• Forum/Server Upgrade If you are reading this you have made it to the upgraded forum. Posts made on the old forum after 26th October 2023 have not been transfered. Everything else should be here. If you find any issues please let us know.
  • Please Note - Medical Advice

    Please keep in mind that posts on this forum are from members of the public sharing personal opinions. It is not a replacement for qualified medical advice from a veterinarian. Many illnesses share similar symptoms but require different treatments. A medical exam is necessary for an accurate diagnosis, without which appropriate treatment cannot be given.

    You should always consult your vet before following any suggestions for medication or treatment you have read about. The wrong treatment could make your rabbit worse or mean your vet is unable to give the correct treatment because of drug interactions. Even non prescription drugs can do harm if given inappropriately.

    We are very grateful to members who take time to answer other members questions, but please do be clear in your replies that you are sharing personal experience and not giving instructions on what must be done.

    Urgent Medical Advice: If you need, or think you might need, urgent medical advice you should contact a vet. If it is out of working hours phone your vet's normal number and there should be an answer phone message with instructions on what to do.

Chronic stasis, appetite won't return, Vets can't diagnose

Jerseylotte

Warren Scout
:?

The general had four bouts of stasis in three weeks, accompanied by primarily stomach bloating. Each time he was in the vets overnight and they have failed to diagnose any underlying problem.
He had his teeth checked under anaesthetic, x-rayed.

At first I felt the reoccurence could be down to the fact my vet didn't supply me with metacam, metaclop etc to continue weaning off treatment at home after episodes. I felt like the cause could have been due to his heavy moult.

I've had him home for a week with metaclop (3x daily down to once daily by yesterday), metacam (once daily), critical care, fibreplex and fresh pineapple juice.


He's had three threats of stasis over the course of this week (including one right now). Each time I've given him plenty of fluids, juice, massage, syringe feeding, metaclop and metacam if already bloating up. And each time he's been back to normal within a couple of hours.
We've been brushing and plucking him so I don't think his moult can be as much of the problem as I first suspected.

He gets a bloated stomach with an empty GI tract behind it each time. He's had an incredibly poor appetite for the last 10 or so days.
He picks at one or two things and is now ignoring his pellets and just eating hay, although he will come running if he thinks treats are on the cards (his apple bits are completely off the menu right now.)

He has been licking lots of things, trying to chew wooden door frames etc (he has a shedload of willow things and fruit tree twigs)

He has also peed when I've picked him up twice in the last couple of days, his wee is orange and seems normal to me. (Is this my biggest clue?)


This can't go on forever and I feel like there must be something serious underlying this, I've read things about rabbits that died after stasis having necrotic stomach openings and things. He seems perfect inbetween these bad moments, despite having apparently no appetite at all. He is pooing sporadically, when he does they're normal and he'll do a whole pile, then maybe nothing for another 12 hours...

My vets are very good, but frankly they aren't coming up with anything, we've spent just under £1000 in a month with them and they have given us no answers whatsoever, treating just symptoms and the cause is still hidden.

I feel like the death of my little boy is inevitable and I have no choice but to keep prolonging this deadend situation by bringing him out of stasis each time it threatens.

Has anyone ever had a problem like this? What the hell can I do?
 
Occasionally E Cuniculi can present with these sorts of symptoms without any of the more obvious ones, as it did in my bunnies, and also a few other people on this forum.

PM me if you need the full story of my bunnies! :)
 
- The X-ray was abdominal, I asked for it to be done to have a look about in there since they had to put him under anaesthetic anyway. Apparently there was nothing amiss, but then maybe they were only looking at his guts, not his bladder?

- Hi Sarah I've just been reading through your topics, my feelings, paranoia, fears, helplessness mirror how you felt :(
I'm really sorry you had to say goodbye to Dusty and Clover, clearly you were in it for the long haul and I'm worried that's where I'm headed!

I've only had him for 18 months, I feel like we haven't even started our time together and I proudly thought, pah I'm experienced and a professional animal keeper, I bet I'll have an ancient bunny by the end of it... :roll:

He had an initial very short course of Panacur, much shorter and not repeated as we would do at work with the reptiles, I know I'm looking for an underlying cause, either true kidney/bladder disease or maybe E. cuniculi causing these odd symptoms.

How long did you run a course of Panacur for at the start? and when you mentioned probiotics, is that like Fibreplex? I can't get him to eat it on it's own, I have to blend it into critical care :lol:
 
Has he had any blood tests ?

He's not a REW is he ?

