Poorly Snuffy, Vet doesnt know whats wrong, any advice please U/D Snuffy gone :(

Hi

Snuffy is now eight and a half, he has never been ill, but on saturday was a bit depressed and shuddery. I put this down to his current heavy moult and a bit of a tummy ache, I treated him with fluids, metacam and syringe feeding.

Normally Snuffy is better within hours but not this time. So he has been to the vets. I will just explain his current symptoms:

Grit like poos, quick breathing (not all the time), eyes half closed over (not all the time but this eyes thing is unusual), sluggishness.

His appetite is more or less normal, his drinking is less.

The vet did x rays etc etc, and they have shown nothing definitive. All he can detect is maybe the heart is slightly enlarged. He says he has never had experience of this and will need to be referred to a specialist. He has lost weight, but was weighed well over a year ago, he was 205kg now he is 185kg (or do I mean grams? Dont know!!)

Snuffy has an excellent diet, hay, more hay, grass, greens, and afew nuggets a night. Has always had free rein of a two storey hutch and run and nowadays has complete run of the house, so heart disease to me seems crazy.

Anyone else had experiences like this?

Sounds as though he could be in heart failure

http://wildpro.twycrosszoo.org/S/00dis/Miscellaneous/CongestiveHeartFailureRabbit.htm

Is he on any medication now ?

I am afraid that i would agree with Jacks jane that heart failure would cover these symptoms -

an xray does not always show the detail of the heart fully so perhaps a scan might help?

I actually feel phyically sick with worry, I lost his brother almost this time last year. Snuffy has only just bonded with my other boy (who he hated for 5 yrs!!) and they adore each other.

I dont think I can bear it.

No he is not on any meds, I am a little annoyed as the vet said he doesnt know and I now need to take him to an exotic specialist, who is a considerable drive away.

Mia said:

I actually feel phyically sick with worry, I lost his brother almost this time last year. Snuffy has only just bonded with my other boy (who he hated for 5 yrs!!) and they adore each other.

I dont think I can bear it.

No he is not on any meds, I am a little annoyed as the vet said he doesnt know and I now need to take him to an exotic specialist, who is a considerable drive away.

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Better that a Vet admits their limitations than tries to pretend they know it all. Can you ask the Vet to sort out an urgent referral for you tomorrow ?

Yes he has made a referral, and emailed the x-rays to the exotic specialist. The other vet agrees the heart does look slightly enlarged.

They have agreed on 1/4 of fortecol (an ACE inhibitor) once a day. Annoyingly, the only ones they have are meat flavoured, which I have to dissolve and syringe orally so cant be very nice for Snuffy. He is also on fibreplex, and I am syringing fluids with his nuggets (excel) powdered into the water.

I have not really seen any improvement since the first tablet, but to be fair I only picked them up and used them yesterday (Sat). What is really perplexing me is his gut problems, he has a constant clag of cecals around his bottom which I am regularily cleaning. I have never had a rabbit have GI stasis for this long. He is still eating which normally my GI buns never do. I am wondering if his gut flora has been really affected by something, maybe something he ate whilst in the garden?

He goes through waves of looking poorly and uncomfortable, then he will be normal by grooming himself or his brother or tossing one of his boxes around. Normally any of my buns with tummy problems dont do anything but lay out looking uncomfortable.

I may be looking at this all wrong, it could just be a tummy problem (the vet detected no blockages in x ray or when examining him, and nor can I, or a build up of gas) Could this perhaps be a gut thing and it just so happens to have picked up the enlarged heart aspect in the x-ray, which he may have had for a while??? He is eight and a half.

I just dont know. He sometimes shows aspects of the symptoms of a heart bunny, but not always.

I am confused and worried.

anyone had confilicting symptoms like I have mentioned above??