Re-Occurring Pain and Stassis- UD post 16 kidney infection

Damson is a 8-9 year old normally healthy agouti. he is wiry and fit and lives happily with Willow - and has done for 3 years since his sister passed on.

In his life he has had myxo (6 years ago) and head tilt due to EC (4or 5 years ago).

About 6 months ago he had a sudden attack of stassis - fine at breakfast, running around, ate loads, by 3pm freezing cold, motionless etc. After metacam, subcuts and metaclop. he was whizzing around again within a couple of hours.

Since then this has happened about 5 times - the last two times only a couple of weeks apart. Almost always during the day.

Last week, while he was feeling well, we had him scanned for growths etc (nothing showed), x-rayed for kidney /liver/bladder problems (nothing showed), and have now had bloods done (still waiting result). The vets cannot see or feel anything wrong and when he is actually being ill all they can feel is that he is empty and cold. (ie stassis).

Today it happened again - fantastically fit and running around at 10am eating hay, grass, greens etc etc - by 2pm motionless. We have done the usual procedures and he is gradually getting better again

Each time it happens I think he is in pain - and I think (though it is tricky to separate from the stassis symptoms) the pain is internal in body/stomach etc area - he has never had dental issues and shows no sign of dental problems.

Anyone ANY ideas????

Did he eat too much grass or greens?

Could he be in pain with an arthritic condition, because of his age, and would a small daily dose of metacam help?

Has he been treated or tested for EC at all?

Could he maybe have some GI ulceration
Maybe your Vet might consider putting him onto Ranitidine for a couple of weeks

xx

Thank you for the ideas everyone.

Too much grass/greens is unlikely as he has been an outdoor bun with 24hr access to grass all his life. In fact he has less at this time of year rather than more.

Arthritis might be a thought - but the onset is very very very sudden.

EC - he undoubtedly carries but again we cannot see how this would cause these dramatic flare ups that then subside so quickly again.

GI Ulcer - this at present seems most likely to me. He had another flare up on Saturday and due to another emergency all they had all had for breakfast (apart from hay of course) was fresh apple sticks - instead of their usual of brambles and weeds.

So I am wondering whether he has an ulcer which is triggerred when he does not get enough green stuff to completely line stomach??? Although as I say there is always hay - and more hay - and tons of the stuff!

We await the bloods - should be back end of week.

PS did add Tagamet to the metacam and metaclopromide on Saturday when he came down with it again - but now we don't know which of these things helped!

Another possibility, in addition to the GI ulceration, is that these are not 'separate' events of stasis, but merely a long-standing continuous ileus which is yet to resolve itself completely. How long between episodes?
It is my understanding - and observation from my own GI stasis/bloat prone bun, that ileus is very persistent and that re-establishing full neuro innervation and smooth muscle contraction in the gut at normal speed can take up to two weeks AFTER bun 'appears' to have recovered from the acute episode. I have seen this happen several times with my bun in the early years.
Because of this my vet prescibes ongoing gut motility agents for 5 days AFTER his guts are back to normal - I understand this is only necessary for prone buns with a recurrent history and not those with a one-off episode. Just a thought, I hope you are able to figure things out soon.

parsnipbun said:

PS did add Tagamet to the metacam and metaclopromide on Saturday when he came down with it again - but now we don't know which of these things helped!

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I would continue with both if vet agrees. Tagamet is a great H2 receptor agonist (in humans too ) and IMO the metclop. will help him to regain proper GI function in the long-term rather than just the acute phase.

We had a bunny with similar symptoms, unfortunately it did turn out to be an abdominal tumour. As is was non cancerous it did not show up in bloods. It also took repeated x-rays over a 6 month period for the vet to spot it as it was positioned in a way that made it impossible to see until it had grown a little. It was pressing on his intestines as it grew which was what was causing the stasis bouts. Once he was on high metacam daily he never had another bout of stasis for a whole year, until it burst and caused peritonitis

Hi there, Sorry to hear about your bunny.

It's a shame that we can't see back to threads from 2-3 years ago (although there would be too many I'm sure).

I had horrendous problems with nearly all of my bunnies going into regular GI stasis - I have five, four were affected and were going into Stasis almost every week if not more.

