Arhythmia?

[MikeScone]

I took Scone in for his two-month recheck at the Cornell vet hospital this morning. The kidney ultrasound was pretty much the same - no stones in the ureters, and the calcification in the right kidney is only slightly worse than before. I'm still waiting on the blood work.

While they were examining Scone, though, the vet heard a strange heart rhythm - a number of normal beats, followed by some faster beats, then a pause with no beats at all. They took an EKG, and the cardiologist said the heartbeat was definitely irregular - the faster beats are ventricular. This is what it looked like:

They're doing a complete blood workup now to see if it's an infection of some sort, and they're going to do an ultrasound of his heart later this afternoon.

I'm sure he's getting the best treatment possible, but I'm concerned and worried about long-term effects. Has anyone here had this in a bunny before?

 

[Maureen Las]

According to Kathy Smith in "Rabbit health in the 21st Century" arrhythmias can occur in rabbit and can be treated with beta blockers and calcium channel blockers and even some alternative treatments.

however I personally would just wait for the result of the ultrasound ..maybe he is just in major stress mode.

 

[tonyshuman]

My grandmother has ventricular arrhythmia like that, and it is treated by medication. I don't know exactly what she takes, but I know it took quite a while to get all the medication right. I would want to work with a veterinary cardiologist to try to treat this, of course after an ultrasound. I'm sure with Cornell there you will have access to the very best vet cardiologists.

Rabbits are a common model for heart research so many drugs for humans' hearts have been developed in rabbit systems.

In fact, I did a quick search of www.pubmed.gov for rabbit arrythmia and came up with thousands of articles, one of which tested the hearts of older rabbits and noted that they were more susceptible to going into the type of arrythmia that Scone had under oxidative stress. They treated the arrythmias with N-acetyl cysteine and a CaMKII inhibitor. It's possible that the stress of the exam triggered this arrythmia.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/...ed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=12

Glad to hear his urinary tract is doing ok!

 

[MikeScone]

I picked Scone up yesterday afternoon. They'd done the echocardiagram and the cardiologists had been over him. Their final report wasn't ready yet, but basically they didn't find anything structurally wrong with his heart. The vet had a complete blood workup and urinalysis, and found nothing major wrong. She said that while the arrhythmia was present in the morning and later when they did the EKG, when they were doing the echo in the last afternoon, it wasn't there.

Bottom line, since he isn't showing any symptoms (I only brought him in for the kidney recheck), they felt that the best course of action is to do nothing and see him again in two weeks to see if the arrhythmia is still present and if there is any change.

As of this morning, he was under my bed - for all appearances happy and active, as he bounced out to receive a petting and a carrot - but he just did NOT want to leave the house today.

 

[tonyshuman]

It's probably brought on by stress, and after he relaxed a bit after the trip there, the arrythmia stopped. I have an ex-boyfriend whose heart would do strange things occasionally--it would skip beats and go double beats and all that. He had it checked out by a cardiologist, and they said it was just due to stress and it wasn't anything to worry about, but if he noticed it, he should sit down and rest or something.

It's very good there's nothing structurally wrong with the heart. I know he has a cushy, calm life with you, so I don't think he'll have to deal with a lot of stress, which means you can probably worry less about it.

 

[Torchster]

You have such a pretty bun. I know kind of what you are going thru and I wish u and scone nothing but the very best!

 

[kirbyultra]

Mike, I sure hope it was just stress as Claire has suggested. Scone's just too bunderful for arryhthmia.

 

[MikeScone]

kirbyultra wrote:

Mike, I sure hope it was just stress as Claire has suggested. Scone's just too bunderful for arryhthmia.

I certainly agree.

The vet left a message on my answering machine yesterday that the final reports had come through and none of the cultures or bloodwork or cardiologists' final report showed anything out of the ordinary. Scone's been completely normal, once he got over being mad about going to the vets. He's even regained his perfect litterbox habits and stopped sneezing.

So, as far as I'm concerned, "stress" will do fine for an explanation.

 

[kirbyultra]

Hooray!!! I'm so glad.

Scone, quit scaring your dad.