Megacolon in Rabbits

I am just wondering if anybody has any experience of Megacolon.

One of the rabbits at the sanctuary where I work has recently been diagnosed with this condition. She is currently extremely ill with it, and I am worried we are going to lose her.

Her poos are barely formed at all, most of what she passes is just sludge. She has to have her bottom washed and blow dried daily. Her spirit is fading away too, she used to be very feisty and aggressive, but has now seemingly accepted being handled and medicated which is not like her at all!!

Currently she is on metoclopramide and ranitidine twice daily, fibreplex three times daily, and is syringe fed 20mls of critical care containing the metoclop and ranit twice daily.

She is eating well on her own, and only gets a few pellets daily, and gets plenty of veg, grass and hay. She is wasting away though.

I am terribly worried about her, and was wondering if anybody knows of anything else I can do, or any other drugs I can try. I have heard of salazopyrin, which I am going to ask the vet about tomorrow.

All advice welcome!

Cerys

I have had a Rabbit who responded well to Salazopyrin, but he had IBD not Megacolon.

How was the diagnosis made ?

aww the poor bunny. My boyfriends mum's cat has megacolon, i am sure it is different for a cat though rather than a rabbit. I think they only give him a laxative and he had to have a big flush out (it was quite disgusting i can imagine as he lost nearly half of his waist size!) i am not sure if this is anything that can be done with a rabbit though.

Poor bunny, hope the vets goes ok for ehr and you can find another treatment.

As a matter of interest what colour is the Bun ?

Jack's Jane she was diagnosed via x-ray. And she is a white lop with a few black spots and black rings round her eyes. A picture of her can be seen here http://www.happyhoppits.moonfruit.com/#/assisi-rabbits-5/4532767897 her name is Panda. I have heard about rabbits that carry the English spot gene, and are white with pigmented spots can be genetically predisposed to megacolon, so she may be one of the unlucky ones.

Beki- aww poor wee cat, I bet the flush out was not pleasant!! Unfortunately Panda has the opposite problem, her food is moving far too quickly through her gut, so it need to be slowed down enough to allow better absorption, but not so much that she gets a blockage, which could also kill her.

Megacolon puts me in mind of Crohn's disease in humans, although without the ulceration that crohn's causes.

Cerys

Jetstreem said:

Jack's Jane she was diagnosed via x-ray. And she is a white lop with a few black spots and black rings round her eyes. A picture of her can be seen here http://www.happyhoppits.moonfruit.com/#/assisi-rabbits-5/4532767897 her name is Panda. I have heard about rabbits that carry the English spot gene, and are white with pigmented spots can be genetically predisposed to megacolon, so she may be one of the unlucky ones.

Beki- aww poor wee cat, I bet the flush out was not pleasant!! Unfortunately Panda has the opposite problem, her food is moving far too quickly through her gut, so it need to be slowed down enough to allow better absorption, but not so much that she gets a blockage, which could also kill her.

Megacolon puts me in mind of Crohn's disease in humans, although without the ulceration that crohn's causes.

Cerys

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I think Snowdrop has this condition but we need to take her to Bristol for the diagnosis to be done and its too far from here for her to travel. Her poos range from diahorrea to being soft and dark and are not formed into the round normal bunny poos. She is a white bunny with brown markings and also loses weight and condition easily. I am taking her back to see my vet this week to discuss some more options for her.

Jetstreem said:

Jack's Jane she was diagnosed via x-ray. And she is a white lop with a few black spots and black rings round her eyes. A picture of her can be seen here http://www.happyhoppits.moonfruit.com/#/assisi-rabbits-5/4532767897 her name is Panda. I have heard about rabbits that carry the English spot gene, and are white with pigmented spots can be genetically predisposed to megacolon, so she may be one of the unlucky ones.

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That's what I was thinking

http://www.wrs.upv.es/files/journals/vol 3_1_wieberneit.pdf

Forgive me as i'm not familiar with this condition in buns, but wouldn't the metclopramide and ranitidine just exacerbate her condition?? Hypermotility of GI smooth muscle is surely what you want to avoid? Although I appreciate what you wrote about total hypomotility.
As I said, i'm not familiar with this in rabbits, but I do know a highly mobile gut in any species makes it difficult to absorb through the gut wall.

Snowberry, poor little Snowdrop. Fingers crossed you can get some sort of treatment sorted for her.

Sorry prettylupin, I probably didn't explain it very well!!

Basically Panda's intestines have become so distended that they do not expand and contract correctly to enable peristalsis to occur as it should. Technically this should result in the gut becoming blocked, but for some reason the food is passing through Panda smoothly, but without the correct level of absorption and drying it should receive in the small and large intestine. Thus causing her to pass cow pat- like poo's.

