RedFraggle
Warren Veteran
Now I think we're going to be ok, I'll post.
Poor Scarlet has gotten through yet another crisis. She'd been a bit off for a couple of weeks and had lost 10% of her weight over about 2.5 months. Our vet had been checking her teeth and weight every few weeks but there didn't appear (note choice of words) to be any change in her mouth. She's an old lady now, just over 8 and a half if the RSPCA age was accurate and has had multiple GAs for various problems in her mouth in the 5 years we've had her.
She took a turn for the worse two weeks ago, was cold and a bit flat one morning but picked up with metacam and metaclop. I booked her in for an earlier check up than planned. She wasn't right but wasn't really doing anything that screamed "vets now" and was eating (just not as well as usual) and pooing. Our vet didn't like the feel of her tum and thought he could feel a lump so we agreed to take her back to Crab Lane (FHB's old practice) as they do all her "important stuff". I didn't think she was coming home again, she's been through an enormous amount of GAs and treatment already, we didn't want anything invasive done if there was a gut problem and we thought this time was "it".
It was, of course with it being Scarlet, her mouth. It always is, she never presents correctly symptom wise. Continues to eat, doesn't drool, nothing you can see easily with an otoscope. Her remaining two teeth on her LHS had started to break away (common in end stage dental disease) and were sharp and she also had a spur on the "good side" of her mouth where she still has all her teeth that was digging in. She should not have been eating and she should have been drooling constantly. She stopped in for 3 days, came home Friday and has been steadily recovering over the weekend. Last night she ate everything in her run and she dived into her breakfast this morning with very unscarletlike gusto.
That's GA number 15 done and dusted and another hurdle jumped. Her lungs aren't quite right, they think she has some scarring from a resp infection when she was young but they haven't changed in 2 years and she did the GA like a trooper. Her kidneys are fine despite being on metacam for about 3 years now. She has an advanced cataract in one eye, artritis in her spine that has fused vetebrae in two places and no teeth at all on one side of her mouth now but she just gets on with it.
There are a couple of reasons for posting this essay........... 1. Old buns can and do cope well with anesthetics with the right veteriinary care. 2. Rabbits do not always present as they should and vets need to look outside the box a little. 3. You can't and will never see inside a rabbits mouth properly without an aneasthetic and 4. Never underestimate a rabbit!
Poor Scarlet has gotten through yet another crisis. She'd been a bit off for a couple of weeks and had lost 10% of her weight over about 2.5 months. Our vet had been checking her teeth and weight every few weeks but there didn't appear (note choice of words) to be any change in her mouth. She's an old lady now, just over 8 and a half if the RSPCA age was accurate and has had multiple GAs for various problems in her mouth in the 5 years we've had her.
She took a turn for the worse two weeks ago, was cold and a bit flat one morning but picked up with metacam and metaclop. I booked her in for an earlier check up than planned. She wasn't right but wasn't really doing anything that screamed "vets now" and was eating (just not as well as usual) and pooing. Our vet didn't like the feel of her tum and thought he could feel a lump so we agreed to take her back to Crab Lane (FHB's old practice) as they do all her "important stuff". I didn't think she was coming home again, she's been through an enormous amount of GAs and treatment already, we didn't want anything invasive done if there was a gut problem and we thought this time was "it".
It was, of course with it being Scarlet, her mouth. It always is, she never presents correctly symptom wise. Continues to eat, doesn't drool, nothing you can see easily with an otoscope. Her remaining two teeth on her LHS had started to break away (common in end stage dental disease) and were sharp and she also had a spur on the "good side" of her mouth where she still has all her teeth that was digging in. She should not have been eating and she should have been drooling constantly. She stopped in for 3 days, came home Friday and has been steadily recovering over the weekend. Last night she ate everything in her run and she dived into her breakfast this morning with very unscarletlike gusto.
That's GA number 15 done and dusted and another hurdle jumped. Her lungs aren't quite right, they think she has some scarring from a resp infection when she was young but they haven't changed in 2 years and she did the GA like a trooper. Her kidneys are fine despite being on metacam for about 3 years now. She has an advanced cataract in one eye, artritis in her spine that has fused vetebrae in two places and no teeth at all on one side of her mouth now but she just gets on with it.
There are a couple of reasons for posting this essay........... 1. Old buns can and do cope well with anesthetics with the right veteriinary care. 2. Rabbits do not always present as they should and vets need to look outside the box a little. 3. You can't and will never see inside a rabbits mouth properly without an aneasthetic and 4. Never underestimate a rabbit!