Hi, so I'm looking for some advice from people who may have experience with a bunny who has kidney disease, both from people whose bunnies recovered and those who didn't (if that isn't too upsetting for people to talk about).
We rushed our rabbit Lirael to the vet last Friday as she wouldn't eat and she seemed freezing cold and out of it. They took her in thinking it was stasis - it was, but once she started eating a bit and stabilised enough they did some blood tests and found she has pretty severe kidney damage. It's likely chronic rather than damage from the stasis, as she has also lost weight recently. She's been up and down since - several times they haven't expected her to last the night and then the next day they've been considering sending her home. Mostly she's having trouble maintaining her temperature at the moment, so they have to keep putting her back in the incubator.
She's been eating a small amount on her own and they're syringe feeding her and trying to keep her with her husbun as much as they can when her temperature is stable (he's fine, aside from the usual stress from the vets, but we didn't want to stress their bond so he's at the vets too). Our vet initially didn't want to try treating the kidney disease and was discussing euthanasia, but then her temperature stayed stable for 36 hours, so he started her on some kidney meds. Yesterday he thought we'd be able to pick her up today, but the update in the morning was her temperature has dropped again, so now she's back in the incubator.
We've been in to see them both as we don't want her to think she's been abandoned and thought seeing us might lift her spirits a bit. It was pretty upsetting seeing her - she's not as bad as we expected, mostly she just looks grumpy at being force-fed, but she does seem tired and started grinding her teeth a bit after a while, so she must be in some pain.
I know if we can get her home, she'll pick up a lot as she almost never eats properly at the vets (we've had her in with stasis before), but until her temperature stabilises I don't think she'll be able to leave. We lost her daughter in April to a tumour and we're both devastated that we might lose her too, but we don't want her to be in pain either. Her recovery has been so up and down that we're emotionally and physically exhausted at this point, but we want to make sure we make the best decisions for her, so we're trying to gather as much info as possible.
I don't really know what advice people might have, but if anyone has been in similar situations, it might help to know what happened with your buns or if you have any advice it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
We rushed our rabbit Lirael to the vet last Friday as she wouldn't eat and she seemed freezing cold and out of it. They took her in thinking it was stasis - it was, but once she started eating a bit and stabilised enough they did some blood tests and found she has pretty severe kidney damage. It's likely chronic rather than damage from the stasis, as she has also lost weight recently. She's been up and down since - several times they haven't expected her to last the night and then the next day they've been considering sending her home. Mostly she's having trouble maintaining her temperature at the moment, so they have to keep putting her back in the incubator.
She's been eating a small amount on her own and they're syringe feeding her and trying to keep her with her husbun as much as they can when her temperature is stable (he's fine, aside from the usual stress from the vets, but we didn't want to stress their bond so he's at the vets too). Our vet initially didn't want to try treating the kidney disease and was discussing euthanasia, but then her temperature stayed stable for 36 hours, so he started her on some kidney meds. Yesterday he thought we'd be able to pick her up today, but the update in the morning was her temperature has dropped again, so now she's back in the incubator.
We've been in to see them both as we don't want her to think she's been abandoned and thought seeing us might lift her spirits a bit. It was pretty upsetting seeing her - she's not as bad as we expected, mostly she just looks grumpy at being force-fed, but she does seem tired and started grinding her teeth a bit after a while, so she must be in some pain.
I know if we can get her home, she'll pick up a lot as she almost never eats properly at the vets (we've had her in with stasis before), but until her temperature stabilises I don't think she'll be able to leave. We lost her daughter in April to a tumour and we're both devastated that we might lose her too, but we don't want her to be in pain either. Her recovery has been so up and down that we're emotionally and physically exhausted at this point, but we want to make sure we make the best decisions for her, so we're trying to gather as much info as possible.
I don't really know what advice people might have, but if anyone has been in similar situations, it might help to know what happened with your buns or if you have any advice it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks