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Anyone with experience of long term nursing/EC, few Q's..slightly WIM

catherine09

Mama Doe
Sweep has EC (not confirmed but can't see what else it could be at this stage) and has been nursed for 3 weeks now. He has a severe head tilt and originally wasn't eating or drinking by himself at all. He is now at the stage where he is using a water bottle nd can eat hay, pellets, grass etc however as he's not eating many pellets (preferring grass/hay) he is losing weight, so the vet told me to syringe feed every day. This has helped slow down his weight loss but is having an extreme reaction on his tummy, every day after a syringe feed the night before he produces a vast amount of uneaten cecals (he's not steady enough to reach eat them anyway but he is prone to them) - today there were 5 huge piles, some of which he had trodden in. I'm going to discuss with the vet but has anyone else had this problem with long term nursing and is there an alternative? I thought about mashing up some pellets and syringing those to see if it's any better.......

The other thing is, he has now been nursed inside for 3 weeks, we made the decision to split him from Hettie his wife-bun whilst he was hospitalised but she has been on her own now for 3 weeks and will be for the forseeable future, which obviously isn't ideal :(. Has anyone with an EC bun had any success in eventually re-bonding to their original partner? Currently we don't know how long it will take him to recover from his head tilt or if it ever will completely recover, but I'm obviously concerned that he will never be 'well' enough again to live with Hettie, she is larger than him and quite bouncy and active :? I just don't know what to do about Hettie at the moment, sadly there's no option to bring her inside and it's horrible to think that she may be on her own for quite a while whilst Sweep gets better.

Just all very uncertain about everything at the moment :( Sweep really hasn't improved one bit in the last 3 weeks aside from the fact he is now eating (but not enough to maintain so I'm having to force feed him every night -and I really do have to force it down him he hates it :()

Meh :(
 
I thought he tested negative for EC :?

Is he on antibiotics ? Was it JC who viewed the skull Xray ?

He did jane but also doesn't have an ear infection and all the symptoms point to EC. Apparently they can test negative for EC at the start? Yes he is on antibiotics and the vet is currently trying to get hold of JC but hasn't been able to :(
 
sweep has ec (not confirmed but can't see what else it could be at this stage) and has been nursed for 3 weeks now. He has a severe head tilt and originally wasn't eating or drinking by himself at all. He is now at the stage where he is using a water bottle nd can eat hay, pellets, grass etc however as he's not eating many pellets (preferring grass/hay) he is losing weight, so the vet told me to syringe feed every day. This has helped slow down his weight loss but is having an extreme reaction on his tummy, every day after a syringe feed the night before he produces a vast amount of uneaten cecals (he's not steady enough to reach eat them anyway but he is prone to them) - today there were 5 huge piles, some of which he had trodden in. I'm going to discuss with the vet but has anyone else had this problem with long term nursing and is there an alternative? I thought about mashing up some pellets and syringing those to see if it's any better...….

What are you syringe feeding with? For long term we use the dust that gathers in quantities in the bottom of the food sacks - just sieve it and then use in same way as recovery syringe feeds.

The other thing is, he has now been nursed inside for 3 weeks, we made the decision to split him from hettie his wife-bun whilst he was hospitalised but she has been on her own now for 3 weeks and will be for the forseeable future, which obviously isn't ideal :(. Has anyone with an ec bun had any success in eventually re-bonding to their original partner? Currently we don't know how long it will take him to recover from his head tilt or if it ever will completely recover, but i'm obviously concerned that he will never be 'well' enough again to live with hettie, she is larger than him and quite bouncy and active :? I just don't know what to do about hettie at the moment, sadly there's no option to bring her inside and it's horrible to think that she may be on her own for quite a while whilst sweep gets better.

Yes we have re-bonded - usually just a couple of months down the line sometimes less. Why cant you bring her in? So at least they can see/smell each other>?

Just all very uncertain about everything at the moment :( sweep really hasn't improved one bit in the last 3 weeks aside from the fact he is now eating (but not enough to maintain so i'm having to force feed him every night -and i really do have to force it down him he hates it :()

eating on his own is a huge improvement - often they get worse (a lot) before getting better so to not get any worse is pretty good.

Meh :(
hope that helps
 
He did jane but also doesn't have an ear infection and all the symptoms point to EC. Apparently they can test negative for EC at the start? Yes he is on antibiotics and the vet is currently trying to get hold of JC but hasn't been able to :(

The E.C. antibody titer test indicates whether a rabbit has been exposed to the parasite and an immune response has been initiated. The greater the infection, and the more recent, the greater the antibody quantity, or titer, will be detected. This procedure is analogous to what is done in an AIDS test.

