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Timmy lethargic - any advice?

weedug

weedug

Mama Doe
Timmy is being treated by a vet, but just wanted to see if anyone had other ideas in case something is being missed.

As some of you might know, he has chronic eye ulcers in each eye.

Lately he has been fairly miserable, spending most of his time just sitting around. He was put on tetracaine eye drops, which seem to help a bit.

Current dose of metacam is 1 ml, twice a day. Timmy weighs 2.5 kg. The vet is concerned that Timmy is needing the high dose of metacam for so long (he was ok with it for a week). With the eye drops and metacam, Timmy will play for a little while in the run, and I have even seen some binkies from him, the first this year :D. He is still a bit lethargic though.

Just wondered where others would go from here? My vet wants him to have some time off the metacam, which I'm not happy with. He is due to get a blood test done soon.

Eating is ok, although slower than normal, poops fine, weight stable.

Could there be something obvious that we're missing?
 
Personally I would want the bloods done as there are various possibilities to account for his lethargy, but without a blood work-up it would all just be guess work. Things I would be wondering about are a chronic systemic infection, GI tract ulceration (from the high dose Metacam). It would be good know how his Liver and Kidneys are functioning too.

Finally, it is always worth checking teeth, even in a Rabbit with no previous history of Dental problems.
 
Thanks for replying Jane :wave:

Timmy has just started sneezing a bit, and his nose was wet last night. He has also had slightly wet eyes, one eye at a time, and only for a few hours. I am wondering if he has the upper respiratory infection that one of my other buns has. She showed no obvious symptoms for a few weeks, just became a grumpy girl, and even growled at me for the first time ever :shock:

My vet was thinking ulceration too, and which is why he was wanting the metacam dose lowered.
 
As he is obviously somewhat immuno-compromised a bacterial infection does sound to be a possibility. Your Vet may consider starting him on some systemic antibiotics.

Is he also on Ranitidine (Zantac) to try to minimise the GI tract ulceration risk from the Metacam ?
 
Timmy isn't on any zantac. My vet seems to prefer trying Timmy without any metacam for a couple of days to give his tummy a little time to heal, then putting him on a minimal dose. I'm not so sure about that way though :?.
 
weedug said:
Timmy isn't on any zantac. My vet seems to prefer trying Timmy without any metacam for a couple of days to give his tummy a little time to heal, then putting him on a minimal dose. I'm not so sure about that way though :?.
Click to expand...

Why not ask the Vet about using Zantac in conjunction with Metacam ?
 
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