rabbit in stasis won't take his recovery please help urgent!

Please help! My rabbit has been in some sort of stasis now for months, I have written about him before. Usually he slowly returns to more normal eating though never as much as he once did. Today things have become much worse. He has eaten nothing nor pooped. Other times he will readily take recovery mix from a syringe but not this time. I can force it into his mouth as the vet advised and administer two or three mills than he starts to spit it out. I am desperate. I took him to the vet this morning and she said to tip him on his back and administer the recovery this way, but I am sacred he will choke and it will get into his lungs if he refuses to swallow and besides it doesn’t sound like something he would tolerate. Any ideas how I can get him to take his recovery? There is nothing more they can do for him other than give him metacam, he was already on the highest dose of Zantac and metaclomipraimde which he has been taking for months. Any advice would be appreciated thank you

I would be extremely wary of a Vet who suggested putting your Rabbit on his back and attempting to syringe feed him :shock: You are absolutely right not to have done this as he certainly could have aspirated the feed.

Given that the Vet appears to be a bit.....ermmm....... lacking in knowledge about Rabbits then I think you would be best advised to seek a second opinion elsewhere this afternoon. What has the Vet done to try to establish the primary cause of the gut stasis ? What has she done to try to make sure that there is not a full obstruction ? If there is an obstruction(no poo is a real concern) then continuing to force feed could make things much worse.

Fluid therapy (IV or subcutaneous) is usually very important too. I assume your Rabbit has not received this either ?

Try mixing it with apple and oat baby cereal so it tastes nice. It's not ideal as it's sugary but it's a tip FHB gave me.
You should only force feed if a blockage has been ruled out.

I do hope your bunny is feeling better, as jane has said, i'd be wary of any vet that advised tipping bunny on back to force feed recovery, if you havn't already done so, i'd see another vet asap, hope he picks up soon x

Jack's-Jane said:

I would be extremely wary of a Vet who suggested putting your Rabbit on his back and attempting to syringe feed him :shock: You are absolutely right not to have done this as he certainly could have aspirated the feed.

Given that the Vet appears to be a bit.....ermmm....... lacking in knowledge about Rabbits then I think you would be best advised to seek a second opinion elsewhere this afternoon. What has the Vet done to try to establish the primary cause of the gut stasis ? What has she done to try to make sure that there is not a full obstruction ? If there is an obstruction(no poo is a real concern) then continuing to force feed could make things much worse.

Fluid therapy (IV or subcutaneous) is usually very important too. I assume your Rabbit has not received this either ?

Click to expand...

Hi
Thank you for your reply. The vet felt his stomach and listened with the Stethoscope and said it was making the normal noises. He has had stasis in varying degrees for many months, the last serious episode he had an x-ray which showed a fatty lump called a lipoma. the vet felt this and said it was sore and he did react when she did so as though it was tender. She thinks the pain from this is preventing him from eating.

I have just returned from the vets again and they are going to have him in for three hours tomorrow to feed him - closed in the afternoon otherwise it would have been all day. The nurse showed me how to feed him, though this was more or less the way I feed him and it was not by tipping him on his back. So I really don’t know what the vet was thinking of. We see different vets at the same practice and no one has ever told me to do this before. No he has not received fluid therapy; they usually do not do this if he is not showing signs of dehydration. He drank water when we returned home but has not eaten since 3am. So really worried.

RedFraggle said:

Try mixing it with apple and oat baby cereal so it tastes nice. It's not ideal as it's sugary but it's a tip FHB gave me.
You should only force feed if a blockage has been ruled out.

Click to expand...

Hi

Thank you for replying. Will try that, though I rather think he just does not want to eat anything. Usually he enjoys his recovery mix and can’t get enough of it, until this morning when he stopped eating altogether. The weekend presents a problem as there will be no one at the vet’s after 12 noon tomorrow., though if things don’t improve there are out of hours vets of course but a long way off.

mini lop1 said:

I do hope your bunny is feeling better, as jane has said, i'd be wary of any vet that advised tipping bunny on back to force feed recovery, if you havn't already done so, i'd see another vet asap, hope he picks up soon x

Click to expand...

Hi

Thank you for responding, will see another vet tomorrow, he is booked to stay at the day hospital for three hours.

Just as a thought, what metacam dose is he on and what weight is he? The "text book doses" are often too low.

I really think you should go to a rabbit savvy vets. My specialists always give fluid as one of the first things and they certainly would let her come home until she is back to normal.

She has stomach troubles and is on constant metaclop and infracol. She is off the metacam at the moment but was having that three times a day as it helps the inflammation of the stomach.

I would start a thread asking for vet recommendations in your area.

Good luck

cpayne said:

I really think you should go to a rabbit savvy vets. My specialists always give fluid as one of the first things and they certainly would let her come home until she is back to normal.

She has stomach troubles and is on constant metaclop and infracol. She is off the metacam at the moment but was having that three times a day as it helps the inflammation of the stomach.

I would start a thread asking for vet recommendations in your area.

Good luck

Click to expand...

It can actually cause inflammation and irritation of the stomach lining and gastric bleeding, as can all NSAIDs, so I'm kind of surprised they said that. It's why at high doses they usually prescribe it with ranitidine

RedFraggle said:

It can actually cause inflammation and irritation of the stomach lining and gastric bleeding, as can all NSAIDs, so I'm kind of surprised they said that. It's why at high doses they usually prescribe it with ranitidine

Click to expand...

There is a suggestion that as Rabbits have a naturally much more acid stomach (in an adult a PH of 1-2),than other species they are more able to tolerate NSAIDS as far as gastric ulceration goes. The Vet treating Doughnut is an Exotics Specialist whom I have a huge amount of respect for. I would trust his judgement 100%

Jack's-Jane said:

There is a suggestion that as Rabbits have a naturally much more acid stomach (in an adult a PH of 1-2),than other species they are more able to tolerate NSAIDS as far as gastric ulceration goes. The Vet treating Doughnut is an Exotics Specialist whom I have a huge amount of respect for. I would trust his judgement 100%

Click to expand...

Me too.

I thought it wouldn't help a lot as she was in pain due to constipation so thought the pain won't go til she has toileted. I was told it eases the inflammation for her. She has been on high doses three times a day and never had to have rantidine. I guess exotic specialists are learning all the time too like they now recommend higher doses and more regular ones.

I know the metacam helped with the pain of her reflux. Apparently metaclop helps with reflux too even though on the internet i read it didn't!

How's your little rabbit. Did you take him to a different vet.

Bunny spend 2 nights in the vets having injections etc when he last had stasis. So much easier than the first time when I had to give him recovery and meds via syringe x