Erin has a diagnosis of surgical adhesions

When I got up on Monday morning she in pain and refusing food. She was admitted at 10.00 am.

I collected her by appointment yesterday (Thursday) morning by appointment and FHB showed me her x-rays and some calcium deposits around the gut, near the rectum, it's pretty certain they are surgical adhesions, though they don't show up fully on the x-ray, you'd have to open her up to be absolutely sure. (Though I already knew of them, I've just Googled and feel quite sick).

As I prepared to set off to collect her I visited all the other bunnies and Elijah was doing the belly ache thing. As I was ready to leave for my appointment I had to make a split second decision to take him with me. Elijah had a blood glucose reading of 15.1 but no obvious blockage. He was admitted for observations and Erin came home.

Erin arrived home shortly after 1pm and after settling was bright and eating. At 8pm I took her some fresh forage including the very favourite raspberry leaves and she didn't want to know. She refused them and was blatantly in pain again. At 11pm she was being re-admitted with a glucose reading of over 18. Vet felt it was probably higher than would be from her symptoms due to stress (I'd also had to do an emergency stop 5 minutes earlier which wouldn't have helped).

As for Erin's history, she's 4.5 years, she's been with me 1.5 years, she was with her previous owner for 2 years. Previous owner had her spayed because of territorial behaviour... so that was between 3.5 and 1.5 years ago - I think we can assume it was about 3 or more years ago. Erin has had fairly frequent stasis episodes, this is the 5th that's required veterinary attention, she's had a few where I've given her an hour or so and she's come out of the pain/refusing food behaviour.

Before she was re-admitted FHB wasn't talking surgery, probably still isn't but I admit to being very scared for her. I'm kind of working on the hope that *if* she does require surgery and it's taken this long for the adhesions to become a real problem then *hopefully* the prognosis for surgery on them would be good?:? She's the rabbit I'm closest too, After Artie, and I'm so scared of what this could mean for her. At least it's been diagnosed.

Both Erin and Elijah are inpatients today and both are not eating on their own and needing to be syringe fed.

Hi bunny buddy if i've read your post right this sounds simaliar to what a friends bunny just had she is on here grace65 i will message her and get her to look at your post as if it is the same she might be able to help you some way

sazzy said:

Hi bunny buddy if i've read your post right this sounds simaliar to what a friends bunny just had she is on here grace65 i will message her and get her to look at your post as if it is the same she might be able to help you some way

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Thanks. I don't really know why I posted but it wasn't for technical/practical help as I know that my vet can provide all of that.

I suppose then that must mean I posted in the hope of emotional help.:? Two bunnies in stasis at the same time and one with a diagnosis that means she's likely to suffer this often ... I guess that's just bunny ownership for you and it's part of the deal anyway

Bunny Buddy said:

Thanks. I don't really know why I posted but it wasn't for technical/practical help as I know that my vet can provide all of that.

I suppose then that must mean I posted in the hope of emotional help.:? Two bunnies in stasis at the same time and one with a diagnosis that means she's likely to suffer this often ... I guess that's just bunny ownership for you and it's part of the deal anyway

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I just thought it might help to talk to someone who has gone threw the same thing

I am sorry to hear that Erin and Elijah are poorly again I do hope things improve for both of them soon xx

sazzy said:

I just thought it might help to talk to someone who has gone threw the same thing

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Thanks. I genuinely don't know what I expected when I posted. , I have bunnies in stasis often enough, I normally just get on with it as I know the score. Maybe I just thought it would miraculously go away if I posted about it

Jack's-Jane said:

I am sorry to hear that Erin and Elijah are poorly again I do hope things improve for both of them soon xx

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Thanks.

Hi bunny buddy i have a very similar story.
On the 4th of july my Gracie stopped eating and after 4 hours i rushed her in, she was then admitted and treated for gut stasis and monitored overnight in hospital. The next morning our vet craig thought it best to xray and perform an colonoscopy, a short while later on my birthday (July 5th) i had a call to say Craig had found something unusual and he needed to open Gracie up as it seemed she had severe scar tissue or bladder sludge so he really needed to go in and look.
He called me back to say she did have severe adhesions on her bowel and bladder and she was unable to pass anything from both organs.
An hour and a half later Gracie had undergone major surgery and was cleaned up and he had coated her bowel and bladder with a special solution to slow down any more adhesions growing back.

