Non regenerative anemia....UD post 22...26/06

Last week I noticed that Maurice was quieter than normal and had lost weight. I thought it was probably the cold weather making his legs sore, so I took him to the vet.

She decided that before we put him on long term pain relief she would do a full blood screen to heck there was nothing else going on and also to check his kidney function.

Got the results back on Monday and he has non regenerative anemia She said that it is a secondary symptom of something more serious, usually internal bleeding of some sort (most often gut ulcers) or cancer, but without further testing we don't know.

We've been referred to John Chitty and our appointment is on Saturday.....I'm so worried for my little man. She said he was probably going to need ultrasounds, x-rays and maybe even a bone marrow biopsy.

I'm so glad he is insured....even if he wasn't he would still get any and all the treatment he needed....but it takes a little of the weight off my shoulders. Problem is though that obviously I havent had him that long, and his insurance only covers illness that started 14 days after the inception of the policy....which for us would be any time after 29/10. Vet said that judging by the bloods he hasn't been suffering with the anemia too long....it wasn't that advanced...but we don;t know till we find out whats causing it.

He has been given Zantax and Antepsin in case it is gut related, but his apetite is so good we don;t really think that that is the problem.

Please could anyone tell me if there is anything else I can do for him to help? I understand that NRA is pretty much untreatable.....but maybe there is something I can do to make him feel better?

He seems fairly happy in himself, he's up and down the stairs now, just a little quiet.

aw bless him I can't really help but wanted to send vibes xxx

sparklefairy said:

aw bless him I can't really help but wanted to send vibes xxx

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Thank you....I'm so worried and feel really out of my depth....I've never had to look after a seriously ill bunny....or any other pet to be honest. I guess we'll just take it as it comes and hope that what ever is causing it can be fixed with a minimum of pain on his behalf.

I wish J were here

Only just seen this

Whilst NRA can be due to some potentially serious issues it can also be due to treatable/manageable issues such as Dental Disease (*even without active infection*) or a chronic disease process eg otitis.

Remember how ill and thin Morse became when his ear infection was at it's worst ?

As he is a Lop I would not be at all surprised if one or both of those two examples might be involved.

NRA is not inevitably a death sentence

I hope all goes well for him with JC xx

Jack's-Jane said:

Only just seen this

Whilst NRA can be due to some potentially serious issues it can also be due to treatable/manageable issues such as Dental Disease (*even without active infection*) or a chronic disease process eg otitis.

Remember how ill and thin Morse became when his ear infection was at it's worst ?

As he is a Lop I would not be at all surprised if one or both of those two examples might be involved.

NRA is not inevitably a death sentence

I hope all goes well for him with JC xx

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thanks Jane, When we saw the vet she gave him a very thourgh (sp) going over....apparently his teeth are perfect (unsurprising considoring how much hay he eats :shock: and she couldnt see any ear problems.....but who's to say they aren't lurking there anyway

To be honest...I don't thing it's the NRA thats bothering me as such...it's the not knowing what's causing it. I get so worked up about unknowns....once I know what I'm fighting I can get on with it if you know what I mean.

I found PBs thread relating to Parsley also having it as a result of his ear infection, the information you put up was very interesting indeed...thank you :d

Sorry to read your news.
I don't have experience in rabbits but this is common in cats with chronic disease ( like kidney failure or FIV). Anabolic steroids and vitamin B injections are used, and I have used it myself in cats.
Not sure if that is any use but thought I would mention it, we did try it with Thumper who was in kidney failure but I think we diagnosed it too late to help.

Bluesmum said:

thanks Jane, When we saw the vet she gave him a very thourgh (sp) going over....apparently his teeth are perfect (unsurprising considoring how much hay he eats :shock: and she couldnt see any ear problems.....but who's to say they aren't lurking there anyway

To be honest...I don't thing it's the NRA thats bothering me as such...it's the not knowing what's causing it. I get so worked up about unknowns....once I know what I'm fighting I can get on with it if you know what I mean.

