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  • Please Note - Medical Advice

    Please keep in mind that posts on this forum are from members of the public sharing personal opinions. It is not a replacement for qualified medical advice from a veterinarian. Many illnesses share similar symptoms but require different treatments. A medical exam is necessary for an accurate diagnosis, without which appropriate treatment cannot be given.

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    We are very grateful to members who take time to answer other members questions, but please do be clear in your replies that you are sharing personal experience and not giving instructions on what must be done.

    Urgent Medical Advice: If you need, or think you might need, urgent medical advice you should contact a vet. If it is out of working hours phone your vet's normal number and there should be an answer phone message with instructions on what to do.

urgent- tummy problems

SuzieBlue

SuzieBlue

Young Bun
Hello all, I could really do with some advice. My almost-3 year old minilop Phoebe has a history of tooth probs, tummy probs and general sensitivity to stuff. Today, I left home at 12pm and she had been her normal self all morning. I opened a new pack of quite rough timothy hay for her and she'd had quite a lot of this when I got back around 7pm. But she was really quiet, not wanting to move and definitely not eat. I have oral metacam in the house for these occasions and so administered some of this (I've done this a few times before after advice from vet, usually within the hour she's back eating and generally fine again).
However, I had to go back to work and got home around 9 and she's still not herself. She's washing, but won't move much and still won't eat.
I just gave her some gripe water as she's been lying down/standing up/lying down, so to me this looks like a gassy tummy. I've also used this before and it seems to work well. I'm waiting on the emergency vet calling me back to arrange an appointment. But in the meantime I just want to know if anyone has any other advice? Help!! I hate seeing her like this.
 
If she'll let you and it won't stress her out you could massage her tummy a bit.

Sending vibes, hope it goes well at the vets x
 
It sounds like you're doing everything right. Maybe get her moving about a bit and give her some water by syringe. Hope she gets on OK at the vets. Sending lots of vibes for Phoebe xx
 
Thanks all. I've given her some water and some mushed up food. Which she hated! When I gave her the gripe water earlier and the metacam before that she didn't put up a fight, but now she's at least being unwilling which is more like her.
She's still uncomfortable though and it'll be a while yet before the vet - she's on another call out - so I'm going to keep up my vigil. I tried to rub pheeb's tummy and she tried to bite me, so that's a no....
She is currently under the table grinding her teeth and hunching. :(
 
Hi again, just wanted to say that while I was waiting on a call back from the vet I made toast for myself. Phoebe, even from her sickbed, couldn't resist and came over for a nibble. She's now running about the house, she's eaten some pellets of her own accord and had a wee bit of water, a few bits of toast (as in, a few thumbnail sized pieces!), has been licking me and is generally back to her old self. I'm thinking the gripe water really helped, as did a few mouthfuls of mushed pellets to get her interested?
So anyway, thanks for your advice - her tummy is making some grumbly noises and no poos yet but I'm hopeful that this bout of illness is almost over. :)
 
I spoke to the vet again, but as I was doing so phoebe peed all over the sofa and dropped about a million poos! She's still running around. I'm going to take her to the vet in the morning just to be safe, but she really does seem back to normal at the moment.
Interestingly, the vet had no experience of gripe water/infacol etc for rabbits and seemed a bit taken aback when I mentioned it! I am now officially a crazy pet lady.
 
Good to hear that she seems to have perked up and I hope she continues to improve.

We had a fair few similar instances with one of our buns. He would just all of sudden stop being himself, hunching, grinding teeth and not interested in food. As soon as he had a dose of metacam within the hour he was back to himself! It turned out he did have some small spurs on his teeth so we booked him in for a dental and whilst he was under GA the vets did a whole body x-ray and took blood, testing for everything. All the results came back negative!

Anyway when we got him home we decided to get him a puppy play pen and set it up in the spare room as this would be more spacious for him, we also bonded him with one of our females and he's been absolutely fine ever since.
 
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