If the test was negative, it can mean no antibody defence has been mounted against E.C., or at least not recently.
 
I have a head tilt bunny, Sally, who has been like this for 18 months now and has never been separated from Max. He is very good with her and she seems to draw strength from his presence. She eats really well with no problems and they go through a load of hay every day. She has no problems with anything that I can see but does like to spend most of her time in the "bedroom" section of their hutch so that's where I put their hay.
 
I am just coming to the end of a 28 day course of Panacur with Lucky after he was suspected of having EC, the change over the first week was dramatic, first few days he seemed no different but after a week was beginning to stabilise, he never had head tilt but was falling over all the time and was having difficulty controlling his back legs.

I used an old fiberplex syringe and fed him mushy pellets when he wasn't eating properly which combined with some fiberplex seemed to work, I also kept him separate from his partner Blossom for a couple of weeks but as they are both house buns so just kept him in an indoor cage in the same room as her, only kept him separate to monitor goods in and goods out and to stop Blossom knocking him over all the time.

If EC is suspected I would start a 28 day course of Panacur if not already on it, as it will do no harm and, as in Lucky's case, the results can be amazing, Lucky is now almost back to his old self, still a little clumsy on is rear legs and has a but of a wobble on sometimes but the improvement in him is astonishing.

I have a thread on here all about it, don't know how to link it but there is one in Stories and Photos and one in rabbit Chat which tells his story, not updated yet, must do that, hope this helps a little.
 
Glad to hear Lucky's case was so quickly resolved - I know the OP has been struggling for some time and it is a much more serious case.

My vet now recommends keeping some EC buns on panacur semi permanently and it can easily take several months for them to improve at all..
 
My vet now recommends keeping some EC buns on panacur semi permanently and it can easily take several months for them to improve at all..

This is really interesting. Comet has had and EC attack twice, both times when we moved house so vet attributed stress to lowering the immune system and allowing it to cause problems. As such its been suggested to me that it may be an idea to start him on a course of panacur before/during and after our next move in a hope it will stop full on headtilt again.
 
This is really interesting. Comet has had and EC attack twice, both times when we moved house so vet attributed stress to lowering the immune system and allowing it to cause problems. As such its been suggested to me that it may be an idea to start him on a course of panacur before/during and after our next move in a hope it will stop full on headtilt again.

Did he recover from head tilt? I'm flabbergasted by this thread! My rabbit Sumpy got head tilt after we moved house in November and the vet told me rabbits never recover from a head tilt and even though I nursed him for week and he started I eat again the vet made me feel really guilty that he was suffering and in the end helped him to sleep.


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Did he recover from head tilt? I'm flabbergasted by this thread! My rabbit Sumpy got head tilt after we moved house in November and the vet told me rabbits never recover from a head tilt and even though I nursed him for week and he started I eat again the vet made me feel really guilty that he was suffering and in the end helped him to sleep.


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I am so sorry to hear about Sumpy. Of course every case is different and there may be many factors which influenced the vet. Generally speaking however rabbits can either slowly slowly recover or adapt themselves to this new position of the world! It may take months and months (or not - in some cases it can be weeks). Sometimes they slowly just right themselves again - I have had some who have recovered from being literally upside down to having their head on stricght again over a year.

It does also depend on the cause - stress related might well suggested EC. Was Sumpy on Panacur and metacam ? was he tested for EC or could it have been an inner ear infection?

Do you have any other buns at all? Just thinking that maybe you might want to tuck away the name of an expert rabbit savvy vet in case of problems in the future..
 
My lovely Poppet has recovered really well - it's been a long, tough road but after about 12 weeks, she's back to whizzing around, begging for treats. :love: We honestly didn't think she'd make it, but our lite bundle of fur proved us wrong... They can recover, so there is hope. We are slowly rebonding her with her two mates, too.

I hope your bun carries on recovering.

xx
 
Glad to hear Lucky's case was so quickly resolved - I know the OP has been struggling for some time and it is a much more serious case.

My vet now recommends keeping some EC buns on panacur semi permanently and it can easily take several months for them to improve at all..

Yes Lucky was lucky that we caught it early, initially thought he had hurt his lower back but it quickly became evident that this was not the case and in the end he was on Panacur, baytril, metoclopramide and for a short time meloxidyl.

Although he is now bouncing around again he is still a bit wobbly and his coordination is still a bit iffy, so a way to go yet but considering that only a few weeks ago I didn't think that he was going to make it at all I am well happy and so is he and his partner Blossom.

Blossom has been on a 28 day course of Panacur as well as a preventative measure but has shown no symptoms what so ever, EC would appear to affect different buns in very different ways.
 
Thanks Twigs and everyone else that's commented, and sorry I've not been very active - had a lot going on here

We are syringe feeding with Oxbow Critical Care, but I have, for the past 2 days, not done any syringe feeding as Sweep is eating his SS pellets in larger quantities and so I'm just watching his weight very carefully and may do another syringe tomorrow if he slows down with his pellet eating/loses more weight. He really hates the Oxbow stuff and I loathe giving it to him knowing it's making his tum so poorly.

Sadly it's really not possible to bring Hettie inside, as we really don't have enough space :( We don't have a very big house and a large chunk of our living/dining room is now taken up with Sweep's crate. The only option would be for her to be confined in a 4ft crate (and that would mean us having to put the coffee table in the garage - that's how much space we don't have!) and she would hate that, and it's not something I feel comfortable doing knowing how active she is (she could obviously come out but it would only be in the evening and that's not fair on her). We're spending as much time as we can with her and she seems happy enough outside, and hopefully there may be an option to re-bond soon *fingers crossed*. I guess she was on her own for a long time in the rescue, but it doesn't make me feel any better.

Sweep is eating well now, but still not much interest in hay (but will eat grass) and not anything like he used to. He will eat SS pellets eventually but it takes him a few hours instead of 20 seconds! Although I did put 2 fenugreeks in earlier and they're both gone already :shock: :lol:
 
I am so sorry to hear about Sumpy. Of course every case is different and there may be many factors which influenced the vet. Generally speaking however rabbits can either slowly slowly recover or adapt themselves to this new position of the world! It may take months and months (or not - in some cases it can be weeks). Sometimes they slowly just right themselves again - I have had some who have recovered from being literally upside down to having their head on stricght again over a year.

It does also depend on the cause - stress related might well suggested EC. Was Sumpy on Panacur and metacam ? was he tested for EC or could it have been an inner ear infection?

Do you have any other buns at all? Just thinking that maybe you might want to tuck away the name of an expert rabbit savvy vet in case of problems in the future..

Yes I have gotten three rabbits since Sumpy so I think that would be a really good idea to find a different vet.

I actually didn't know what it was despite him being in hospital and then attending the vet every night for a week, they told me it could either be a parasite or stroke but that the fact that he was a bit rolly by the end of the week meant he was likely to have the parasite and that it had gone to his brain. I thought he was rolly because of the car journey as he had just started to eat normally after a week of being hand fed. But the vet said it would be cruel to persevere and once a rabbits head inverted and they got rolly they couldn't recover from it.

I'm so glad I found this forum, it'll definitely give me more confidence. I tried at the time to look at head tilt on the internet but it was just so confusing and I got the impression that the vets thought I was completely bonkers!!! He was taking panacur and then at my insistence antibiotics because I had read that it might be an infection. Gutted at the prospect that I maybe should have stood my ground :'(


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Yes I have gotten three rabbits since Sumpy so I think that would be a really good idea to find a different vet.

I actually didn't know what it was despite him being in hospital and then attending the vet every night for a week, they told me it could either be a parasite or stroke but that the fact that he was a bit rolly by the end of the week meant he was likely to have the parasite and that it had gone to his brain. I thought he was rolly because of the car journey as he had just started to eat normally after a week of being hand fed. But the vet said it would be cruel to persevere and once a rabbits head inverted and they got rolly they couldn't recover from it.

I'm so glad I found this forum, it'll definitely give me more confidence. I tried at the time to look at head tilt on the internet but it was just so confusing and I got the impression that the vets thought I was completely bonkers!!! He was taking panacur and then at my insistence antibiotics because I had read that it might be an infection. Gutted at the prospect that I maybe should have stood my ground :'(


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I am so sorry - I almost didnt post in case it made you feel that way - but then thought if you had rabbits again now it would be best to gently hint that a different vet would be a good idea. Try posting a thread starting 'Rabbit Savvy vet wanted in XXXXXX (where ever you live) and people should come up with some suggestions.

also if you can maybe try and get the vet to look at some material on head tilt buns so they dont do the same to someone else's bun.
 
I am so sorry - I almost didnt post in case it made you feel that way - but then thought if you had rabbits again now it would be best to gently hint that a different vet would be a good idea. Try posting a thread starting 'Rabbit Savvy vet wanted in XXXXXX (where ever you live) and people should come up with some suggestions.

also if you can maybe try and get the vet to look at some material on head tilt buns so they dont do the same to someone else's bun.

I definitely will do! Thank you so much for responding though, i really do appreciate it. Nothing against my vet, they have been very good with my cats and dogs in the past, obviously not with rabbits though. I'm raging. I really loved that wee rabbit and would have done anything to get him well again!


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