I found PBs thread relating to Parsley also having it as a result of his ear infection, the information you put up was very interesting indeed...thank you :d

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Given that Maurice also has a rear leg problem (as does Parsley) and even bigger ears than Parsley - i would be amazed if he didnt have a lurking ear problem. Did the vet that checked him know about the rear foot issue (as that will be stopping him cleaning his ear on that side properly).

Jack's-Jane said:

Only just seen this

Whilst NRA can be due to some potentially serious issues it can also be due to treatable/manageable issues such as Dental Disease (*even without active infection*) or a chronic disease process eg otitis.

Remember how ill and thin Morse became when his ear infection was at it's worst ?

As he is a Lop I would not be at all surprised if one or both of those two examples might be involved.

NRA is not inevitably a death sentence

I hope all goes well for him with JC xx

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this id say too, not sure if you remember how ill mabel was last year and how fast she lost weight while i was away and they did bloods and she was severly aneamic and heart murmur etc, she was admitted given drip and other things, and then when i got her home i fed her foods like baby spinach and brocolli, ie mabel is a dental bun, then after all that she gained weight as got better and improved ever since

i hope for maurice it won't be too serious and send many vibes

mini lop1 said:

this id say too, not sure if you remember how ill mabel was last year and how fast she lost weight while i was away and they did bloods and she was severly aneamic and heart murmur etc, she was admitted given drip and other things, and then when i got her home i fed her foods like baby spinach and brocolli, ie mabel is a dental bun, then after all that she gained weight as got better and improved ever since

i hope for maurice it won't be too serious and send many vibes

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so glad that mabel improved so fast - unfortunately with Non Regenerative anaemia the bun (or human) could eat all the iron rich foods in the world and it wouldnt make any difference at all - they are not making the blood cells. As you can imagine Parsley has the most amazing forage based fresh veg diet in the world . . but due to the long term infection his body cant make the blood cells at present. Maurice has the same type of NRA.

Sorry for the delay in updating, een a bit busy the last few days.

Dropped the buns off on Saturday with JC, the facilities are great and he was really reassuring, went through what he was going to do and I was allowed to settle them in their accomadation.

Tests and xrays were run on Monday, and I was able to go and pick them up that afternoon. He did quite a few xrays, and found that the first molar root on the right hand side was slightly overgrown, but nothing major really. He also found the his ears were a little hard, which we were expecting, so he has some antibiotics for the that (septrin)

The main problem that he found was in Maurice's back. about half way down his spine he has a problem with a couple of the vertibrae, theyre pressing on the disk in the middle. Added to that the vertibrae that connects the pelvis to the spine is actually the wrong shape and is also causing some considorable discomfort. When we looked at the xrays of his damaged foot I was quite shocked. The remodling is really bad, the bones have refused twisted and in a very odd position.

The basic outcome is that there is nothing we can really do without knowing which problem the pain is coming from. If we could definately say it was his foot, then JC said he would look to amputate, but with the back and pelvic problems we could just exacerbate those and end up no better than where we started.

He's on a fairly high dose of metacam twice daily, with the septrin too.....if the metacam stops working then we can move to tramadol If that doesnt work then we will have to take it all back to the drawing board and re-evaluate the situation.

He really objects to having his meds via syringe....the only way I could get them in was to back him in the corner and force them in....which upset both of us. He's now having them mushed up in some banana which seems to work very well.

Since he's been on the metacam there has been a really noticable change, he's much more relaxed and has started to flop (which I hadn't seen him do before....doesn't mean he wasn't....but not in front of me) He's also started to run around more and is finding it easier to get up and down the stairs.

Now we just have to wait and see what the insurance people say...we don't know if they are going to accept the claim or not. I really hope they do but if they don;t then it isn't *too* much of an issue. We have the funds to pay for anything he needs.

In a couple of weeks we will have some more bloods done to see if the aneamia has started to get any better.....apparently once the problems are managed he *should* start producing more red blood cells.