One later went on to develop full blown EC and when they were all treated with Panacur, they all improved massively. However, they were all on extended doses of Panacur - mine went on it for 2 months. What a difference it made. I give them regular top ups about 4 times a year.

My vet is of opinion that EC can cause longstanding gut problems and that low grade EC infection can cause gut problems. I am of the belief that it is being researched bu I can't recall where I heard that.

Fiona

Also to say I hope she doesn't mind me saying but SarahP had a very similar problem with her bunnies.


Update - *sorry I see SarahP has already responded *

Fiona

parsnipbun said:

EC - he undoubtedly carries but again we cannot see how this would cause these dramatic flare ups that then subside so quickly again.

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The acute GI stasis my bunnies were experiencing when EC was quite minor was honestly horrendous, very unlike the GI stasis that I have experienced with them since that has simply been down to a gassy belly. The care they needed was round the clock.

As I said, I can't remember where it is being researched but I'm sure it is a focus of some interest. It is thought we don't know much about the major GI implications of EC. I would be inclined to blitz wee bunny with Panacur. Sorry if you have already covered this, but I jumped at the chance to respond to this thread.

Fionabun said:

The acute GI stasis my bunnies were experiencing when EC was quite minor was honestly horrendous, very unlike the GI stasis that I have experienced with them since that has simply been down to a gassy belly. The care they needed was round the clock.

As I said, I can't remember where it is being researched but I'm sure it is a focus of some interest. It is thought we don't know much about the major GI implications of EC. I would be inclined to blitz wee bunny with Panacur. Sorry if you have already covered this, but I jumped at the chance to respond to this thread.

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Oddly enough my vet suggested EC but I had no idea there was a Gi/EC link!

When we go back with blood results on Friday I will ask them again. Thank you for this.

Has your bunny been given fibreplex at all? I have a stasis prone rabbit who'se recovery seems to slow down considerably without its use. We noticed she was hunched up and not eating yesterday so we gave her metacam and fibreplex and she was sitting on her litter tray pooing for Scotland within an hour and pretty much back to normal within 2.

Hope you get some good results soon. My buns' story is within this thread:
http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/showthread.php?t=197102

Lovely to see you, Fionabun! :wave:

I have no experience of stasis.

However, I did wonder: Is he able to eat his caecotrophs okay?

Damson has now had scan, x-ray, blood tests (didn't do EC as we know he had it in the past), and also urine tests.

The bloods were fine and nothing showed on scan or x-ray other than some slight something to do with kidneys in the scan. The urine however showed a kidney infection and we are now treating him for this, with quite a high dose Baytril. The infection is apparently within the kidney rather than a general bladder/urine infection. (I am not sure how they know this! poss to do with what they also saw on the scan).

They say that this kidney infection would have caused pain and the way he sat when he was having these episodes (all curled up to the right) would also indicate this.

Once we have done the Baytril we will also give him a course of Lapizole for his EC. In fact we will probably do all the buns at once, once everyone is of the various treatments that they are on at present (have several on Septrin, 2 on Vit K, one on Baytril).

Thank you to everyone for all the help and suggestions - we hope we have found the cause.

parsnipbun said:

Damson has now had scan, x-ray, blood tests (didn't do EC as we know he had it in the past), and also urine tests.

The bloods were fine and nothing showed on scan or x-ray other than some slight something to do with kidneys in the scan. The urine however showed a kidney infection and we are now treating him for this, with quite a high dose Baytril. The infection is apparently within the kidney rather than a general bladder/urine infection. (I am not sure how they know this! poss to do with what they also saw on the scan).

They say that this kidney infection would have caused pain and the way he sat when he was having these episodes (all curled up to the right) would also indicate this.

Once we have done the Baytril we will also give him a course of Lapizole for his EC. In fact we will probably do all the buns at once, once everyone is of the various treatments that they are on at present (have several on Septrin, 2 on Vit K, one on Baytril).

Thank you to everyone for all the help and suggestions - we hope we have found the cause.

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I hope that the high dose of Baytril does the trick for him

Hope the mystery is solved and you start to see some results.