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Prepulsid

Dorothy

Alpha Buck
I've just been to the vet with Mr Henry Higgins who has an impacted gut. I was given the very last of the Prepulsid they have. As you all know it is no longer available.
Just wondered if anyone has heard of any alternative to it or if there are any herbal or homeopathic remedies that can act as a gut stimulator. It is realy worrying that we no longer have this, especialy as Stasis is something that vets are seeing so often. I know that there is Metacopramide, but that is only injectable and my vet says it is not as effective as Prepulsid.
Anyway I told my vet I would ask the 'experts' :roll: on the Forum if anyone knew anything new.
 
i was advised to give pinapple juice when bern had problems following her spay op complications.

i used this to make her antibiotics taste better to and mixed it in with the recovery food too. the vet said pinapple is good for every animal's digestion. seemed to work!
 
Hi Dorothy, we use pineapple juice and the VETERINARY Liquid Paraffin that bunnies seem to tolerate the taste of and it does not cause the runs like a laxative proper, just keeps things moving and passes out naturally with the body :D
We also use a gut stimulant tablet (a quarter of a tablet ) that Vets use in cattle, it is not licensed for use in rabbits like a lot of things, but really helps with gut statis short term. I have forgotten the name of the tablet , but can find it out for you.
 
Thanks, I've got the pineapple juice, it's realy good for helping to break down the impaction.
Adele I would be realy interested in the name of the tablet for cattle you use.
I forgot (middle aged mind is like a sieve) my vet said that you can still get prepulsid in tablet form. But you would need to give a bunny about 1/10th of it, which would be realy difficult to calculate as it would just be a crumb. Then you would have to administer it, probably on food or crushed in water and syringed in. Still that is worth considering.
 
Ive never had to give any of these medicines to rabbits. However i work with disabled children and some used to have prepulsid (cisapride). Those that did were changed onto a medication called Domperidone/motilium. Its supposed to a similar sort of thing,help to empty their stomachs. Ive no idea if this would have same effect on rabbits tho. Wonder if vets can get hold of an alternative drug like doctors can.
Chris
 
Lots of recommendations for pineapple here. Interesting....

Not one said whether it was fresh or canned?
 
Hi Bob, if you use pineapple it has to be fresh as there is an element in the fresh jiuce that is the important factor in helping to break down the impaction. Pineapple has been well documented to aid digestion. Will ask my vet what the component is, he did tell me but I've forgotten :roll: . My vet recomends buying a whole fresh pineapple , scooping out the flesh and putting it into a blender. The next best thing is to buy organic pure fresh pineapple juice with nothing added and nothing taken away. You can syringe feed up to 30mls a day at regular intervals. Your average canned or carton of juice no longer has the important componant and tends to have sugar or other additives.

I've just been back to the vet this morning. Eve has gone in to have her teeth done!! Anyway I asked him about Maxalon which some people use for gut problems and he said that that is Metacopramide in syrup form. So I was wrong to say that Metacopramide is only injectable. However he did say that Maxalon works more for foregut problems with stasis i.e. the stomach and not hindgut problems. Prepulsid worked on the hindgut i.e. the bowel. However that said Maxilon would be the best thing at the momment to replace Prepulsid with alongside pineapple juice. Hope that helps. Things like Liquid parafin can help to slide a blockage through but will not stimulate the bowel to push the blockage through. Prepulsid actualy stimulated the gut to cotract as it should and push the food through.
 
As you know, Dorothy, Harriet is on homeopathic medication which comes in the form of tablets which have to be crushed and diluted with water: so what I was thinking was if you were to crush a prepulsid tablet and dilute it with, say, 10 ml of water you could administer 1ml of the liquid to the bunny who would then have exactly the right dose! This is, to some extent, what I do with Harriet except that hers just keeps on being diluted but that is the nature of the administration of the homeopathic remedy.
 
Thanks Lizzie, I will ask my vet how effective he thinks that might be. He was saying it is a shame that, as they have the technology to keep making Prepulsid syrup, they won't produce it simply because they are no longer using it for humans. Also he said that in vet practices it is mainly used for rabbits so the big drugs companies do not see that there is a great enough demand to warrent producing it anymore. And lets face it rabbits are not high on the agenda of the drugs companies unless of course we are talking about the other agenda they have of using thousands of rabbits for testing products :evil: .
 
