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Picture of Julie. This is so sad.

bunnytoes

Warren Veteran
Poor baby is having a bad day with her arthritis. She acts like she is on a sheet of ice. Her feet keep slipping out from under her. She is totally unphased by this though and is still very active. She flies around with her feet going this way and that and when she slides to her belly she has started belly creeping like she did before she was put on metacam. The metacam along with some alternative things (turmeric ,glucosamine and flaxseed) seem to of been really working until today. She had been improving more each day untill this morning. She is back to acting the way she did before. She was like this this morning. I gave her an extra .4ml of the metacam. She is on .8ml. The extra did nothing. I can't figure why it would stop working just like that.
This is her eating.
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So so sad.
 
Sorry to see Julie having such a rough time.
I think like with people sometimes buns arthritis symptoms are worse some days than others.
It might be worthwhile making a note of weather conditions when she is struggling & seeing if there is any common factor.
No matter what her troubles are Julie always seems like such a larger than life, happy girl :love:
But it is rough for you watching her & trying different things in the hope that something makes a difference.
My Flemish girl Ondine is on long term Metacam for her arthritis & seems on a fairly even keel.
I try some natural anti inflams too such as lavender & willow to supplement her diet too.
I do hope Julie is a little better tomorrow.
Thinking of you both.
 
Sorry to see Julie having such a rough time.
I think like with people sometimes buns arthritis symptoms are worse some days than others.
It might be worthwhile making a note of weather conditions when she is struggling & seeing if there is any common factor.
No matter what her troubles are Julie always seems like such a larger than life, happy girl :love:
But it is rough for you watching her & trying different things in the hope that something makes a difference.
My Flemish girl Ondine is on long term Metacam for her arthritis & seems on a fairly even keel.
I try some natural anti inflams too such as lavender & willow to supplement her diet too.
I do hope Julie is a little better tomorrow.
Thinking of you both.

KB, it is really nice to hear from you. I have not seen you on here in a while and have missed you. I have noticed that she has a harder time when it is rainy or humid but it was fairly warm and dry today. It is not as warm though as it was the last couple of days.
She has been doing so good lately and extra active. She has been acting pretty much like her old self. I hope that today is just an off/bad day. Maybe she was too active all night. I did hear her playing last night. Julie is never grumpy and never lets her hips get in the way of getting food or attention.
I am happy to hear that Ondine is doing so well with her arthritis. I haven't tried lavender or willow. Is it the leaves that you feed her?
 
:oops: nice to be missed.
We have been really busy, some ski touring in the Southern Alps & then a charity surgery trip to Fiji (an amazing experience).
We also adopted a new dog so all go here.
Leaves & twigs of willow & flowers, stems & foliage of the lavender. Fresh for both.
 
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I empathise with Julie and her arthritis. Also, it can be worse some days than others for no obvious reason :?

Does she manage to hop on the tiled flooring ? I just wondered if a surface with a bit more traction might help her hind leg mobility.


Lovely to see you KB :wave:
 
I was going to mention the flooring can you put down some rugs or carpet tile to help support the legs? I would imagine that might help slightly?
 
Has she ever been tried on steroids?

My Sea completely lost the use of her hind leg 3 weeks ago - there was muscle wastage and her leg had seized up in the "folded" position.

Just three days of steroid and she regained some use of her leg. Two weeks later and she is jumping onto the roof of her platform again - something she has been unable to do for nearly 9 months:D

I would never have believed such a difference was possible. I was at the point of thinking that it was the beginning of the end for her.

Is it worth discussing trialling a few weeks for Julie?
 
The first thing i noticed too was the floor. We have a lot of bunnies that wouldn't be able to stand on a tiled floor. Tiffany has particularly bad mobility and can not move on a lot of surfaces including carpet and concrete. She can walk on thick hay so we put her in a playhouse with thick layers of hay to help her get around but she would never leave it. We have just moved her into a new playhouse and run with thick hay in the house and rubber stable matting in the run and it works :D:D While her mobility will never be normal it is lovely to see her out and about again when on a few occassions we were worried we would have to pts. So it is really worth trying different surfaces until you find one that helps, it really can make all the difference to their lives along with all the medical treatment :D xx
 
Thanks for all the responses. All the floors in the house are slippery for her now that she has arthritis. We have always had the tile in the kitchen. She did fine when she was younger. She actually had a problem with rug burn/sore back feet from binkying in the rest of the house on the carpet when the house was wall to wall carpet. A little over a year ago had all the carpet in the house replaced with hand scraped (little bit of tooth to them) wood laminate. She was good on that for a while until the arthritis. Now those floors are harder for her than the tile. She does go for the area rugs while hopping in the rest of the house and sleeps on her scatter rugs in the kitchen.
She does have 4 scatter rugs in the kitchen already. I guess you can't see them in the picture. I will go buy a couple more, one to go in front of both her eating spots. Her cage is filled with hay and she has a box filled with hay also. Maybe I should buy a long runner type rug for binkies. I will go shopping.