No blood tests yet and he's a sable marten (REWs frighten me lol)

I have to admit a portion of my stress is the partner's stance on it... You're all not going to like it but I have to rant it out because it's upset me so much!
After the last overnight in the vet hospital my other half said, "that's it, they're not doing anything you can't do for him so he stays at home and you get him better or that's it." and then went on about how he can't afford £1000 on a rabbit and I said, "well it's only half that since we always share everything". He then said, "why should you he was supposed to be my rabbit". So I may have yelled... that next time he's asleep in bed till 5pm with a hangover and I have to get a taxi to the vets, he ought to remember it.:censored:

I then tried to reason it out with him, pointing out how some of the other pets have cost more in initial outlay, housing and second vivariums than the bunny has. He then said that the situation is forcing him to spend the money when he doesn't have it while the other instances were what he wanted to do.

I said that if that's how he feels then he ought to rethink having any pets at all, vets is par for the course and you do what you have to do. Now we're both avoiding talking about it and I'm just going about my business getting up at all hours to try and make the bunny better. :(

It's at odds with everything I believe about animals in general or indeed pets, it makes me so angry to see people with this attitude and now I've discovered it's my own partner saying it.


Basically I'm going to have to speak to the vets again and talk about blood and pee tests, but I feel I will have to choose to do it alone. Then when my partner finds I've done it he will feel obliged to help out afterall and then he will be annoyed at me for being the one forcing him to do something he doesn't want to.
 
Not sure if it's relevant Jane, you probably know but sables are bred exceptionally commonly with the REW lines. Not sure how sable martens fit in but the marten gene is slightly different and likely will be part of the same family as a sable.
 
- The X-ray was abdominal, I asked for it to be done to have a look about in there since they had to put him under anaesthetic anyway. Apparently there was nothing amiss, but then maybe they were only looking at his guts, not his bladder?

- Hi Sarah I've just been reading through your topics, my feelings, paranoia, fears, helplessness mirror how you felt :(
I'm really sorry you had to say goodbye to Dusty and Clover, clearly you were in it for the long haul and I'm worried that's where I'm headed!

I've only had him for 18 months, I feel like we haven't even started our time together and I proudly thought, pah I'm experienced and a professional animal keeper, I bet I'll have an ancient bunny by the end of it... :roll:

He had an initial very short course of Panacur, much shorter and not repeated as we would do at work with the reptiles, I know I'm looking for an underlying cause, either true kidney/bladder disease or maybe E. cuniculi causing these odd symptoms.

How long did you run a course of Panacur for at the start? and when you mentioned probiotics, is that like Fibreplex? I can't get him to eat it on it's own, I have to blend it into critical care :lol:

I can totally understand the stress you feel. Luckily for me my OH was understanding and felt the same as me really.

It was Fibreplex that I used to give them from time to time. My memory is hazy as to how good it was (but the old threads will obviously be more accurate than my memory there! :oops: ). With Panacur, I started off with a 28 day course for both of them, but I didn't know in those days (and my vet didn't say) that Virkon doesn't kill EC spores, and that a bleach solution is the best way to do it. So, to be honest, they were probably reinfecting themselves.

I eventually ended up on periodical six week courses. I used to see good effects within 36 hours of the first dose.

Of course, EC might not be the problem at all. I just wanted to throw the idea out there as a possibility. Best of luck, and let us know what happens.

edit: just to add, the things I discovered quite late, but wished I'd used earlier, were peppermint tea (syringed - they hated it!), and also switching to a hay and dried food only diet - no pellets whatsoever. I think I might have had longer with Clover if I'd switched her over earlier to a no pellet diet, even though she was only on a very few before that. The peppermint tea once saved Clover's life, as I was about to call the vets to have her PTS before I tried it out of desperation. I used to give it to Dusty twice a day.
 
Last edited:
could it be either a 'grass sickness' related problem (mega colon, etc) OR a recurring pain problem such as will happen with kidney stones??
 
I don't have any suggestions as to what it might be, but it might be worth getting blood tests done in case of something like organ failure...and also fecal tests for some of the more unusual bacterial infections.
 
:?

The general had four bouts of stasis in three weeks, accompanied by primarily stomach bloating. Each time he was in the vets overnight and they have failed to diagnose any underlying problem.
He had his teeth checked under anaesthetic, x-rayed.

At first I felt the reoccurence could be down to the fact my vet didn't supply me with metacam, metaclop etc to continue weaning off treatment at home after episodes. I felt like the cause could have been due to his heavy moult.

I've had him home for a week with metaclop (3x daily down to once daily by yesterday), metacam (once daily), critical care, fibreplex and fresh pineapple juice.


He's had three threats of stasis over the course of this week (including one right now). Each time I've given him plenty of fluids, juice, massage, syringe feeding, metaclop and metacam if already bloating up. And each time he's been back to normal within a couple of hours.
We've been brushing and plucking him so I don't think his moult can be as much of the problem as I first suspected.

He gets a bloated stomach with an empty GI tract behind it each time. He's had an incredibly poor appetite for the last 10 or so days.
He picks at one or two things and is now ignoring his pellets and just eating hay, although he will come running if he thinks treats are on the cards (his apple bits are completely off the menu right now.)

