xArthurRabbitx
New Kit
*Warning possibly distressing content*
I hope in writing this impossibly difficult post that it helps others learn, and that it adds to the wonderful information out there on the internet regarding various rabbit health problems and peoples journey's. I have been on a journey I will never forget, my partner and I are totally broken and beyond devastated from the battle we have had. Arthur has now gone. I would like to share a brief history of his journey.
*Arthur had always been an incredibly healthy happy Netherland Dwarf Cross house rabbit weighing 1.2 kg, aside from a couple of cases of "snuffles" 2 years ago for which he was treated with Baytril and one bout of GI Stasis, he hasn't needed treating for anything else until recently.
*April 2015: Arthur seemed to lose most of his litter training habits that up to that point had been so good. There seemed no catalyst for this and when I say my partner and I literally tried every different trick in the book to restore it, I mean it. Somewhere in the region of 20 different tests/solutions to fix this problem and after a great deal of frustration, In the end we just had to accept that there was nothing going to solve this problem.
*November 2016: Arthur was now 4 and a half years old. We noticed Arthur was holding his front left leg a little tentatively, he kept tapping it on the floor and then lifting it, my partner was worried it seemed neurological the odd way he was repeatedly lifting it. Arthur was still running perfectly darting back and forth as he always did but possibly seemed slightly less active and a little quieter, you could only notice it when he was sitting still, as he would lift it or keep tapping it on the floor. We left it a little to see if he had just sprained it as it seemed intermittent and then we took Arthur to the vets. The vet said he thought it was arthritis. Arthur was prescribed a very low dose of Metacam on which there was no improvement.
*December 15th 2016: My partner and I still weren't convinced the cause of his leg/foot issue was arthritis so we went back to the vets and we asked to have an x-ray. Arthur was put under general anaesthetic for this (to our surprise). Arthur's x-ray did show some arthritis but nothing severe. They also did X Rays of his bladder to check for anything obvious like stones or sludge but it all looked fine. The advice was to increase the Metacam. Once again, there was no improvement in Arthur's condition.
*January 7th 2017: Arthur was fine in the morning and we returned home to find Arthur unable to walk properly like he had a stroke, his head was dipping, his eyes were scanning and he was rolling over when he tried to walk. Terrified we went straight to the out of hours vet in Guildford we had never been to before. It was a horrendous experience, the vet looked as if she had never seen a rabbit before and initially told us Arthur was "fine". We demanded he needed medication like Panacur or Baytril as we thought he had E Cuniculi or an ear infection. The vets went to look for the medication and said they didn't have any there. We essentially paid £160 to be told to go to our vets in the morning. Arthur had to spend the night in that state where we padded a small dog crate with vet bed to make sure he didn't hurt himself until the morning.
*January 8th 2017: We took Arthur first thing to our vets and they too thought it was EC or an ear infection. Arthur was prescribed Baytril and Panacur and told us to increase the dose of Metacam. We also treated our other rabbit for 28 days. It was a long haul to get Arthur to a point where he was even remotely stable on his feet. After a solid week of critical care, Panacur, Baytril and Metacam Arthur was much more stable and after nearly two weeks we thought he was going to be just fine. However during this period Arthur's "wellness" just seemed to drop, he seemed in pain, more uncomfortable and like he was not right.
*Janurary 20th 2017: We took him back to our vets expressing our concerns he was not progressing and seemed to have plateaued, the vet seemed pleased with his progress and said to just carry on what we were doing. Soon after this Arthur's stomach became upset and we were speaking to the vets every two days with updates. Arthur was prescribed ranitidine to try and get his stomach back in order and eventually it did start to clear up.
*February 4th 2017: Arthur went back to the vets once again as we were concerned his coordination seemed bad, his stomach was still very temperamental, when he hopped he sounded like someone shaking a hot water bottle, the vets said to continue what we were doing and that it should clear up. We were worried about having to stop the Panacur as the EC symptoms seemed very present still.
*February 9th 2017: Arthur had basically been back to his old self. Just as we got Arthur's stomach sorted and having been off Panacur for 5 days after completing a 28 day course, we took Arthur back to the vet as he was drinking a lot of water, had suddenly developed a wet tail and was dribbling urine. We had some blood tests done and the kidney levels were very high one was 28 and one was 271 (beyond my understanding I think one was urea and one was creatinine). We were advised that he had renal failure and that he wouldn't live long, we were told by the vet that they would "understand if we didn't want to carry on and if we wanted to end things".
We obviously said we would carry on as he still had quality of life. We were given Baytril in case there was also a UTI. We got Arthur home and we were obviously distraught that we were going to lose him. Then the unimaginable happened, that evening after returning from the vets having just been told he had renal failure the EC symptoms came back in full force and he was falling over again. At this point we honestly could not imagine how he would make it through this again, when we had just spent over a month getting him back to this stage only to have the symptoms all come back once more.
* February 10th: I called the vets and was advised that it was probably an EC flare up and that we should NOT give him panacur as it should of worked by now and see how he was in 48 hours.