All in all I think it's fairly positive....at least we now know what we're dealing with and it isn't the dreaded 'c' word. Needless to say he is being spoiled even more than usual

I managed to take some photos of him flopping yesterday (please excuse the state of the carpet...I havent managed to hoover up there this week)

poor lad! he looks really happy there though which is good

Poor Maurice he is such a big gorgeous bunny, at least he is really relaxed now.

Must have been so stressful worrying about the outcome.

glad to hear that it is not cancer or an inner ear issue - I suspect the whole spine thing is related to when his old owners dropped him (and broke his foot).

The scandal is that they said (and I believe them) they took him to a vet who said that 'it will just heal' and to do nothing:shock::shock: so he lived with it all the time.

My own vet was shocked as well when she first saw/felt it - though we never had xrays done otherwise might have picked up the spine as well.

Really hoping the NRA clears up as the pain is managed.

parsnipbun said:

glad to hear that it is not cancer or an inner ear issue - I suspect the whole spine thing is related to when his old owners dropped him (and broke his foot).

The scandal is that they said (and I believe them) they took him to a vet who said that 'it will just heal' and to do nothing:shock::shock: so he lived with it all the time.

My own vet was shocked as well when she first saw/felt it - though we never had xrays done otherwise might have picked up the spine as well.

Really hoping the NRA clears up as the pain is managed.

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JC said he thought it looked as though it hadn't been treated. Poor sweetheart. Probably didn't get any pain relief either

He definitely seems to have picked up since having the pain relief....I feel so guilty that he's been so long without it

So...it's been a while since I updated on all this. I think I accidentally spread some of the information on different threads so I'll try and bring it all back together and tell you all everything.

Maurice has been going from strength to strength, he goes up and down the stairs without any problems now....he flopps like all his bones have dissolved and has given me several DBF induced heart attacks. He's also started joining in with Marnies mad dashes around the house and even throws in a few binkies here and there (he gets all four feet off the floor and everything They're a bit squiffy though :lol: ) He comes to his name and now takes his metacam straight out of the syringe. We're now working on him coming up onto the sofa....he seems desperate to join in the mass snuggles but doesnlt trust himself to get up sometimes I think He manages it on occasion though bless him.

Petplan have been great with his claims....we've had no problems with them paying out at all I'm so glad I had him insured as soon as Steve dropped him off :lol: We've hit over £1000 now in bills since he came to us in october though.....so heres hoping we doing have much more than his meds :shock:

A week or so after we got the initial results from JC we got another call saying he was positive for EC too...so they both had the full 28 days course of panacur.

We went back to the vets yesterday for some new bloods to be done. We saw a new vet....I think he is fairly newly qualified as he is about my age. He was lovely though....went to get a blanket to put on the table so Maurice didn't get worried about the slidyness and was very good with handling him and taking his back into considoration. He didn't even mind that Marnie had tagged along for the ride...just gave her a check over too

Maurice has been off his septrin for a few weeks now, so Bill gave his ears a good check over. He even let me have a look and they were lovely and clear He's also put on 90g taking us to 4.9 kg. Still a little small for a frenchie but now he is moving more he should carry on building his muscles.

Now were just waiting for the bloods to come back and tell us how the NRA is doing and to see if the EC is gone

Thread has moved.....

So anyway. Not sure if anyone is still reading this but I thought Id update anyway.

Had a call from Bill the vet yesterday evening (he woke me up from a nap so I must have sounded like a right moron :lol: ) The blood results have come back, Maurices RBC count is up...as are his platelets, and the anemia is slightly better too. All good news.....but best of all he has come back negative for EC.

Bill has said we should try and reduce Maurices metacam dose untill we reach a managable level. I'm not entirely sure though. Have reduced him to a 19 kg dose this week so will see how he goes.

We're back for more bloods in about 8 weeks.

I'm also going to see if I can photograph his xrays....for my own records and then perhaps post them here too.

That's great news. Am looking forward to seeing you all later :wave: xxx

Glad Maurice is improving xx

I hope things continue to improve for him xx

aww it sounds like he is doing really well