Possible GI stasis

[Dumbo the Bunny]

Just a short summary of Dumbo’s history: she had a tumour in her uterus, so we spayed her and removed her tumour in the beginning of September. Then flollowed a pretty bad month, she got GI stasis once and then she had to get another operation, she had an abscess in her tummy which formed because of the first operation. Since then she has been fine until the last couple of days.

The last couple of days she has been breathing much faster then usual. And today when I got home she showed all of the signs of GI stasis like the last time. She is breathing very fast, tossing and turning. She was fine five hours ago but when I got home four hours ago she was in this state. And she doesn’t want to eat anything. 

I have given her the baby medicine for gas and got a bit of critical care in her. I have also massaged her tummy. She did pee a little while ago. But she seems to be in pain. Called the vet, and I have to wait until tomorrow because the vet is out today. So I’m panicking a bit. What more can I do? I have ranitidine (zantac) and Pimperan (metoclopramide) at home, they are in a decanted plastic bottle and I have had them since september, so not sure if I should give it to her or if it’s too old. She is clearly in pain because she’s grinding her teeth. Sort of at a loss as to what I can do.

[Sirius&Luna]

If you have painkillers prescribed by the vet for her, then I would personally give them to her. Have you got any metacam or loxicom? Do you know what dosage she had last time?

Zantac is an appetite stimulant. My rabbit recently had stasis and was given zantac and loxocom.

Metoclopramide sounds like an anti-nausea drug from my googling, which I’ve never been prescribed for my rabbits, but I don’t think it’s unusual.

Is there an emergency vet you could take her to?

Otherwise, keep her warm, and encourage her to eat whatever you can. You might want to syringe a bit of water into her, as water really helps to perk them up. Herbs were the only thing that Luna would eat when she had stasis, so I offered her fresh pieces constantly.

It’s great that you’ve given her gas meds and a bit of critical care.

[Bam]

I second what S&L has said already. As for Zantac I’m not sure if you should give it without having a fresh x-ray of her GI channel. If there’s a blockage it could get a lot worse with a motility drug. I think a pain killer would be really important now, I don’t suppose you could get a prescription for metacam today even if you asked the vet clinic really nicely and promised to come in right away tomorrow?

If you still want to give her ranitidine but you’re not sure if the solution you have is still ok (I don’t know how long it keeps), you can go buy new tablets at any pharmacy (generic ranitidine is what I use) and crush and mix with water to a suitable concentration. I did that with my Bam. This is how i did the solution, you’ll need to adjust it for Dumbo’s weight: I crushed one 150 mg pill and mixed with 10 ml water. A bun needs 2 mg per kg body weight according to Wabbitwiki. My Bam was 2,5 kg so he got 5 mg = 0,33 ml of the solution. Shake it well before you pull it up into the syringe because the ranitidine precipitates out quickly.

Sending many healing-vibes for (((((Dumbo)))))

[Dumbo the Bunny]

I actually had some metacam left at home and had the dosage written down, so I’ve given her that.

I went and bought some different fresh herbs, but she didn’t want to eat any of them, so that’s unfortunate. I will syringe feed her some water and critical care now and then go to the pharmacy and buy some ranitidine tablets and see if anything of this helps some. 

[Bam]

I hope the Metacam will give her some relief, maybe even so she wants to eat something.

[Dumbo the Bunny]

She was hiding in her hiding place for a while but recently jumped out on her own, jumped around for a bit, cleaned herself and ate fresh herbs and pellets with her usual appetite. She doesn’t want hay yet, but I’m a little bit hopeful, since she’s a lot more alert. Before she hardly wanted to move and now she hops around like usually, so we’ll see what happens. Thank you so much for the support and all the advice!

[Sirius&Luna]

That’s great news! Try and get her to eat as much as you can while the painkiller is working! Moving around is good too – hopefully if she has gas making her uncomfortable, moving around might help get rid of it.

[Bam]

Yay! Fingers crossed this was only a bit of painful gas and that she’ll soon start eating hay as well =)

[Anna]

Yay, glad to hear she’s eating. It’s such a relief to see a bunny nibbling again!

Just as an aside, it’s worth checking that your vet is prescribing the right dose of lexicom/metacam. Many vets massively under-prescribe it as rabbits need so much more per kg than other animals. I’m no expert, just going on what my vet has told me before. For reference, Gail has 0.95ml of the 1.5mg/ml liquid twice a day and she weighs just over 2kg.

[Bam]

Anna is correct, many vets routinely prescribe a cat- or dog dosage of meloxicam for rabbits, when rabbits in fact metabolize meloxicam much quicker than dogs and cats do. You seem to have a really rabbit savvy vet though, so that’s less of a risk for you. Medirabbit says meloxicam can be given in doses of 0,1-02 mg per kg body weight up to 1,5 mg per kilo body weight per day. http://www.medirabbit.com/Safe_medication/Analgesics/safe_analgesics.htm

[Dumbo the Bunny]

It did get better yesterday evening, but she wasn’t getting better as fast as I would have liked so we went to the vet today and Dumbo got all the meds for GI stasis. They couldn’t find anything else wrong with her, which was good to hear. So she’ll be on some meds for a couple of days and hopefully it will resolve itself. She’s getting used to going to the vet, she started eating herbs, salad and pellets only one hour after we got back from the vet. Before it took her a couple of hours to calm down, she looked like she was having some sort of war flashback, shivering and just non responsive. But it’s actually getting better.

Yes, I remember the first time Dumbo got metacam the vet said it’s a pretty big dosage, but that rabbits can handle it better than cats and dogs and it seems to be the right dosage.

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