dosage is supposed to be 0.2ml twice daily. I’ve been giving it to her since yesterday and she’s still in a lot of pain. I tried calling my vet but he’s not working today. Is it safe to increase the dosage and if so how would I do that?

[Lia]

The dosage us 0.1ml twice daily. I got it mixed up.

[Bam]

It seems like a very low dose. 0.1 ml ×0.5 mg/ml loxicom gives a dose of 0.05 mg meloxicam.

Normal dose for a rabbit is 0.3-06 mg meloxicam (the active substance in loxicom) per kilo body weight. For severe pain you can give up to 1.5 mg per kilo body weight and day.

This is from Medirabbit, a trusted source:

Perhaps the pharmacy might  have given you the wrong strenght loxicom? Or maybe the dosage has been written down wrong? Normally rabbits get 1.5 mg/ml strenght loxicom. 0.1 ml of 1.5 mg/ml loxicom would still be a low dose if your bun weighs more than 1 kilo (2.2 lb).

Rabbits metabolize meloxicam a lot more quickly than dogs and cats, so a 2 kilo bun needs about as much meloxicam as a 10 kilo dog.

Loxicom is a bit hard on the stomach.

Can you take a picture of the bottle and prescribed dosage for us?

 

[Lia]

I got it from an emergency vet on sunday because I had to take her in. I was supposed to start giving it to her after I speak to my vet in Monday. The dosage was originally 0,6ml from what I’m seeing, twice daily but he changed it to 0,1ml because she’s only 16 weeks old and she only weights 500 grams. He actually said it  not to give more than 0,1ml a number of times. I’m a bit confused.

[Bam]

Oh, so shes so young and so very tiny! The vet seems to have put quite some thought into this, and I’d not change it without consulting that vet. They mustve had good reasons for describing such a tiny dose.

In case you think she’s bothered by gas, you could give her 0.5 ml simethicone baby gas drops. Its not taken up by the body, it only works locally in the GI tract and then gets pooped out. Gas often accompanies any type of GI distress and can be very painful for rabbits. You can help her pass gas by elevating her butt slightly. (ETA: I see now you have asked about gas drops before).

Also try to keep her warm. If she likes sitting in your lap, you could have her in your lap with a light blanket on her. Your body heat will keep her warm with no risk of overheating.

Id call the vet again forst thing tomorrow. They might want to add another type painkiller.

[Lia]

She is tiny but she has a huge personality!

Thank you for the advice! I’ll call the vet and talk to him. I’m just very worried about her. I’ve been giving her simethicone and massaging her belly. She’s ok for a bit, she eats like an adult bunny but then she gets gassy again and she presses her tummy to the floor. She doesn’t grind her teeth as much as before but she still does if it’s bad, and it got really bad today morning. She stopped pooping for 8 hours and she refused to move or eat which is rare for her. That’s why I got confused because she is getting loxicom and metoclopramide so I didn’t expect it to get THIS bad after being better yesterday. She was like a poop machine in the evening.

I just wish I could do more to help her. Fortunately she’s not as bad as some of the other poor bun buns but the vet said she’s not great and I don’t want her to be in pain anymore…

 

[Bam]

You could perhaps try giving her a probiotic (f ex benebac) to help her build a sturdy and diverse gut microbiota. Young rabbits may not have a sturdy and diverse population of all the various beneficial bacteria and yeasts that help the bun break down its food and take up the nutrients. This can happen if the bun was taken from the mother early and put on a non-diverse diet (for example an all pellet diet).

Has your vet suggested any underlying cause for the stasis? It seems she has had GI trouble quite a while now. Has her feces been tested for parasites?

[Lia]

I do have a probiotic and she is getting it. It’s called Pro C I think. It actually took 4 vets to finally get my hands on one. That was the first thing I wanted to give her but you can only get it from an exotics vet here. It’s the same with oxbow critical care and everything else.

If I’m being honest the breeder didn’t seem to take great care of the rabbits. All the babies were cramped together in a tiny cage outside. They were getting meadow hay and barley as pellets.

The vet said diet is most likely the cause here and said she needs to have her gut bacteria fixed. She had her fecals tested for everything twice, and it came back negative both times. She also got treated for worms and coccidia, just in case.

Her diet was never great. She wasn’t eating much when I brought her home and when she did start eating it was mainly the barley. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it on here before, but she also ate a whole bunch of those cheap sugary snacks on a stick. I gave her a tiny taste of a dried timothy hay stick. No problems there, but then I had to leave for college and work. I’d get back and find out my parents gave her a lot of those stick snacks. I actually thought it was the same thing as the snacks I got her because it looked similar enough, just different shape. I did get worried because she ate A LOT of it. Then she started leaving cecotropes all over the place and stopped pooping. I checked the ingredients and it had carrots, broccoli and sugar in it…

She did get better after a couple of days, but her tummy was a bit loud.

I couldn’t find a good vet for the life of me. They kept saying she’s constipated and to give her less hay and more apples or cucumbers because they have a lot of water. She was 13/14 weeks old at the time. Clearly, great vets. She lost a lot of weight because she wasn’t eating much and I had to remove her pellets so she was left with just meadow hay. I started to mix in some alfalfa hay with the meadow hay and that helped, but she started to make some soft poops. It wasn’t often maybe once a day and it was only one or two the rest was normal. It wasn’t cecotropes. All of her poop had that bad smell to them for a while. That’s why she got treated for coccidia.

[Lia]

She was also prescribed antepsin for a ” maybe ulcer” by the previous vet. There were no diet changes aside from a tiny bit of timothy hay that made her a bit gassy but she got better very quickly. She stared to get really bad right after she started taking the antepsin. I stopped giving it to her once I realized that.

She’s a bit better now, but it was the same last night before she got REALLY bad in the morning so I don’t know..

I feel like I wrote a book, haha. I want to learn as much as possible from this so I can react better in the future.

[Bam]

If there is suspicion of an ulcer that could be why the vet prescribed the very low dose of loxicom. Antepsin is often prescribed for ulcers or to prevent ulcers in buns that are on high-ish doses of meloxicam – but if she took a turn for the worse when you gave it, I understand why you stopped. I had it prescribed for one of my buns, but I never had to use it. Some vets choose to prescribe famotidine (Pepcid) instead.

You do seem to be doing everything  right, this just happens to be a tough case. I know people who have had a  good experience with Pro C probiotics for their poorly rabbits.

 

[Lia]

I hope it’ll help her. I’ll continue her treatment and see how she does. She had a gas attack and she’s making mushy poops today morning as well. Also leaving some cecotropes, I wonder if that’s from the critical care? Could it be too rich for her? It was similar yesterday except she was way worse. Her poops go back to normal eventually after lots of massage and hay. I’m still worried though. Is that normal for buns with stasis?

[Bam]

Its difficult to say if its the Critical Care. Excessive protein can sometimes cause sticky poop, in sensitive individuals. At the same time, she is a growing bun and needs protein. Its not uncommon for young, healthy rabbits to leave extra cecotropes.

Recovery from stasis can be very slow and thus challenging for the human.

[DanaNM]

I think it’s good you treated for coccidia just to be safe, I think the name of the game now with her is stability. Recovery from stasis can be slow in the adult rabbits, and it can take time for appropriate gut flora to develop. I know bene-bac is used for weaning orphaned cottontails, so you might try that specific probiotic as well.

I would keep up her diet of grass hay plus alfalfa, and make sure your parents arent giving her anymore treats! It’s normal for young rabbits to not eat all of their cecotropes, so I would be less worried about that as long as they are well formed.

. . . 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.  

[Lia]

Alright, thank you for all the advice!

[Author]

Messages