BB Mommy the vet mentioned steroids but said that would be a last resort. She is more worried about side effects from the steroids. She said that Julie still has pretty good muscle mass in her hips. Her arthritis is in her hips. The arthritis doesn't prevent her from getting around at all. The vet said she was one determined bunny. She was amazed the ways she figures out to get moving. She said her hips hurt to move them into the hopping range so she leaves them out to the side and moves her back feet side to side and she goes faster. I showed the vet videos of her on the floors.

Not sure if I have mentioned this or not but the vet says the next thing to try is injectable adaquan. I am worried about the injections. I don't want to cause her any pain. She has 3 rabbits at the rabbit rescue on it and they seem to be doing good on it. I have talked to the rescue woman about the adaquan and she says that she will give me a vial and show me how to do it. After yesterday I might do that if Julie has anymore days like that.
Julie seems much much better today.
My next question is.....Does any one use injectable Adaquan and how does your rabbit cope with the injection?
 
When my dog had bad arthiritus (German Shepherd), having slips and falling and generally sliding about made his mobility much worse, as he pulled muscles when doing it and therefore both his muscles and joints werent working properly at the same time - I'd be worried about this for Julie if she is slipping about. We had hard wood flooring and had to get massive non-slip rugs to go on it, so everywhere he would walk was covered, which helped massively.

Poor Julie, I hope you can find a flooring that helps her get some mobility back. x
 
Many vets are so reluctant to use steroids on rabbits, yet when its the right drug at the right time the results can be good.

People with arthritis are routinely treated with steroids, and whilst there may be some side affects we often have to concentrate on the quality of life rather than the quantity.

Sea is on a very low dose steroid which I'm hoping I can maintain her on.

I think her walking surface is of paramount importance. she has already adjusted her gait because of her arthritis, which in turn throws all her other movements out of alignment. Slipping and sliding will put continual strain on her hips and legs, so its important that she has a surface that she can grip.
 
The vet did say that moving about the way she does is bad for her. On her good days with her meds she hops pretty normal and has no real problems on the floors. I will definitely get more rugs. The rugs don't help with keeping her feet together but gives her traction from slipping out.
The vet did say that we would try the steroids but only if nothing else helps. It is great BB Mommy that the steroids have helped your Sea.
I have actually tried putting some toddler socks on her feet on a bad day when she insisted on hopping around everywhere on the floors. I put them on her when she had sore hocks and was binking on the carpet when we had that. She really doesn't mind the socks at all and they do help some but once she gets going they slip off. I don't know of a safe comfortable way to keep them on while hopping but that if she wanted them off she could take them off. I tried tying them on with soft ribbons but want her to be able to take them off if she wants them off.....so don't do that.
 
We use non-slip vinyl and 'Turtle Mats' (the washable cotton rubs with rubber backing.)

Our disabled buns would not have been able to cope with slippy tiles . .
 
I empathise with Julie and her arthritis. Also, it can be worse some days than others for no obvious reason :?

Does she manage to hop on the tiled flooring ? I just wondered if a surface with a bit more traction might help her hind leg mobility.


Lovely to see you KB :wave:

Agree 100% with this :thumb:. Flora's entire kennel and run is lined with grippy surfaces now. There are rubber 'child safety tiles' in one run, fake grass at the other end and carpet tiles in the kennel. She just slips on the slabs otherwise :(. Might be worth getting more rugs that can be easily washed if she pees on them. Something like the cotton 'dirt trapper' rugs?
 
Thanks for all the advice. I will go out shopping tomorrow. I spread out a big blanket for her for now but she is actually doing pretty good now anyways. Hubby is not to happy with the blanket though as be said it is a trip hazard for humans. Rabbit do rule though in our house so it is staying until I can find something better.

This is kinda funny. I had no idea what turtle mats were so I googled it. Lots of US sites came up first with all kinds of rugs with turtles on them. :lol:
I figured it out when I clicked one UK site with door mat type rugs. Door mats are a good idea. I wonder if hubby would have a fit if I bought a huge piece of non slip vinyl and covered all the tile in the kitchen. Julie really does seem good again today and is hopping on the tiles without sliding.
 
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