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Acute pain not controllable by pain relief? Long. UD post 26

Sky-O

Wise Old Thumper
Ok.

So.

On Sunday night one of my buns decided to stop eating. At first he looked bright, like he wanted to eat, and then he started to quiver, and breathe fast, and wouldn't move. Gave Metacam (not sure what the top dose was for a rabbit his weight, but I gave what I know to be a higher dose). No response.

Off to the vets we go.

She has a feel. Can't identify a blockage. Identifies sharp spurs on his teeth but no abrasions in his mouth.

Sunday overnight (admitted to vets)- Gives vetergesic. Still doesn't control pain. Goes on drip (at some point they started him on Zantac- not going to a ful aggressive approach because she was unsure if there was a blockage or not). Still not eating. Not pooing. Weeing for England. Very, very sad and non sparkly. Still breathing fast. Still lying down and uncomfortable despite now on lots of pain relief, both Metacam and narcotics.

Monday afternoon- comes off drip, eats a tiny bit (basil leaf here and there), no hay, no pellets, no food. Still on pain relief. Still on Zantac. Remains this way until Tuesday morning.

Tuesday morning- back to much more sparkly, eating and pooing proper good poo. Acting as normal as you would expect a rabbit at the vets to act.

Tuesday late morning- has a dental.

Tuesday afternoon- now- Comes home. Dental set him back. Reluctant to eat again. Drooling. Looking sad and 'spacey'. Given Metacam but has had no Vetergesic. Eating in a 'faddy' way. Has produced poos similar to guinea pig poo in size and shape, but dry like faecals.


I'm not sure I agree with the vet. I've never seen anything like this in relation to a dental and, as you may know, I've seen my share of dentals.

I think that the dental was a coincidental finding. He had a similar acute pain episode about 14 months ago which we literally saw happen before our eyes so, in conjunction with the vets advice, treated him at home, and he literally went from appearing to be at deaths door, to normal within a couple of hours. He did not need a dental then (had a full check up the next day). The vet could find absolutely nothing wrong with him at all then.

This episode was identical, but longer, and the poos he is now producing are not what I would expect from a rabbit needing a dental and struggling.

I have to take him back to the vets because his damp nose has come back, likely due to all the stress, but he isn't right. I suspect he may be recovering from the dental now, but it's just not sitting right that that is the root cause.

I can't help but wonder if something inside him spasmed and caused the pain and wasn't working properly, or something. Not sure.

But, does anyone have any advice, or suggestions? Any tests that should be done? I asked for x-rays and the vet said it was not necessary (not my regular vet), but I'm not sure.

Thanks in advance for any replies.
 
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Could it be that he didn't quite recover from the stasis episode before the dental, and it set him back? IME stasis tends to last for at least a couple of weeks, although the symptoms will be less severe at the start whilst they're going into stasis, and at the end when they're recovering.

It's a good idea to continue with treatment until recovery is complete, otherwise the bun can end up going back into stasis.

Of course, there could an underlying issue causing the stasis
 
I hope I'm wrong but it just might be cancer - i had a bun with similar symptoms - fine one minute, hunched up and not eating the next then fine within a day. We went through it several times over a period of a few months and when we had her x-rayed she turned out to have a big tumour in her caecum and we were advised to not allow her to come out of the anesthetic:( so they put her to sleep.
 
Kidney stone???

That causes really intense pain.

My vets now use ketamine injections to control really bad pain - especially as several of my buns really cant handle bupronorphine at all - it just spaces them out and they stop eating.

Ketamin hits the spot . . . (though I know Jacks Jane's vet is not keen).

I have had no problems with several of my buns that have had it.
 
Thank you very much :)

We are going back tomorrow to see my vet, so we can discuss the different options. Last night, like a light switch, he just went back to normal- something else I don't see with dentals, normally they either come back much better, or they have a steady recovery, not a 'woe is me' and then a ''Ping' I'm marvellous now' especially when he was actually due his pain relief.

