Molar spurs update! It’s actually coccidia :(

[Alfiesmom]

Just updating on Alfie. I posted a few days ago regarding Alfie’s ordeal with seeing different vets for his reoccuring stasis episodes and dental issues. I have taken Alfie to now a 3rd vet today because the past 2 days, we went to our initial vet to get an examination done, and the next day was a scheduled dental trim under anesthesia. Well…..on the day that Alfie was to get his molars trimmed, they put him under sedation and then the vet calls me AFTER and informs me that they don’t have the right sized tool to file his teeth (believe me, I am as enraged as you are). How can they put an animal under the risk of anesthesia just to admit later that they should not have even done the procedure?! I surely dropped that vet quickly and said I would never return. So today, I had an appointment with a new vet that was recommended by someone I knew and told me this vet has worked with rabbits and many farm animals. She was the first one to immediately take xrays, perform a fecal test, blood work, urine testing, and oral examination. To my surprise, when the vet showed me the xrays, Alfie’s teeth were not nearly as bad as what the other vet claimed, saying that the jaw is perfectly aligned, and that something else is putting him off of eating enough hay. After the vet performed a fecal floating and smear test, we discovered that Alfie has coccidia which has gone undetected. As glad as I am that we have FINALLY got some answers behind all of Alfie’s symptoms….I feel so utterly horrible that he has gone through all of this and I can’t help but feel like I’m a bad mom. We have been given the appropriate medication for the coccidia as well as Metacam as Alfie’s main symptoms from the coccidia is abdominal discomfort/pain. I have seen improvement already within 12 hours. Hopefully this 5 month-long journey of recurring stasis will be put to an end. Has anyone had a bun here who experienced coccidia? 

[Muchelle]

Omg that first vet was truly an idiot >___< You're right to be enraged! Coccidia is also pretty easy to diagnose and it's such a basic test :/

My bun had a bad case of coccidia when he first came to me, he wasn’t eating and got to the point of not pooping. I had just taken him in so I brought him to the vet for his first visit and they called me back the same day to give him treatment He bounced back very quickly.

[Alfiesmom]

I’m glad to hear that it’s easy to treat. I was given antibiotics to give to Alfie for 21 days. Something sulfa…..lol. I was more enraged that ever since I brought Alfie home at 8 weeks of age, he had coccidia undetected. He was going through stasis almost every 2 weeks and every vet I went to was just making me treat the symptoms. Alfie does have slightly overgrown premolars according to our final vet visit and she determined that it was likely to how many times Alfie went off of his food and hay throughout this entire process. I even asked the other 2 vets to do testing to rule anything else out and both said they believed it to be “congenital”. I have never heard of a vet not ruling things out and automatically going for the worst case scenario. Unfortunately one of the vets was listed through the HRS site so I may be contacting them to let them know that his practice was unprofessional.

[Muchelle]

Well, I would certainly call back the first vet to tell them what it was and see how they react to that… maybe they did a honest mistake, but they did make a pretty bad mistake :/

[Alfiesmom]

Sorry for the late response it has been a crazy week and a bit lol! I actually did contact the first vet to let them know what was going on with Alfie. Her response was that she was going to ask for the file from the last vet we saw and make her own assumptions. I’m of mixed feelings about her response, but the bottom line is that we found out what was wrong and Alfie is getting a little bit better each day.

[Bam]

I’m glad to hear he’s getting better!

[Author]

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