Dorothy said:
I forgot (middle aged mind is like a sieve) my vet said that you can still get prepulsid in tablet form. But you would need to give a bunny about 1/10th of it, which would be realy difficult to calculate as it would just be a crumb. Then you would have to administer it, probably on food or crushed in water and syringed in. Still that is worth considering.

Hi Dorothy - Rob is now on the tablet form of prepulsid and will be for another month. As you say Maxalon is available in syrup form, but does work on the foregut, and Rob has always responded much better to prepulsid which works on the hindgut.

Obviously quantity must depend upon severity of illness, but Rob was previously given 1.8 mls of prepulsid liquid twice a day - he is now given a quarter of prepulsid tablet twice a day. I find this really easy to administer as the table is already 'groove cut' and breaks into quarters easily. I did try to cut it at first, and as you say I got a crumbled mess - it breaks much easier. The quantity of water you use to mix it in makes no difference. I prefer to mix it in as little water as poss, as he don't like the taste :wink: . I pop the quarter of tablet in about 1.5 mls of water (in a little plastic cap), and leave it for about 10 mins - it dissolves quite well - just sook it up into the syringe. :)

However, prepulsid syrup is still available in the US, apparently in a variety of bunny friendly flavours i.e. apple, banana etc. My vet in Edinburgh has said that if Rob needs to be on this long term, they are now able to order it from there. We'll wait and see, but for now I find the tablet form fine (not sure Rob agrees :wink: )
 
Ooh Lynn, can you possibly ask your vet in Edinburgh for details of how to order Prepulsid from the US, as I am sure my vets would like that info and obviously don't have it. The practise I go to sees a lot of bunnies now and always has one vet who extra specialy specialises :? in them and other exotics :roll: .
I will pass on to him about what dose and method of administering of the tablet form you use. They realy are keen to get a workable solution to not having Prepulsid as they prescribed it on a regular basis and it is the best thing for hindgut problems.
 
Hi Dorothy - I will give my Edinburgh vet (Rob now has a super specialist bunny vet in two towns!!) a call just to confirm, but I'm sure Michelle said they are going to be able to order it because they have an American vet who has just started to work for them, but is also still registered in America. I think she will have to order it for them, so I guess it might not be the same for every vet.

Rob might be on quite a high dose of prepulsid at the moment - he was on 1ml of metacam a day for a while, which I know seems incredibly high, but was double, triple checked :wink:
 
Thanks for finding that out for me Lynn. You would think if it is still available in the US then we would be able to import it somehow. There has to be a big market for it, if only for all the vets in the country.

Nicola, I'm sure there was a thread on here about setting up a first aid box for bunnies and what to have in it, but I can't find it. I have a door shelf in my fridge packed with bunny medicine, but only because I'm a Sanctuary taking in lots of bunnies with health problems. It's cheaper for me to buy a 100ml bottle of Baytril, for instance, rather than pay for lots of little amounts with the dispensing fee on top :D . Hope you never nead meds for the Mubster, he looks the picture of health and naughtyness :roll: :lol: .
 
I work at a vet as a trainee nurse and i spoke to one of the vets yesterday and she said that if we write a prescription for a certain animal you can get it from a chemist, not sure if she is right but possibly she is. I have my own supply of prepulsid just in case as one of my buns is prone to problems.
 
Hi Dorothy - phoned my Edinburgh vet, but she has been working in Edinburgh Zoo this week. The other vet I spoke to said that prepulsid liquid was very difficult to get in the UK at the moment, and that, yes, they were trying to get it from the states.

I'm taking Rob to my Dundee Vet next Wednesday, so I'll see if I can find out any more info :)
 
Evo had some prepulsid from the emergency vet last night. Looked like they had just over 1/2 a bottle left. Do all vets know that it is no longer available, because if they don't, I might ask for a but to keep for an emergency. :?
 
Rallybunny said:
Evo had some prepulsid from the emergency vet last night. Looked like they had just over 1/2 a bottle left. Do all vets know that it is no longer available, because if they don't, I might ask for a but to keep for an emergency. :?

Has evo been poorly again?
 
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