The idea of the metoclopramide was to try and encourage the intestines to expand and contract more readily so that the food is moved along the digestive tract at a more normal speed, allowing for better absorption of nutrients. The fibreplex supplement is then used to add bulk to what she is eating and to try and help prevent blockages.

Hope that makes a little more sense!!

Cerys

Jetstreem said:

Snowberry, poor little Snowdrop. Fingers crossed you can get some sort of treatment sorted for her.

Sorry prettylupin, I probably didn't explain it very well!!

Basically Panda's intestines have become so distended that they do not expand and contract correctly to enable peristalsis to occur as it should. Technically this should result in the gut becoming blocked, but for some reason the food is passing through Panda smoothly, but without the correct level of absorption and drying it should receive in the small and large intestine. Thus causing her to pass cow pat- like poo's.

The idea of the metoclopramide was to try and encourage the intestines to expand and contract more readily so that the food is moved along the digestive tract at a more normal speed, allowing for better absorption of nutrients. The fibreplex supplement is then used to add bulk to what she is eating and to try and help prevent blockages.

Hope that makes a little more sense!!

Cerys

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I am hoping my vet can do a conscious xray and then send it to a specialist to be analysed. I gave her an article on the condition a while ago and she had never heard of it before and couldnt find reference to it in any of her vetinary journals.

Snowdrop also passes the cow pat like poos and they have been getting progressively worse so that in the past few days she has stopped passing any normal poos at all.

She is usually on hay, pellets, recovery feed and fibreplex.

I don't suppose they can do a partial or total colectomy in rabbits can they and remove the distended sections? It sounds rather similar to diverticular disease in some aspects - except with a loss of peristaltic action. I suppose what I was suggesting was trying to manage it from a dietary point of view as was just wondering if the metclopramide/ranitidine combo may still increase the peristaltic wave more than is necessary? I appreciate that just getting some peristaltic wave at all is important....a very difficult balancing act.

Poor bunny Perhaps the inflammatory bowel disease drug both you and Jane have suggested would help? I do hope you find something to help your poor bun. Lots of vibes

Sadly I don't think surgery is an option for rabbits. I also don't think little Panda would make it through surgery of any kind.

It really is a difficult balancing act, and it does feel like I am fighting a losing battle at the moment. I am trying not to get my hopes up about this drug yet, but anything will do really just to make things easier for her.

She is due to be reviewed by the vet next week providing she doesn't start this new drug, and perhaps we will try her without the ranitidine and metoclopramide to see how that affects her, that way we could see how the drugs are affecting the persitaltic wave of her innards!

The one blessing is that she isn't in any pain.

Cerys

I know that Francis HB did a small bowel Op on one member's bun....I think she repaired a sharp kink at the ileo-caecal junction? But I could be mistaken, but I understand that anything bigger than this is probably not appropriate....and as you say she's clearly not up to it anyway.

It sounds like you have such a big mountain to climb with this bun....it must be very hard to see her fading away so much poor bunny Like you say though, atleast she is not in pain Wishing you lots of luck with her

I've just realised what a ridiculous suggestion I made re a colectomy! Of course this wouldn't be appropriate in an animal that requires a fully functioning hind-gut....sorry, I forgot for a minute that this was a rabbit we were talking about, sorry.
I hope it all works out for her.

Heh heh its ok!!

I myself suffer with Crohn's disease, so it's really terrible watching her as I know exactly how she feels. Sadly for Panda, but luckily for me I can be treated, I just hope I can find some treatment for her too.

Thanks for all the support, I will keep you updated and let you know what the vet says tomorrow about the anti inflammatory drug!

Cerys

good luck and hope they can do something to help , you are doing a great job x

Well I spoke to the vet today about Panda and her options. We decided to hold off on the anti inflammatory for now as we cannot be 100% sure there is any inflammation, and it is impossible to get a biopsy of her intestine to look for inflammation, We are still going to keep the drug as an option though.

Instead we have decided to try feeding her caecal pellets from a few other heathly rabbits to try and restore and balance her own gut flora.

When she was at the vets the other week I collected caecal pellets for them to give her and the results were good, but unfortunately only lasted a few days. The vets had hoped the effects would last a bit longer, so we have decided to try and feed her some caecal pellets every couple of days and see how that goes.

Caecal pellets have been successfully used to help restart guts after bloat and blockages, so we are hoping that if we can re-balance Pandas gut flora that things may slow down just a little and enable her to absorb some more nutrients out of her food.

Fingers crossed anyway, even if it makes her poos a little better formed instead of sludge it will be a bonus!

Cerys

A couple of Complimentary Therapies you may want to discuss with your Vet are Acupuncture and giving some Aloe Vera Juice daily.

xx