A thousand pounds later and a weeks stay in hospital Gracie is now back to normal BUT there are no promises that it has gone forever, scar tissue can grow back but i know he has done everything possible for her and he has assured me she can have the surgery again if needs be.
He is also reading up on a type of valve surgery that can be done in dogs and seeing if this could be maybe used in rabbits if it does reoccur.

This was all caused by Gracie being spayed, he said it was very unusual and highly uncommon but it can happen.
I can honestly say it was the worse week of my life, she was in hospital with her husbun for a week, she wouldn't eat or drink alone in all of this time and had to be syringe fed and hydrated.
A week on she started to eat more and was allowed home to recouperate as the staff thought she may eat and be happier at home, and she did! I am just praying she dosen't get it back again.

She is going for a check up on July 30th just to make sure she is ok but so far so good.
I will find my invoice and check to see what the coating was that Craig used on her adhesions to prevent them coming back and let you know.

Julie. xxx

Sending lots of vibes.

Thank you so much Grace65 for your detailed post. I really hope Gracie goes on okay, I went through that level of stress last year with Artie and kidney stones - I really know how terrifying it can be.

Thank god Erin's insured then :shock::shock: Some of what Frances told me wasn't sinking in for some reason - I think I must get information overload when there's bad news to take in - I shouldn't have been too surprised when she talked about surgical adhesions as I know Artie has them so I've done a bit of reading on them. She did show me a few x-rays of Erin taken over the last 18 months and 4 stasis episodes and she did give an explanation about her bladder appearing small in one x-ray but I wasn't taking it in properly - so I'm now thinking she must think Erin's bladder is affected by the adhesions too.

What you have explained has given me some hope as I had thought that trying to operate on adhesions was very risky as it could cause them to grow back worse, so the description you've given is reassuring. I'm also still hoping that the prognosis is good in that she was spayed at least 18 months (probably 3 years) ago so hopefully this means that the adhesions wouldn't come back really quickly if she did have surgery.

Out of interest - did you have Gracie spayed/do you know how long ago she was spayed?

Thanks once again for the time you took with the explanation/reassurance (and to Sazzy to pointing you in the direction of this thread).

hurricanhoney said:

Sending lots of vibes.

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Thank you.


Both Erin and Elijah are back home now and have settled in.

Your welcome bunny buddy thought it might help to hear from someone who has been threw the same/similar thing

Bunny Buddy said:

Thank you so much Grace65 for your detailed post. I really hope Gracie goes on okay, I went through that level of stress last year with Artie and kidney stones - I really know how terrifying it can be.

Thank god Erin's insured then :shock::shock: Some of what Frances told me wasn't sinking in for some reason - I think I must get information overload when there's bad news to take in - I shouldn't have been too surprised when she talked about surgical adhesions as I know Artie has them so I've done a bit of reading on them. She did show me a few x-rays of Erin taken over the last 18 months and 4 stasis episodes and she did give an explanation about her bladder appearing small in one x-ray but I wasn't taking it in properly - so I'm now thinking she must think Erin's bladder is affected by the adhesions too.

What you have explained has given me some hope as I had thought that trying to operate on adhesions was very risky as it could cause them to grow back worse, so the description you've given is reassuring. I'm also still hoping that the prognosis is good in that she was spayed at least 18 months (probably 3 years) ago so hopefully this means that the adhesions wouldn't come back really quickly if she did have surgery.

Out of interest - did you have Gracie spayed/do you know how long ago she was spayed?

Thanks once again for the time you took with the explanation/reassurance (and to Sazzy to pointing you in the direction of this thread).

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hello there, yes Gracie was spayed at 6 months of age, she is now 2 and a half.
She is doing fine and has only started passing normal poos this last week, i can honestly say it has been the most upsetting month of my life.
I have been told just to keep a close eye on her (i do anyway) but not to get too paranoid if i can, he said all of the adhesions are gone but he cant promise me that they wont come back but he has coated a substance to prevent anymore growth and i pray she wont have problems again.
He said he filled her bladder with liquid during the surgery and nothing came back out indicating the blockage caused by the scarring.
He also had to clear her bowels out as the food had not been passing through :-( this all happened in one day she was eating drinking and pooing fine the day before!
He also said it was due to her being spayed (he wasn't the vet that performed her spay) and it can happen but is rare.
He also found she was stitched up using the incorrect thread and although this was not the cause he said it wasn't good either.
I was going to report the vet that spayed her but he said she was just very unlucky.
Julie. xxx