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A

Aki

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Joined
Jan 15, 2014
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France
So, I've been obsessing about Aki for almost 4 weeks now (since she went into a stasis - she's been pooping and eating for 13 days, 7 without the meds, but not as much as usual and her poops look kinda smallish to me most of the time). The vet said it was nothing but there was something bothering me that I couldn't pinpoint.
Yesterday, observing her, I finally got it. I'm pretty sure she's gone blind. I think the changes in her demeanor : not eating from the hay rack, eating more hay, being less active, the subsequent stasis... are all related to that. The thing is I don't know when it happened or how. I think maybe e cuniculi? But I know it's hard to have a diagnostic you can trust. I'm of course going to the vet, should I ask for Panacur just in case? I read it was quite safe. Thoughts?
 
You could try panacur. It's usually considered a fairly safe med, though there is always the off chance of any medication causing issues.

Though if you aren't seeing any white spots in her eyes, I would doubt e. cuniculi is the cause. More of a concern for me would be glaucoma. It can affect their eyesight and can also be painful, which could also be an explanation for the repeated bouts with stasis. I don't know how experienced your vet is, so it may be necessary to consult with an veterinary eye specialist as well.
http://wildpro.twycrosszoo.org/S/00dis/Miscellaneous/GlaucomaRabbit.htm
https://s3.amazonaws.com/assets.pro...9e50005056ad4736/file/PV1112_Pilny1_EE-CR.pdf

It's also possible the loss of vision is due to some other issue, or it could be there is only a partial loss of vision. In any case, your vet will hopefully be able to at least rule it out or diagnose it as the problem.
 
Yes, I'm also afraid about the fact that my vet isn't that experienced with rabbits. I tried asking if there was a competent ophtalmologist for rabbits in the two big cities which are the closest to home on a vet database (there is a pretty big city 30mn of train from my house, so I hope there is a competent vet not too far from the station ^^'). I'm waiting for an answer.
I'm pretty sure she sees close to nothing. I've been mistaking her cutting the hay in front of her face without eating it before looking for a wisp to eat for a tooth problem when it was obviously that she just didn't like having something she couldn't see in front of her face. I feel dumb, because it's so obvious now.
She's still eating a bit from everything (mostly vegetables and grass, but she still eats some hay and a few pellets - she never ate much pellets anyway) and pooing even though the poos look a bit small to me. She choses her food more slowly than before. She moves quite normally even if she stays a lot in her cardboard houses and that she's even more skittish than before (luckily, her husbunny stays quite a lot with her). She's still the first to run in the open cage when I come with the vegetables for dinner.

There is a blurry spot on one of her eyes but she's had it forever (she already had it when I took her home when she was around 6 weeks old and the vet seemed to think it was just the sign of poor genetics), the only change is that both her pupils are greyish and there seem to be some white discharge at the corner of her eyes (hard to tell, Aki is grooming herself all the time). The iris looks normal and the white part of the eye is white as normal. It looks exactly like the pictures of cataract I've found on the Internet.

In any case, I have an appointment with my regular vet on Tuesday. If I can't get something somewhere else I'll go, it's better than nothing, but I'd like to have as much info as possible beforehand. I read a lot of articles and looked at tons of photos but I really can't tell if e cuniculi is a probable cause or not (and I'm really afraid the vet won't be able to tell either and will make the problem worse).
 
As stated above, the E. cuniculi induced blindness causes basically a very pronounced cataract (stark white pupil with what almost looks like a crack in it).

Lenticular sclerosis and cataract look very similar, so you might be seeing lenticular sclerosis as well. While cataract does cause blindness, lenticular sclerosis basically is just a normal process of aging and it's what makes us silly humans need reading glasses when we are older (things are fuzzy, but we can see them). A simple ophthalmoscope will allow the veterinarian to tell the difference.

All that being said- I had a completely deaf rabbit (genetics or history, we were never sure) who then went blind from E. cuniculi and she was an extremely happy bun who would still run around and play in the house so long as we didn't move any furniture. So if your bun is blind, once you find a cause and a treatment if necessary, it's nothing to be truly concerned about. House bunnies don't need their sight nearly as much as we humans do.
 
The vet can do a blood titer to check for antibodies. It's typically repeated a couple weeks later, and if the antibodies have increased it indicates an active EC infection.
 
Thank you for the good infos. I had an answer from the vet database and they say they don't have any vet to recommend in my whole departement. The woman was very curt saying that I should be prepared to make long trips to consult, like every rabbits' owners and gave the address of a place in a small city I've never heard of. I don't own a car, nor do I drive. I can't go if there is no train station.:rollseyes
I took a look at my regular vet's website and they seem to do the basic ophtalmologic things at least (like mesuring the pressure of the eyes... they don't operate cataract but from what I've seen it's like 1000 $ for ONE eye and I sadly don't really have that kind of money).

What you're saying reassure me a bit, as her pupils don't look white with a crack. They just look uniformly greyish, no white anywhere. Cataract seems possible to me as it seems like it's a genetic problem and that she doesn't have the best background : I bought her the equivalent of 10$ to a guy who had tons of rabbits in very dubious conditions - he didn't know how old she was as she was born in a burrow in the garden and some of her littermates didn't look that good, I remember thinking there might have been some inbreeding going on. I probably shouldn't have taken a rabbit from a place like that, but she had a very clever look in her eyes and I thought her future didn't look that good considering where she was so I took her home anyway.

