Wheezing out of nowhere!?

The General (our 1yr 4mth Nethie boy) was binkying around at high speed last night, pottering around normally this morning when I was getting ready for work and according to the BF he didn't see him today but didn't think much of it because he had him shut in the kitchen the majority of the day.

I get home from work at six and went straight in the bath, ate my tea, got to checking my emails when the bunny hopped into the lounge and stopped near the door, this was about 8pm tonight.
Hunched posture, with his head held up and his ears splayed and half down. Huffing and puffing, his breathing was deep and taking a bit of effort, with a lot of rattling and spluttering. He had no discharge on his nose or eyes, mouth was good, pink and normal, stomach felt good no typical signs of stasis going on.

Took him straight down to the our vets and after lots of listening and prodding, no conclusions... he has a tenderness in his torso somewhere but the vet couldn't feel anything distinctive.
He's been admitted for oxygen, metacam, something to open his airways and metaclopramide just incase... The vet keeps mentioning a general anaesthetic to X-ray his chest tomorrow or antibiotics, I'm worried that it's just stasis and he's reacting really oddly?

Any one recognise this?

Sounds like acute pneumonia to me

Has he been started on antibiotics aswell as the other medication ?

Jack's-Jane said:

Sounds like acute pneumonia to me

Has he been started on antibiotics aswell as the other medication ?

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Not till the morning, is this how quick you might expect it to appear?

Jerseylotte said:

Not till the morning, is this how quick you might expect it to appear?

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Sadly yes. Acute pneumonia can come on within a few hours

Have you received an update from the Vet yet ?

Just now yes,

He's apparently eaten, drunk and is now ruining his hospital compartment!

He was on oxygen till midnight when they took him off to see how the drugs he'd been given were working or not. He didn't go back to wheezing but the nurse and emergency vet think he's a bit "not with it".

As in slightly vacant and they've begun treating him for potential encephalozoon which can affect them in really any way and is very hard to actually detect.

Got to dash to work, update later on

Jerseylotte said:

Just now yes,

He's apparently eaten, drunk and is now ruining his hospital compartment!

He was on oxygen till midnight when they took him off to see how the drugs he'd been given were working or not. He didn't go back to wheezing but the nurse and emergency vet think he's a bit "not with it".

As in slightly vacant and they've begun treating him for potential encephalozoon which can affect them in really any way and is very hard to actually detect.

Got to dash to work, update later on

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A strange presentation for EC, but I guess covering all bases is a good idea.

http://www.rabbitwelfare.co.uk/resources/content/info-sheets/ecuniculi.htm

http://wildlife1.wildlifeinformation.org/S/00dis/Parasitic/Encephalitozoonosis.htm

At least he is doing better now

sorry to hear he's so poorly. i hope he makes a good recovery

Ok so, £180 lighter, we've brought him home.

His breathing is slightly mucousy but nothing like last night, he's not struggling. He's wierd. He isn't really reacting to things, when I offer him some greens he backs off without really acknowledging that they're there, if I leave them though , he is slowly eating a few bits and bobs and has pooed.

So he come home with Baytril incase it's pneumonia that has gone back into hiding and panacur incase E. cuniculi is involved somehow.

I'm going to give him critical care and pineapple juice with his meds as he loved it last time and it'll hopefully keep his guts happy.

I've got him shut in his house in the kitchen so he doesn't go too far from food and water, don't want him straining himself right now.

So he's eaten plenty (a smallish amount by himself and topped up by lots offered by me), hay, greens, burgess, done a whole bunch of poos in the last hour and brightened up a lot. Playing and coming for hugs while still making a whistly noise, sounds like a whining puppy now.

with the acting not himself its quite normal as hes been under anaesthetic so will be grogey and weird most buns are like that

yuki who normally takes food from my hand refused to after she came home

Did he actually have an X ray?
You mentioned it being a possibility.
Could he have a foreign body dodged somewhere in his respiratory tract?

Wheezing out of nowhere!? UDrepeated bouts of bloat/stasis, panicking

Ok, since the last updates, he was fine for two weeks then went into stasis with bloating last saturday night. He was in overnight until Sunday evening and responded well to IV fluids, Metaclop, painkillers and zantac, he was fine by 12pm Sunday.

So we brought him home again (each of these previous times he has been sent home without any further meds.) only for him to go into stasis again on Tuesday morning, he responded by very late Tuesday night and we picked him up Weds evening.
At this point I asked for him to be X-rayed at the same time as his teeth checked under a general anaesthetic, his teeth are perfect and the x-ray showed nothing untoward.

This time I asked that he be sent home with metaclop for me to continue three times a day for a few days and wean him off slowly, we went for a quick checkup yesterday morning and the vet said his gut sounds werent ideal and to carry on the three times daily for a another day or two.

This (late...) morning I got up to a hunched bunny all over again, his stomach is blown up but the rest of his gut empty, he's down to 97F and I'm going to rush him to the vets in a second.


That's four episodes in three weeks now.
I'm distraught, I don't know what to do for the best, my bf is getting frustrated with the massive costs and he has to drive us there everytime but all I want is to get my bunny fixed whatever the cost.
But I'm starting to feel like there is something wrong underlying and is this ever going to end other than one way

Oh Lordy.Doesnt sound good.Vibes for all of you.xxxxx

Had to get a taxi to the vets because my bf is in bed with a hangover...:evil:

The first taxi went somewhere twenty mins away... The second one took half an hour to get here anyway... I was waiting in my hallway with the bun in the box for nearly an hour in the end getting worked right up!

So finally I got to the vets and by the time we saw the out of hours vet he had come out of shock and was responsive again, the tennis ball of gas in his stomach had begun to move out and he was less pained already.
Prior to going I had him next to a heater and I'd been giving him pineapple juice, Fibreplex and critical care with water every two hours. He'd also had a raised bum massage which he relaxed into nicely.

He went down with this while he was still on Metaclop three times daily since the episode on Tues/Weds!

The vet decided he would be best nursed at home with me, but agreed that without coming in for painkillers his perkiness would probably have been temporary.


We talked about his diet again and looked through his history, he's had four quick successive episodes in the last three weeks coinciding with a heavy moult. The last (and first) time we had any problem with him was stasis on his heavy moult in Feb.
He's always been on meadow hay, timothy hay, leafy greens (no veg, he doesn't eat it) and Excel junior pellets (a one pellet layer in a standard sized bowl) He doesn't get any fruit or treats. I do think though that he eats less hay than I would like and I have repeatedly told my BF not to keep topping up his bowl with pellets and to leave it to me.

I have decided that I need to reduce his pellets, to enforce a higher hay intake and temporarily remove the leafy greens from his diet to determine if any of them are causing sensitivity.

Because there doesn't seem to be an underlying physical problem for us to identify me and the vet agreed that it may be he is a) particularly sensitive b) needs even more hay in his diet and c) falls victim to these things when he is moulting and needs the best motility.

I also asked my vet about the potential to do a gastroscopy if it just keeps recurring to determine if there isn't some sort of damage to the stomach (either before or because of all this) she said they don't normally because people don't ask but they would consider doing it since his presentation is pretty unusual.

Sending lots of good wishes for a speedy recovery xxx

Thanks!

Honestly... The little swine is now tentatively nibbling some timothy hay and dandelions :shock: and this morning I was crying my eyes out thinking he was going to die

P.S: The BF got out of bed at 5pm having missed the whole thing and asked me to go and buy him some Sprite!!!!!! :no: I told him I'd make him some Dioralyte instead :lol:

The first sticky hair poops arrived!

Sounds like he has hopefully turned the corner

Speedy recovery best wishes coming your way xxx