He has been licking lots of things, trying to chew wooden door frames etc (he has a shedload of willow things and fruit tree twigs)

He has also peed when I've picked him up twice in the last couple of days, his wee is orange and seems normal to me. (Is this my biggest clue?)


This can't go on forever and I feel like there must be something serious underlying this, I've read things about rabbits that died after stasis having necrotic stomach openings and things. He seems perfect inbetween these bad moments, despite having apparently no appetite at all. He is pooing sporadically, when he does they're normal and he'll do a whole pile, then maybe nothing for another 12 hours...

My vets are very good, but frankly they aren't coming up with anything, we've spent just under £1000 in a month with them and they have given us no answers whatsoever, treating just symptoms and the cause is still hidden.

I feel like the death of my little boy is inevitable and I have no choice but to keep prolonging this deadend situation by bringing him out of stasis each time it threatens.

Has anyone ever had a problem like this? What the hell can I do?

Yes, my rabbit Nino.

I suspect very much that these are not individual episodes of stasis/bloat but merely one unresolved episode. I don't necessarily think this is EC related but I would not rule out the possibility. How old is the General and how long was treatment continued for after each episode? How often with each treatment course does he have the metclopramide each day and for how many days? and is he having ranitidine (zantac) also? What level of metacam is he receiving (and bunny's weight also)? An abdominal Xray would be very likely to show up any masses in the kidneys/ureters so that would rule out stones or any other mass.

Nino used to bloat primary to stasis and have recurrent episodes like this ongoing but he had a hidden pain source - arthritis. But stress alone can manifest in this way, although I suspect pain somewhere. It is usually the unresolved episode and persistent ileus which results in a bunny presenting recurrently with several bouts of stasis over many weeks.

ETA sorry i've read again and see you've been using the metclopramide 3x a day, that was what I was going to suggest. However, when do you stop treatment? In a case like this I would be continuing treatment for 5 days after bunny has returned to apparent normal to treat the persistent ileus. The nerve supply to the gut can take some kickstarting to function at a normal rate again.
 
Last edited:
If your vet has no idea what it is, would they be receptive to a phone call from you asking if they would consider contacting a rabbit specialist like Frances Harcourt- Brown in York?

http://www.any-uk-vet.co.uk/harcourt-brown/index.htm

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Textbook-Rabbit-Medicine-Frances-Harcourt-Brown/dp/0750640022

She is a very well-known rabbit specialist who has written books and has experience of unusual rabbit conditions and she may be able to suggest something to your vet?


sue:wave:
 
Thanks to everyone for your help and advice.

The General is gone, I lay with him in my arms, nose to nose on the sofa all of last night when his latest bout didn't respond to any treatment and he slipped away from me.

I feel relief that he is free now and that I don't have to feel like a cruel mummy syringing him over and over when clearly something unseen was very wrong.

I miss him so much. I will make a tribute for him later on.
 
I'm so very sorry for your loss and that you were unable to find out 'why' before it was too late. He was lucky to have someone fighting so hard for him.
 
Hi all, started to feel a bit more alive again now. I was like an elephant or a chimp for the last 24hrs until we buried him! I just kept having to look at him and touch him to know he was really gone.:shock:

I rang the vets yesterday to ask for a PM, the vet phoned back and said "it's not worth it" and said it would be inconclusive and they'd probably have to hack him to bits for nothing.
I was angry, this is the third pet I have felt they have tried to persuade me to do the cheap or slack thing.

I went to speak to my colleague and they told me that general practices tell you this when they have very little PM experience so they would indeed hack it up through lack of skill and knowledge as well as not knowing what they are looking at...
I had the PM done elsewhere and got my peace of mind.


At the start of all of these bouts of stasis, he had suffered a perforation of the GI tract just beyond the stomach itself. This was either the cause of his sudden respiratory distress and wheezing four weeks ago, or it happened as part of that episode of stasis. The perforation was microscopic but the slight leakage and initial trauma caused localised inflammation and the intestine adhered to the stomach.

This was the cause of his chronic discomfort and depression over the last four weeks, there was no way that this could have been fixed, even if exploratory surgery had been performed (which it wouldn't in a bunny!) and the intestine freed from the stomach, it would still not be right and would likely cause more adhesions during healing...

So basically the rest of his body and organs were all in perfect health, he had simply suffered an accident that caused a perforation in his GI tract and could never have been repaired.
At least I know that my efforts to save him were the best I could do and also that I let him go at the right time, I felt wrong medicating him over and over and his eyes on that last night together told me I had to let go.
 
how very very sad:(

i'm glad you managed to get the pm done though. you needed to know.

sleep tight little fella xxx
 
I too am very relieved for you that you have some answers from a PM, well done for finding someone competent to do it.

Once again I am very sorry for your loss x
 
Back
Top