Aki moves pretty well. I feel bad now because I made fun of her last week seeing her going in her cage like a ninja. I thought she was trying to be inconspicuous to avoid me after all the meds for the stasis, but I know realise she was following the lenght of objects she knew to make sure where she was going. She acts pretty normally even if she stays more in her houses (she's got a two storeys wooden house and two big cardboard boxes, I put hay in all of them). The thing that worries me is that I feel she isn't eating quite as much hay as she should. She is eating and her poos look quite normal if a bit small but she is a lot slower in chosing the strands and she often drops them and have trouble finding them again (Tybalt doesn't really help, he keeps her company and seems to reassure her but he's not exactly a delicate rabbit and eats like a pig). Do you think it will get better? I hand feed her some stuffs during the day to make sure she's getting enough.
I should receive my order of the hay she's eaten the best this past few weeks this afternoon (organic second crop - maybe it smells stronger than the regular timothy?) so I hope it will help.

I'm really quite worried too because for the summer we always go to my parents' house for about a month. The rabbits have their own room, Aki has been going twice a year for seven years but I'm afraid she will have trouble adapting to a "new" environment now that she doesn't see (or not much). Would she remember enough to get by?
 
From my own experience with my own blind rabbit, a new environment isn't too stressful, since their whiskers (assuming she has nice long normal ones) are absolutely wonderful bumpers. But I would definitely make sure if you can that there is nothing sharp or truly dangerous for her to hurt herself on.

In terms of eating hay, the eating it more slowly and dropping it and such is a problem. Theoretically, being blind shouldn't affect eating the hay since they can't see in front of their faces anyways.

If you are concerned about her eyes hurting her, I would do the basic ophtlamic exam at your regular vet. They should also be able to tell you if it's lenticular sclerosis like I mentioned before, or a cataract; as well as take the eye pressures to see if she is in pain.

Hopefully this helps. Sending my warm thoughts to figure this out!
 
Thank you for your answer.
Her whiskers are normal and the room has long been bunny proofed so here is nothing dangerous in it (it's kept closed anyway because my parents have a cat). So, I hope it will be alright...

When I look at her eating, she mostly looks a bit confused when you put things in front of her (except for breakfast and dinner which have always been on the same place at the same time so she's already there and ready when I bring them). She eats well things that have strong smells (like parsley, mint, basil) and most vegetables (she used to select carefully what she was eating, taking what she liked best first, and now she just takes the nearest thing), she hesitates a bit more for grass and she eats hay but she's always been kinda picky and now she takes forever to find a wisp she likes (again, the fact that Tybalt is prancing around doesn't help but I feel like separating them wouldn't help since they've been bonded for 2 years and a half and get on well). I've tried several kind of hay and it went better with one brand... I was supposed to have some today but of course the delivery was postponed to Monday :rollseyes
I wonder if her eating less smoothly might simply come from the fact that she's super jumpy and doesn't really react well to me watching her like an hawk - she's always been an anxious rabbit, but it's even worse now :cry1:
I hope it's not a teeth problem as well. The vet already looked at her teeth while she was awake and told me there was nothing indicating an exam under anesthesia was required.

She's scheduled to see a vet on Tuesday. I fully intend to have her examined as completely as possible to determine if she feels any pain, needs any treatment regarding e cuniculi or any kind of eye infection / glaucoma prevention (assuming it's really cataract).
 
Rabbits are somewhat unique in that they don't have the menace response we see in other animals (when you act like you're going to poke them in the eye, most animals blink). Most rabbits also won't track a toy or a treat, at least not at your vet's office.
Your regular vet should definitely be able to do an ophthalmic exam and assess pressures in her eyes.
 
Since they've previously visited that house and room it shouldn't be as much of an issue as she should recognise the smells etc. Just make sure that you set it up the same as previous years with objects and furniture in the same locations, that way she can't get a nasty surprise when she accidentally runs into something. The same with at home, keep things in the same location they've always been, so she doesn't get confused and scared when things aren't where they're supposed to be. It will certainly help that she has Tybalt to keep her company and reassure her.
 
Yes, I keep everything in the same place and removed the things she might have bumped into (as much as possible anyway, as Tybalt has a tendency to move everything around, even the cardboard house which is like one metre long). I'll do the same in my parents house - the things in the rabbits' room have been in the same place for years so I hope she remembers it.
Anyway, she seems to move around quite well, I see her bumping lightly her nose on things as she goes to check where she is and she bumps her nose on Tybalt quite a lot as well as if to check he's there. She hesitates before moving but I feel like it's more because she waits to be sure no one (no predator?) are there than because she has trouble finding places. Often, she will just pop her head outside of the house she's in and wait. When I speak, she sometimes proceeds like "oh, it's just YOU" ^^ . She also hides as soon as she hears something unusual (with my dog, it's pretty often). I hope she will relax a bit with time but I think she already does incredibly well considering how recent her problem probably is.
There are lots of poops in the litterbox. Some seem small in comparison to others, but maybe Tybalt always had larger poop being a larger rabbit and that I never noticed before? All the poops have hay in them and look hydrated so I think it's probably nothing to worry about (I've been obsessing about rabbit poop for a month - my family and friends all think I'm crazy at that point).
 
Sooo, we went to see the vet today. He looked at Aki's eyes and said they were completely normal and intact (no infection, no cataract, glaucoma or uveitis... nothing) just no reaction to the light. He said that it was probably just the optic nerve not working anymore due to her age and that e cuniculi was very unlikely. We decided to just leave her alone for now, and that I would take her back if anything changed. I took the opportunity of being there to get her vaccination done so I hope she won't see a vet before next year. ^^'
 
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