Bun Bun in stasis...

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JennJenn

JennJenn

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Bun Bun started going to the bathroom less and less four days ago. Up until yesterday he was still eating and drinking. I took him to the vet once two days ago and another time yesterday. Here is what I am doing for him:

Metacam 2X a day, Offering vegetables and plenty of hay, Cat hairball stuff- 1 in ribbon once a day, Pineapple juice- 3cc twice a day, Force feed critical care once a day

He will not eat at all, even when I try to force feed him. I can get him to take the metacam, pineapple juice, and hairball stuff but that is it. He is not going to the bathroom at all now because he hasn't eaten. Yesterday he was still going a little bit. His pellets are sometimes connected with hair. The vet said that he is still hydrated and does not need subq fluids yetbut I'm not sure. I have no idea what to do. He won't eat anything.

Please help if you can.
 
Hi there,

first and foremost- throw the hairball stuff in the trash. It actually may be hurting more than it is helping. Sometimes that stuff coats the hair in the GI tract and actually PREVENTS it from getting hydrated, which is what needs to be done ASAP.

Hydration- your vet doesn't seem to have prescribed anything about this right now. Hydration is ALWAYS the first thing that needs to happen when GI stasis starts. As soon as you read this, can you please try syringing some water into him? The vet should have given him sub q fluids.

The pineapple juice needs to be pure- NO sugar added to work. If there is sugar in it, it will upset the GI tract further.

The metacam is good for pain relief- what is the doseage? Sometimes metacam can slow down the GI further. This is a trade off- because if the rabbit is in enough pain and it is relieved by the pain meds, it will often eat. However if the rabbit is not in pain the metacam may do more harm than good. I would assume with full out GI stasis that the rabbit is in pain, so I would continue with metacam for now.

It sounds like he has lots of hair in his GI tract that needs to get out.

Here are your priorities:
1) I would syringe the rabbit some liquids and some very wet critical care. The critical care needs to have far more water added than what the pckage says. If it is too dry, it will absorb any fluid in the rabbits gut like a sponge. Give it to him drippy, even!Critical care should be given 20 mL, 3x a day.

2) call around for a new vet- tell us where you are located so we can help. Your current vet is useless, sorry to sound harsh but the only good thing they did for you is the metacam and critical care. The other advice is counter effective. We can hep you though and get you to a vet that can give sub q fluids ASAP.

3) Keep offering wet veggies until you can see a new vet. He really really needs any hydration, to break up the hair mass and get his gut moving.

4) cut his pellets from his diet and push the hay.

Please let us know where you live so we can help you find a better rabbit vet.
 
Sorry I forget to suggest something else very important- please pick up some simethicone for your rabbit to help with gas. The simethicone comes in liquid suspension or drops- liquid is easiest to serve. It is often in the baby section of stores, you can also ask the pharmacist. It needs to be just simethicone as ingredients, and perhaps some flavor. This will help break up any gas that has probably developed and make him feel better.
 
Thanks for all of the advice.

As soon as I wrote the lastpost I went to the reference section and read about stasis andthe hairball stuff and did not give it to him. The pineapple juice I have is 100% juice, no sugar. I havealready been adding much more water to the critical care than it says to.I got about 35ml into him tonight so that was good. His metacam dose is 0.2ml twice a day and he weighs 5lbs.

I will take him in for subq fluids tomorrow. I am in MD, USA.

Thanks again!
 
dquesnel has got it right, especially on the cat hairball stuff. No good.

I have heard that for pineapple juice to be helpful, it needs to be freshly squeezed. I know angieluv is a big proponent of pineapple juice and she recommends buying a fresh pineapple and squeezing or pureeing it, and sieving out the pulp. Canned or bottled pineapple juice supposedly doesn't have the enzymes that can help break down hair in the GI tract, which makes sense to me.

However, I worry that the sugar content of pineapple juice is too much to be very beneficial. Sugar can slow the gut and increase gas.

I agree that simethicone would help. You can dose that 1cc every hour for 3 hrs, and that should give you some improvement. The brand I buy here is called Mylicon.

I also want to stress hydration. If you have access to lactated ringers solution (a friend who is a nurse or vet tech?), sub-q fluids would help a lot. If he doesn't improve overnight, take him to a vet and ask them to give him sub-q fluids and show you how to. We have a video of it in the library, but few people have access to the supplies.

Oral rehydration with water and unsweetened pedialyte will be helpful. He can probably have up to 15mL. This is critical. It seems that hydration is the best way to get a bunny through a stasis event.

You can also do belly rubs (gentle massage on the belly) or put him on a dryer during the spin cycle. This can help with painful gas. I do think the metacam is a good idea, but he needs to be really well hydrated for it to not damage his kidneys. I assume you could also use something else that vibrates such as an electric toothbrush handle etc for tummy massage.