Continued in part 2 below
I hope in writing this impossibly difficult post that it helps others learn, and that it adds to the wonderful information out there on the internet regarding various rabbit health problems and peoples journey's. I have been on a journey I will never forget, my partner and I are totally broken and beyond devastated from the battle we have had. Arthur has now gone. I would like to share a brief history of his journey.
*Arthur had always been an incredibly healthy happy Netherland Dwarf Cross house rabbit weighing 1.2 kg, aside from a couple of cases of "snuffles" 2 years ago for which he was treated with Baytril and one bout of GI Stasis, he hasn't needed treating for anything else until recently.
*April 2015: Arthur seemed to lose most of his litter training habits that up to that point had been so good. There seemed no catalyst for this and when I say my partner and I literally tried every different trick in the book to restore it, I mean it. Somewhere in the region of 20 different tests/solutions to fix this problem and after a great deal of frustration, In the end we just had to accept that there was nothing going to solve this problem.
*November 2016: Arthur was now 4 and a half years old. We noticed Arthur was holding his front left leg a little tentatively, he kept tapping it on the floor and then lifting it, my partner was worried it seemed neurological the odd way he was repeatedly lifting it. Arthur was still running perfectly darting back and forth as he always did but possibly seemed slightly less active and a little quieter, you could only notice it when he was sitting still, as he would lift it or keep tapping it on the floor. We left it a little to see if he had just sprained it as it seemed intermittent and then we took Arthur to the vets. The vet said he thought it was arthritis. Arthur was prescribed a very low dose of Metacam on which there was no improvement.
*December 15th 2016: My partner and I still weren't convinced the cause of his leg/foot issue was arthritis so we went back to the vets and we asked to have an x-ray. Arthur was put under general anaesthetic for this (to our surprise). Arthur's x-ray did show some arthritis but nothing severe. They also did X Rays of his bladder to check for anything obvious like stones or sludge but it all looked fine. The advice was to increase the Metacam. Once again, there was no improvement in Arthur's condition.
*January 7th 2017: Arthur was fine in the morning and we returned home to find Arthur unable to walk properly like he had a stroke, his head was dipping, his eyes were scanning and he was rolling over when he tried to walk. Terrified we went straight to the out of hours vet in Guildford we had never been to before. It was a horrendous experience, the vet looked as if she had never seen a rabbit before and initially told us Arthur was "fine". We demanded he needed medication like Panacur or Baytril as we thought he had E Cuniculi or an ear infection. The vets went to look for the medication and said they didn't have any there. We essentially paid £160 to be told to go to our vets in the morning. Arthur had to spend the night in that state where we padded a small dog crate with vet bed to make sure he didn't hurt himself until the morning.
*January 8th 2017: We took Arthur first thing to our vets and they too thought it was EC or an ear infection. Arthur was prescribed Baytril and Panacur and told us to increase the dose of Metacam. We also treated our other rabbit for 28 days. It was a long haul to get Arthur to a point where he was even remotely stable on his feet. After a solid week of critical care, Panacur, Baytril and Metacam Arthur was much more stable and after nearly two weeks we thought he was going to be just fine. However during this period Arthur's "wellness" just seemed to drop, he seemed in pain, more uncomfortable and like he was not right.
*Janurary 20th 2017: We took him back to our vets expressing our concerns he was not progressing and seemed to have plateaued, the vet seemed pleased with his progress and said to just carry on what we were doing. Soon after this Arthur's stomach became upset and we were speaking to the vets every two days with updates. Arthur was prescribed ranitidine to try and get his stomach back in order and eventually it did start to clear up.
*February 4th 2017: Arthur went back to the vets once again as we were concerned his coordination seemed bad, his stomach was still very temperamental, when he hopped he sounded like someone shaking a hot water bottle, the vets said to continue what we were doing and that it should clear up. We were worried about having to stop the Panacur as the EC symptoms seemed very present still.
*February 9th 2017: Arthur had basically been back to his old self. Just as we got Arthur's stomach sorted and having been off Panacur for 5 days after completing a 28 day course, we took Arthur back to the vet as he was drinking a lot of water, had suddenly developed a wet tail and was dribbling urine. We had some blood tests done and the kidney levels were very high one was 28 and one was 271 (beyond my understanding I think one was urea and one was creatinine). We were advised that he had renal failure and that he wouldn't live long, we were told by the vet that they would "understand if we didn't want to carry on and if we wanted to end things".
We obviously said we would carry on as he still had quality of life. We were given Baytril in case there was also a UTI. We got Arthur home and we were obviously distraught that we were going to lose him. Then the unimaginable happened, that evening after returning from the vets having just been told he had renal failure the EC symptoms came back in full force and he was falling over again. At this point we honestly could not imagine how he would make it through this again, when we had just spent over a month getting him back to this stage only to have the symptoms all come back once more.
* February 10th: I called the vets and was advised that it was probably an EC flare up and that we should NOT give him panacur as it should of worked by now and see how he was in 48 hours.
Continued in part 2 below
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You both gave your all to try to help Arthur and I am 100% certain that he always felt safe and loved. 
