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Alternatives to steroids for breathing problems

C

ChristyRose

Alpha Buck
My vet has been using steroid injections to treat my rabbits breathing problems. I understand that using steroids in rabbits is not a good idea. I was just wondering what other treatments could be used to help my rabbit with her breathing. I think someone suggested an inhaler once? Any other ideas? Tryng to get some facts together for when I ring the vet tomorrow.
 
The treatment will depend what the problem is, such as the heart, an infection (upper or lower), scarring, a defect, etc.

Ones that can be used would be meds for the heart (no idea what those are in bunnies), antibiotics, nebuliser (plain or with a variety of things in depending on the problem- anti bios, just saline, F10SC, bisolvon), anti inflammatories, broncho dilator, anti mucolytic, and no doubt more.

I'm sure you can appreciate that it's hard to just tell you what might be of benefit when the problem is currently not known.

ETA- we DID use steroids for Badger's breathing problems, but we started them on the day where we were debating whether or not to PTS him, and I knew he wanted to live so we lost nothing by using steroids because every day after that was borrowed time. We got ten wonderful months until he left and he left due to reasons unrelated to the steroids, although, by that time he was in liver failure due to the steroids (and he STILL wanted to live :love:).
 
Yes, without having a diagnosis then it is impossible to say what treatment may be appropriate

'Breathing Problems' could be due to infection/pneumonia, Heart Disease, Thymoma.........

Obviously each would require different treatment.
 
Thank you Sky. That is what the vet said today. He thinks she has cancer so using steroids will just give her quality of life. I wish I had absolute faith in what he says though....
Nobody seems to know why her breathing problems started. He said she might have tiny tumours on her lungs and the steroids are helping her to breathe. Will a x ray show up a cancer?
 
ChristyRose said:
Thank you Sky. That is what the vet said today. He thinks she has cancer so using steroids will just give her quality of life. I wish I had absolute faith in what he says though....
Nobody seems to know why her breathing problems started. He said she might have tiny tumours on her lungs and the steroids are helping her to breathe. Will a x ray show up a cancer?
Click to expand...

Xrays would show any abnormal masses, to obtain a definative diagnosis then biopsies would be needed which would be a job for a specialist.
 
We used an inhaler for Smokey, the reason I joined RU. He was given a bronchilodilator and a steriod through the inhaler- we bought an aerocat inhaler made for cat's and used the small nose piece for Smokey. We also used corvental to open his airways- it meant opening a capsule and counting out about 30 'balls' for him to take a day ( I think were were told to give him about an 1/8 of a capsule but can't really remember). He ate them sprinkled on a bit of banana- they stuck to it and he loved banana. Our biggest problem was keeping weight on him as he put so much effort into breathing so he got ad lib mix, we also had to watch out for secondary infection and treat immediately.
 
Thank you halfpenny. This is very interesting information that I can tell my vets about. So if she is having problems breathing then she might have problems keeping the weight on? It might not be cancer then just a side effect of breathing problems?
 
ChristyRose said:
Thank you halfpenny. This is very interesting information that I can tell my vets about. So if she is having problems breathing then she might have problems keeping the weight on? It might not be cancer then just a side effect of breathing problems?
Click to expand...

Yes. Normally, they can breathe and eat, but if there is a reason that they are not inhaling enough, then breathing and eating can become a problem.

You can see in this video that Tilly was struggling to eat and breathe (can tell by the head up, flared nostrils and the whole body effort).



She was PTS the next day, when she couldn't eat and breathe and was losing interest in trying to eat- she'd come running over and then walk away after one bite.
 
It could certainly be the case. We did the best we could to identify Smokey's problems, bloods showed raised eosinophils which usually indicate allergies or parasitic infection. It indicated he may have had an asthma type problem, the other option was scaring to the lungs from previous infections/ damage. He was a rescue who was left in an empty house with numerous guinea pigs, the neighbour took him in but was a heavy smoker and the area wher she keep these rescue stank of urine- so it could have been lung damage. The treatment certainly helped Smokey and we finally list him to either an ear infection/ e. Cunniculi, he so stressed with rolling due to thd problem, it was unfair to keep him going at that point.
 
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