Does anyone have experience with kidney disease in a rabbit?

NyxTaryn said:

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

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MightyMax said:

I have more to offer in reply, but first off I am surprised that your vet didn't immediately start IV fluids? Usually though an ear vein. This will help counteract any acute kidney damage, though I know you say it's probably chronic. One of my renal failure rabbits had IV fluids for three days continuously and that significantly improved his kidney function on retest.

https://www.petmd.com/rabbit/conditions/urinary/c_rb_renal_failure

https://wagwalking.com/rabbit/condition/kidney-failure-

Aside from regular subQ fluids, which can be administered long term at home, there is a medication called 'Fortekor' which a lot of vets use for renal patients.

Some info on a thread here:

http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/showthread.php?344951-Kidney-failure-in-rabbits

http://wildpro.twycrosszoo.org/S/00dis/Miscellaneous/ChronicRenalLagomorph.htm#MedicalTreat


I've also found injections of analbolic steroid (NOT portico-steroid) helps enormously and a vitamin B/multivitamin injection can also be helpful.

Dietary modification helps too - try and feed a low protein diet. And drinking from a bowl rather than a bottle - you can add in some Avipro probiotics. They haven't been shown to help medically but they will do no harm and sometimes they encourage a rabbit to drink more, which is good for renal cases.

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NyxTaryn said:

Thanks for the reply and for the info, I'll read through those tonight They have been doing IV fluids, sorry I should have mentioned that. They initially didn't know it was kidney damage causing the stasis, but they were providing some fluids every so often to ensure she didn't get dehydrated from the stasis. They're currently giving her a glucose saline solution I believe - not sure if they're using an IV or just administering them periodically. She has an IV of some kind in her ear so they can easily administer meds when they need to.

Before the results came in (the vet wasn't in over the weekend and they were trying to stabilise her before doing tests), they had her on painkillers and prokinetics. They had to drain a lot of gas from her stomach and after that she improved a lot. Her stasis is better now (mostly in any case), and her temperature has apparently been mostly stable today, though a little on the low side.

After she was stable for a while, they gave her a steroid injection (I can't remember which type though, are some of them harmful in any way?) and they're currently tweaking her dose of forketor to try to get some more positive results. Apparently if they see improvement from her previous blood results, she stands a good chance of recovery, so fingers crossed for her! She's certainly surprised everyone so far, there were multiple points when the vet didn't expect her to survive through the night as her temperature dropped so low, but she's still fighting so we just have to hope the meds can improve her kidney function now.

I did have a look at dietary changes, but will need to do a lot more research if she recovers. Do you also avoid things like high calcium veg/pellets? She's currently anaemic and underweight as well, so I imagine we'll need to make a few adjustments for her. Is there anything else you recommend and were your buns able to have a good quality of life once the condition was managed?

Click to expand...

NyxTaryn said:

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

Click to expand...

NyxTaryn said:

Thanks for the reply and for the info, I'll read through those tonight They have been doing IV fluids, sorry I should have mentioned that. They initially didn't know it was kidney damage causing the stasis, but they were providing some fluids every so often to ensure she didn't get dehydrated from the stasis. They're currently giving her a glucose saline solution I believe - not sure if they're using an IV or just administering them periodically. She has an IV of some kind in her ear so they can easily administer meds when they need to.

Before the results came in (the vet wasn't in over the weekend and they were trying to stabilise her before doing tests), they had her on painkillers and prokinetics. They had to drain a lot of gas from her stomach and after that she improved a lot. Her stasis is better now (mostly in any case), and her temperature has apparently been mostly stable today, though a little on the low side.

After she was stable for a while, they gave her a steroid injection (I can't remember which type though, are some of them harmful in any way?) and they're currently tweaking her dose of forketor to try to get some more positive results. Apparently if they see improvement from her previous blood results, she stands a good chance of recovery, so fingers crossed for her! She's certainly surprised everyone so far, there were multiple points when the vet didn't expect her to survive through the night as her temperature dropped so low, but she's still fighting so we just have to hope the meds can improve her kidney function now.

I did have a look at dietary changes, but will need to do a lot more research if she recovers. Do you also avoid things like high calcium veg/pellets? She's currently anaemic and underweight as well, so I imagine we'll need to make a few adjustments for her. Is there anything else you recommend and were your buns able to have a good quality of life once the condition was managed?

Click to expand...

NyxTaryn said:

Thanks for the reply and for the info, I'll read through those tonight They have been doing IV fluids, sorry I should have mentioned that. They initially didn't know it was kidney damage causing the stasis, but they were providing some fluids every so often to ensure she didn't get dehydrated from the stasis. They're currently giving her a glucose saline solution I believe - not sure if they're using an IV or just administering them periodically. She has an IV of some kind in her ear so they can easily administer meds when they need to.

Before the results came in (the vet wasn't in over the weekend and they were trying to stabilise her before doing tests), they had her on painkillers and prokinetics. They had to drain a lot of gas from her stomach and after that she improved a lot. Her stasis is better now (mostly in any case), and her temperature has apparently been mostly stable today, though a little on the low side.

After she was stable for a while, they gave her a steroid injection (I can't remember which type though, are some of them harmful in any way?) and they're currently tweaking her dose of forketor to try to get some more positive results. Apparently if they see improvement from her previous blood results, she stands a good chance of recovery, so fingers crossed for her! She's certainly surprised everyone so far, there were multiple points when the vet didn't expect her to survive through the night as her temperature dropped so low, but she's still fighting so we just have to hope the meds can improve her kidney function now.

I did have a look at dietary changes, but will need to do a lot more research if she recovers. Do you also avoid things like high calcium veg/pellets? She's currently anaemic and underweight as well, so I imagine we'll need to make a few adjustments for her. Is there anything else you recommend and were your buns able to have a good quality of life once the condition was managed?

Click to expand...