An advice needed for my rabbit =)

[george77]

Hi

I'd like to have a veterinarian advice if we have here anyone who works or worked with rabbits.

I recently took my rabbit for check-up, as I noticed that he is moving less and less, mostly the back part of his body, back paws. He was not going on the top of his house to sit and sleep there as he usually did before.

As this happened gradually - i did not pay a lot of attention as he is 8 already and he was not as active as in his young times.

Medic prescribed "Metacam", to give him orally for 2 weeks and observe if there will be any improvement, to understand if this is because of his age or he has any inflammatory problems and proceed from there. Watching some tutorials on rabbits I realised that this can be arthritis as well, medic did NOT mentioned this by the way

I really see improvement on him after 12 days of giving him the medicine.

As I am in financial crisis - I can not effort to follow up the whole treatment and take him again for check-up by now, unfortunately. As you know rabbits are exotic animals and not normal pets and treatment is also more expensive, mostly in my situation.

I am wondering if I could proceed with "Metacam" farther, until I'll be able to get him to the vets again and proceed with the treatment.

I probably will not be able to buy Metacam online, but there still will be remaining some in the bottle (1.5mg/ml, 32ml) after 2 days, hitting the 2 weeks mark of treatment.

Awaiting from you, thanks

 

[Zoobec]

Moved to health for you. I would advise you contact your vets for advice, they may give follow up advice on the phone?

 

[Cuthbert&Dillon]

Once you have had a follow up then your vet can issue a prescription for you to buy drugs online, this usually works out much cheaper than the vets.
Also if the vet has asked to see you back then that might be part of the payment you have already made - worth a phonecall to explain and ask the questions.

 

[george77]

Thanks guys, I contacted the clinic reception and left the message for the vet I started this case with, I'll be waiting for them to come back to me and proceed from there.
Thank you both for the fast reply and advice, appreciate it

 

[joey&boo]

when the vet said they were checking for inflammation Vs age, I reckon by inflammation they meant arthritis. Basically seeing if the metacam brings about an increase in movement as this would suggest pain & stiffness were interfering with normal & desired movement. If there is no change it might suggest your bun is just slowing down/ less active with age, but not in pain .

Lots of well wishes for your bun

 

[george77]

Thanks to make it clear, explaining deeper.

As he was eating and digesting well - I was not concerned too much, as I know on pain rabbits stop the normal rhythm of their daily processes, so it most likely was stiffness, discomfort and maybe pain if moving as normally as they do, so he started to reduce the movements to avoid it.

Now he is back and moving as he was before, he still avoids the dribbling, but jumps on the top of their house, sits and hibernates there again, as he did before.

Vets message came back, they want to book another appointment, but I told them I can not pay for another one + medicine, there is nothing to check indeed, as my bun started moving better which means that he had inflammation and Metacam is working, I asked them if they could give me the follow up prescription for me to follow, I told them that I can buy the drugs from them, I was unable to find Metacam on Amazon or so anyway. I don't mind buy it from the vets, but makes no much sense charging me for another appointment for the same process.