Also, exercise will help get the gut moving, so don't let him sit in the corner and pout.

How scary! I hope things start to improve for him. I really want to stress hydration above all else.
 
Actually I am a nurse and have access to LR. I didn't even think about it! I am also experienced with giving subq fluids to ferrets so I would think it is the same for rabbits. I will bring some supplies home with me tomorrow.

I don't want to jinx it, but he is actually eating some of his hay right now! I hope he keeps it up. I got some oral fluids into him tonight so hopefully that will do until I get the subq supplies.

I took him outside today so he could get a good amount of exercise and he enjoyed running around out there. I am also doing the belly massages and he seems to enjoy those.

I will get the mylicon and subq fluids tomorrow. Hopefully we are starting to make some progress. This is terrible!

Thanks so much!
 
I have a fantastic update! Bun has produced a nice pile of round, firm, seperated pellets! NO hair at all! There are probably 15-20 pellets in there! I never thought I would be so excited about rabbit pellets. We may be making progress.

And he is eating hay again!
 
Hi,

Few things here based on my experience.

>Toss the hairball stuff in the trash unless you have a cat. That stuff doesn't work in a rabbit's gut and makes things much worse and it compacts and dehydrates the ingesta causing the impaction/slowdown.

>Stop the Critical Care. It is very dehydrating and sets very heavy. Not appropriate in a GI slowdown. Rule is hydration before nutrition. If the gut is dehydrated, it can't digest food especially something as dense as Critical Care.

>If the pineapple juice came from anything other than a fresh fruit that you cut and squeezed by hand....it is making things worse. Do not use processed juice...only fresh juice.

>What is the concentration of your Metacam? Most small animal applications use either the .5mg/ml or 1.5mg/ml. Metacam should be dose once a day. And Metacam can be damaging to the liver and/or kidneys when used in a dehyrated animal (any species) and stasis always results in dehydration.

>Suggest your currentvet treat stuff animals and that you say "YOU'RE FIRED" andfind a vet that understands GI slowdowns in hind gut fermenters.Don't mean to be so blunt but my patience is down to it's last thread with some of the vets' responses to problems.The correct response to stasis is always hydration. Hydration, hydration, hydration. My first response to stasis (other than find the cause) is hydration either by additional greens in the diet or by sub-q fluids.

>If you can find a rabbit savvy vet, it might be a good idea to administer an antibiotic knonw as Metronidazole. This drug has huge anti-inflammatory properties and would be better indicated than using Metacam.

>Try to get Bun Bun moving around as much as possible....just like walking a foundering horse....try to loosen up the gut. Supplemental heat may also be helpful....maybe a heating pad, covered by a towel and monitored for overheating.

>Do not use gut motility drugs such as Metaclopramide or similar horrors.

>Don't panic.

Randy
 
Bun ate more hay and drank water during the night! There are 30-40 pellets in there now. All of them look like perfect rabbit pellets. Do I stillneed to force fluids or is he out of stasis?
 
I would keep the fluids going....if the gut is moving on it's own just normal oral hydration or a few extra greens since they are mostly water...romaine lettuce is great for this. Don't let your guard down too quickly...stay on top of things for a few days.

A little note about my comment on using Critical Care during stasis. I do use Critical Care from time to time....the only product I will even consider from Oxbow. The thing with putting CC in a balky gut is the pressure it causes...something somewhat similar to what gut motility drugs induce. If there isa total obstruction, adding heavy weights like CC only builds pressure on the top side of the impaction. In some cases, depending on the location and severity of the impaction, it might be the pressure to move it along....but if the impaction is more established, this just piles pressure on top of the impaction which usually results in something that might appear to be bloat (but isn't) and if there is a gastric ulcer forming, the pressure can perforate the lesion and that is always very bad....it's fatal. Our rule in emergency medicine for any species is hydration before nutrition. Any animal, including rabbits, can survive much longer without food than they can without proper hydration. And hydration is the key to overcoming stasis/ileus....no doubt, no question....been there and done that far too many times. My problem with vets when stasis/fluids are involved that a hind gut fermenter gut is so dynamically different than a omnivore/carnivore gut. Fluids are so vitally important in true stasis situations. I have a bag of fluids hanging all the time and have no problem sticking a stasis rabbit. The only true way to test hydration is by urine output so unless your vet actually capture and measured your rabbit's output of urine, the determination that Bun Bun's hydration was adequate was without clinical proof. I can assure you based on my years and years of experience that if a rabbit is in stasis....they are dehydrated.

Randy
 
He is drinking a ton of water on his own thank heavens! The litterbox is full now. I will continue to push the veggies. Thanks everyone!
 
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