I did discuss the option of him having an x-ray while he had his dental to see if there was anything obvious on it, but she felt it would not show up anything, so we agreed that if she did his teeth and felt there was a need, then she would. Now I'm wishing I had pushed more. She's not very good at communicating (as I've found out this week- it's been my first experience of her) so it's been difficult to know where we are or what's going on, so I was having t base my assessments on what I knew, which was that he was in a depleted state and having him under sedation for longer was risky.

I was thinking about kidney stones, to be honest and then also wondered whether he has a 'faulty' part inside his gut. I'll post a pic of one of his poos but I've never seen anything like it. The other options mentioned on this thread are equally as frightening and something else to look into.

I must say though, amidst all the stress i did get my comedy moment for the week when this poor bunny, on a drip, with his head in a cone was trying to snuggle up to his bond friend and his bond friend turned around took the cone between his teeth and tried to throw it across the cage- of course not realising there was a head inside it and a bunny attached.

Also, thank you to MPHF, meadowsweet and Sullybun for their support this week. x
 
Kidney stones switch off like a light - as they settle after moving

BUT you cannot rely on them ding that and the pain whilst moving is intense.
 
I had a bunny with similar symptoms, unfortunately a postmortem revealed liver cancer.

She had x-rays and ultra sound which showed nothing and bloods revealed a slight possible abnormality in her liver but that was it :(

Hopefully it is nothing serious for your bunny xx
 
Thanks Liz. Can I ask about the timescale from start of symptoms to letting her go, and also, the length of time between intervals of episodes?


This is a picture of his poo. There were about 5 of these. I threw the rest and saved this one, and then broke it when I picked it up to take the picture :roll: So it looks a little fatter than it was because I couldn't get it to sit together properly.

It's next to a 1p piece

20110623_13.jpg


20110623_14.jpg
 
She passed away in her hutch around 2 months after the episodes started, at that point we didn;t know what was wrong with her, only a PM gave the answers and if we had known what was wrong we would have pts earlier :(

I honestly can't remember the time span between episodes I don;t think there was any pattern :?

Regarding the poo, I had a bunny that did poo's like that and also had pain episodes on and off but they presented in a different way. She had stomach cancer spread from uterine cancer ( neutered 6 weeks previous), it showed up on x-ray during a really bad attack and we let her go while under the GA :(

http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/showthread.php?t=175812&highlight=emmy-lou&page=5
 
Thank you Liz. The two episdoes have so far been about 14 months apart, so I'm hopeful it's something slow progressing. I will have a read of that thread- it's definitely not secondary uterine cancer, but that doesn't mean its not another cancer. Bleurgh.

Sounds like x-rays are the place to start.
 
cannot recall Damson's poos looking like that . . and Blackberry (who has the dysbiosis Mega colon thing like Thumber and also episodes of not eating and in pain) does not look like that either.
 
Kidney stones show on xray BUT kidney ossification does not always do so (ie if its not really a stone as such but gradual granulation/ossification of kidney) so you might need xray and scan
 
Thanks you very much guys. To me that looked like a narrowing of something in the gut (perhaps causing the pain?) to produce the poo like that, they are all normal poo, no fur. but now they are back to circular and growing in size and getting more golden in colour as he is now back to normal with his hay eating.

Some traits of different things here.

Would a genetic fault in his gut possibly cause something like this?
 
Thank you Liz. The two episdoes have so far been about 14 months apart, so I'm hopeful it's something slow progressing. I will have a read of that thread- it's definitely not secondary uterine cancer, but that doesn't mean its not another cancer. Bleurgh.

Sounds like x-rays are the place to start.

I never had the rabbits that long to know what previous episodes had occurred. Emmy was only with us 6 weeks and Mrs Brown I think around 3 months if that :( They obviously both had cancer before they came to us :cry:
 
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