When to stop giving subq fluids?

[Meg]

Hi everyone!  🙂  So nice to see the forum back!

Teddy’s been doing great over the past year, thankfully!  He’s coming out of a recent slowdown right now, and I’m wondering when we should stop giving subcutaneous fluids — and if we should taper them, how.  He’s still getting his stasis meds (meloxicam, famotidine, cisapride, & simethicone) but thankfully he’ll eat them off a plate so we don’t have to force-feed.  We’ll start tapering them soon.  He’s eating roughly a normal amount over the course of a day, though not with the same timing as usual (e.g., normally he eats his pellets between 12pm-6pm, but now he eats them between 7pm-4am or so).  He is spending more time under the bed than usual during the middle of the day, though that may be partly related to the fact that we have to catch him twice a day to give him fluids?  In the mornings and evenings he generally does come out and do his normal bunny activities (hopping around, eating things, exploring his cardboard castle, stretching out on the carpet, etc.)

Anyway, he’s about 3 and a half pounds (he’s all fluff 😉 and he’s currently getting 50-60ml of lactated ringer’s solution twice a day.  Though his greens come pretty wet, and he eats a lot of them, he doesn’t seem to be drinking water out of his bowl again yet.  But I wonder if that’s because he’s getting his hydration from the fluids and his greens?  Maybe it’s making him not thirsty?  Or should we just be patient and keep giving fluids until we see him drinking again?

Thank you so much!  I don’t want to stop the fluids too soon, or to keep stressing him with it longer than he needs. (Since now that’s the only reason we need to catch him — he hates being caught and handled.  Though once he’s in the process of getting the fluids, he doesn’t seem to mind that part — he stays still for us most of the time and seems calm.  But then we get some good stomping and foot-flicking after we put him back in his room!)

[LBJ10]

Hi Meg! It’s very possible the subq fluids are suppressing the urge to drink. If that’s the case, I doubt you will see him drinking much on his own. Instead of going cold turkey, you could try reducing how much he receives each day to see what happens. I don’t know what would be considered an intermediate step. Others might chime in with suggestions.

[jerseygirl]

Oh Teddy!!! Im really pleased to read how he is going!  I think you were dealing this when the forum shut down weren’t you?

Since he is eating greens and getting the fluids twice a day, could you cut that back to once a day and see if he starts to drink  more? I would ring your vet and ask best way to go about it and how long before you should let it go for if he doesnt take to drinking. The vet may think doing fluids every 2nd day is a better option. (???)

[jerseygirl]

Sorry, LBJ, I didnt see your reply when I posted. Where tag-teaming at the moment!

[Meg]

Thank you both so much!!  🙂  This is so, so helpful.  I’ll experiment with fluids once a day now, and see how that goes.  I really appreciate your advice!  I searched the internet high and low and couldn’t find anything else on this question.  You are so generous to help so many bunnies and their humans in need of guidance!!  🙂

[jerseygirl]

If he drinks from a bowl, do you think offering a sipper bottle also could intice him? He may be curious enough to try it or prefer the flow as opposed to sticking his fuzzy head in the water.

[Meg]

That’s a good thought, thanks! I’ll keep that in mind if he doesn’t start drinking from his bowl again. I had read early on that sipper bottles should be avoided (due to harboring germs I think?) and haven’t tried them! That may not have been right.

[Meg]

Hi there!  I just wanted to come back and follow up.  It took a while, but Teddy did start drinking out of his bowl again!  I got him a sipper bottle in the meantime but couldn’t get him to try it.  I tried the trick of mushing some banana (his favorite) onto it, but to no avail.  But thankfully the bowl did work.  I bought a new one and don’t know if that made a difference (I had two already and would wash the alternate in the dishwasher).

But if not for you, I would have kept him on sub-q fluids forever — thank you so much!!  🙂

[LBJ10]

Thanks for the update! I’m glad you were able to wean him off and get him drinking on his own again. 🙂

[Meg]

Thank you so much for everything, LBJ10!  🙂

[jerseygirl]

That’s great! It would be stressful to keep him on subQ fluids. I remember LPT had to do that for Bindi for a long time.

How funny about the new bowl. Maybe it got him curious enough? Was there anything particularly different about it? Larger/smaller, dark/light, higher/lower ?? Rabbits are funny.

[Bam]

Glad to hear he started drinking again! I don’t know if germs are a problem with sipper bottles, but its well known that most rabbits drink more from bowls. Except for some buns who really think its fun to drink from a sipper and will keep you awake at night doing just that 😂

[Meg]

Hahaha Bam 😉

Thank you so much, Kate!! You are so generous!  Nothing was different except the color, and I can’t be sure it made a difference to him since he didn’t start drinking out of it immediately.  But whatever the reason, I’ll take it!  🙂

Thank you all sooo much again!  🙂

[Meg]

p.s. In case helpful for others reading this thread later: Teddy’s been doing much better at drinking water since we started him on one drop a day of CBD oil!  From what I’ve read, it seems like CBD generally doesn’t dehydrate you but it can make your mouth feel a little dry (by temporarily slowing saliva production for a few hours), so you drink more water.  I haven’t noticed Teddy grooming himself any less, but he does drink more water (like 1 oz per day, more like when he was a young’un), and I think this is beneficial for his tummy.

It’s only been maybe 2 weeks or so, so once we’ve had more experience with it I’ll write about it on the thread where this was suggested to me: “How to help our sweet little elderbun to live his best life”.  But for now I’ll just put a few specifics: we give one drop (which has 1mg of CBD in the case of the specific hemp oil we got, and Teddy is 3.5 pounds) by putting aside 1/4 of his daily pellets (which amounts to maybe a teaspoon at most) in a cup, dropping the drop onto the pellets, and shaking/swirling the cup a bit so it gets nice and mixed in there.  We don’t give this at the same time as his medicine — apparently CBD can slow/inhibit liver metabolism of certain medicines to some extent (I don’t know more details than that).  I have no idea whether this applies to his medicines, but just to be safe, we give them a bunch of hours apart, and haven’t noticed any negative effects.

So grateful again for all the help you all have given!  🙂

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