Anyone got any advice on how I can help Amelia with her severe arthritis please?

As some of you may know one of our new girlies Amelia was speyed yesterday. She was also xrayed at the same time as she'd started weeing herself & couldn't hop properly :? From the xray it shows she has severe arthritis in her knees & spondylosis in her spine Poor little girlie, looks so awkward when she's moving about

She's going to be on metacam for the foreseable future, possibly forever - as it's obvious it's not going to get any better for her.

None of our buns have had arthritis before quite this bad, so this is completely new to us. We want to make her life as comfortable as possible & didn't know if there was any alternative to metacam to try or something more natural that might help her.

I've bought her some excel pellets today with cranberry & ginseng in it, as it contains glucosamine as well - which I understand can help.

I just wondered if any of you guys might have experience with a bun who has got such severe arthritis & if you'd got any advice please? Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated, as we want to make things as painless as possible for our little Amelia

I don't know about bunnies, but I am just about to start acupuncture on one of my cats, once the vet gets smaller needles. She has chronic renal failure so can't use metacam. I think somebody tried it on one of their buns, and although he was great one day, he was worse the next, but I did wonder if that was because he had overdone things. I think also different animals react differently. If the acupuncture doesn't work on Spice, we can try tramadol,but again don't know how relevant that is to bunnies.
One thing I have found with arthritic animals is warmth can be a great help, especially on the colder, damp nights.

You can buy special gluacosamine tablets for cats which you can split in half and sprinkle the powder on the rabbits food - this really helps a lot (though it takes a few weeks to kick in).

Acupuncture is also excellent and gave two of our rabbits a new lease of life! you will need a trained vet though.

Poor baby It's such a horrible thing

We have had lots of buns with arthritis and have tried various treatments. You can stick to the metacam for now and maybe split into two doses daily - with zantac or something similar to stop ulceration

You can try giving her glucosamine - a third of a tablet crushed on her food - this should help her

Smudge, our very first arthritic bun had a course of Rimadyl done over a number of weeks, they use it for arthritic dogs and cats, we found that very good

Warmth is essential - our Bluebelle is severely arthritic and has a large round cat bed which is lined with fresh vet bed - she has a heat pad under this to help her Of a night she likes to go into a large box so we have adapted a large top loading wire carrier - it fits giants in - we have put it on it's side, put some nice padding on the bottom - lined over that with pond liner (for easy cleaning and to stop her getting wet) - we then line again with thick vet bed - we have covered the whole of the sides and top with a thick towel and then a fleecy throw so that no draughts can get to her She then has a heat pad down the side of the carrier and one under the vet bed in the corner She snuggles down in there with the boys and is toasty warm We have to make sure that all things are flat to the floor for her so that she doesn't have to hop or fall out - she is very happy and such a content little old lady

If you find that her back legs are getting wet due to her posture then it may be best to bandage and vet wrap them daily with some baby socks

Give her a cuddle from me - I adore buns that have a difference to them

Bernie is responding well to acupuncture

Thanks guys, we really appreciate your thoughts & advice

We're back at the vets in a few days time with Amelia for a check up - so will discuss all of what you've suggested / experienced yourselves.

I'm fairly certain our vets won't do accupuncture, but hopefully they can point us in the right direction of a vets that might be able to help.

Amelia won't be going back outside & will be a permanent housebun, hopefully the fact that she'll be permanently inside with extra warmth as necessary will help her be more comfortable. Her litter trays have low fronts so she doesn't have to hop over into them, to make it less stressful for her to go to the loo.

I know she won't ever really have a normal bunnies life as such, but if we can make it comfortable & happy for her - then we'll be happy. Bless her, she looks like such a little grumpy girl - but is adorable & very much loved

Amelia says 'fank you vewy much for my cuddle Jay, I weally appweciate it'

I don't have any experience of it but my mums bun Richie has been diagnosed with it and is on metacam at the moment which has already perked him up a bit so just wanted to send vibes from one suffering bun to another xx

Katie-arc said:

I don't have any experience of it but my mums bun Richie has been diagnosed with it and is on metacam at the moment which has already perked him up a bit so just wanted to send vibes from one suffering bun to another xx

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Thanks Katie - that's reassuring to hear. I'm just hoping I can get her to take her metacam :? Lots of vibes coming back from Amelia & us to Richie xxx

I know what I'm like in a morning trying to get out of bed some days, so goodness knows what our wee buns feel like with this awful condition

My severely arthritic bun did not like acupucture but did really well with laser therapy and chiropractic treatments. They greatly increased her quality of life towards the end. Her arthritis was near the base of her spine, the vet suspected that she had an old injury or birth defect because her tail was malformed too.