Hip Dislocation

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Kipcha

Kipcha

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 26, 2010
Messages
1,532
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129
Location
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Last night I notice Flynn had not eaten all her pellets. I took note of how much she had in her bowl and mentioned to my Mom that if she hadn't made a dent by morning, she would have to bring Flynn to the vet the next morning since I had to work the day.

Well, this morning she still hadn't eaten and wondering why, I took her up into the bunny playroom just to see how she reacted. When she started hopping around I noticed right away that she was favoring her rear right foot, not quite dragging it by moving almost 'tippy-toe'. We scheduled an appointment, the earliest we could get in being around 4:00.

I got the call that the vet believed it was a soft tissue injury, but if it made me feel better I could do x-rays, but she said that I could give her some painkillers and see how she reacted, but something just wasn't sitting right with me and I opted to have the X-Rays done.

This is what we got back,
421343_3237466856004_1246719002_33543426_1116109884_n.jpg

Her right leg is dislocated from her hip.

The vet has given three options.
1. A surgery to cut off the top of her femur, which would cause the body to create a 'replacement' joint without the bone rubbing against each other. This, unfortuanatly, is seeming less and less like an option. It's apparently extremely painful, there's no one really local who's able to do it and even if we drove her somewhere to get the care, we'd be expecting over $2000, and that's if she even makes it through the procedure, that it works, and even there there is no guarantee to Flynn's quality of life.

2. Resetting the bone and splinting it, to MAYBE have it work. She gave us a 30% chance of it working, and if it didn't she would be in a lot of pain. Even if it was successful, she would most likely develop arthritis in the joint.

3. Put her to sleep.

I was going to get a second opinion from some other vets in the area and ask about resetting the bone, but from how this vet was talking, the outcome looks bleak. I'm wondering if anyone else has had experience with this? I'm just not sure what decision to make. I was literally a bawling mess at work, I was lucky I didn't have any customers cause I basically fell apart.

We've come to the conclusion that she must have done it popcorning around her cage like she always does, I never would have thought it would have hurt her so bad...
 
I would try option 2 first, and if that does not work, opt for option 1. However im curious as to why the vet is saying nobody locally can do it? Most small animal vets are fully able to do this procedure, and especially in smaller animals, its much easier.

I have seen numerous dogs from mastiffs to chihuahuas get their Femoral head cut off from reasons ranging from Hip Displaysia/arthritis, to Hit by car and the head was shattered. Even seen a 9week old kitten get the procedure done as he fractured his femur right at the neck. Never had 1 animal result with a complication from this procedure. And after about 2 months, you wouldn't notice a single thing happened to the animal. And this was at the plain old local vet I was at.... There are lots of other normal clinics in the area that do the procedure as well, so it seems odd that its not the same over there.

Don't know who would do it on a bunny if they wont touch a rabbit regularly, but to give you hope like that about the procedure options seems... odd.

I would check around for second oppinions. You may end up traveling a little but I think it would be well worth it in the long run.

However the sooner it gets set back in place the less pain Flynn will be in, in the long run regardless of what other options you choose.
 
I'm so sorry to hear about Flynn. I haven't personally had any experience with this, but just wanted to let you know I'll keep her (and you all) in my prayers. :pray:
 
I hope you got sent home with painkillers anyway.
I'm not sure if this would be easier or cheaper, but is amputation an option?
 
When I was at the vet in Winfield and they thought that Harley had joint damage rather than ligament the one suggestion that was made was that I take him to a zoo vet. You thankfully live in Calgary and this can be an option for you. The suggestion was made because zoo vet work on a large variety of small animals and are more familiar with techniques required to work on them. Can you call and at least talk to one? Other suggestion is that you pad the bottom on the cage with lots of towels so that Flynn doesn't slip and doesn't have to hop into a litter box. Let us know how you are making out.
 
I would go with resetting it back into place. It doesn't look broke just out of place. The vet only gave you a 30% chance that the rabbit would use its leg again? If it was broke, I would have given this percentage. But since it is not broke, I would say that your rabbit may have a bit higher percentage of using the leg again, like maybe 50-50% chance of using it again.

When Prince broke his leg, I had it fixed and he used it somewhat, but he didn't have 100% use of his leg.
 
Well, on the bright side Flynn is still very bright and healthy looking, albeit grumpy at being confined. But she's drinking, eating, peeing and pooping up a storm in there and she's constantly attempting to escape, I feel bad that she can't get out and run like I normally let her.

We called a few other vet clinics to see their take. We're still waiting for a call back from one, but the other two were rather disheartening as well.

The first said that they would need a $107 examination fee, pretty much to confirm that her hip is dislocated even though they looked at the x-ray, which I find ridiculous. You don't have to be a vet to know that that is not how that socket should look. They said they would be able to do the surgery, but it would be upwards $3000 and they have a history for quoting low.

The other vet said they could do it as well, but they haven't done it before and she's hesitant to try, she pretty much told me that the risk would be extremely high and she didn't have confidence in having her make it out of the surgery. She also mentioned that she, personally, thinks that past the 48 hour mark is difficult to reset.

Watermelons ~ It's funny that it seems easier because no vets here are giving me any sort of confidence on surgery. Everyone is hesitant to try, have never done it before and charging sky high prices while telling me that don't think she would make it through it anyways, and this has been pretty much all the vets I have talked to.

Christina ~ I would not have let her come home without pain killers, I can't imagine how this must feel.

Marsha ~ The worry isn't whether she can use the leg, it's making sure the joint does not pop out again. We need to make sure it stays in place.
 
I asked the vet on her opinion with amputation so hopefully she'll reply soon, but how well do rabbits adjust to having one leg in the back missing?
 
It should still be re-set into place regardless of going into the surgery or not.
The surgery can always be preformed after the hip as been re-set and is actually a great way to deal with arthritis if it does occur at a later time.
Give re-setting a chance to work, meanwhile you can still try and find a vet to do the FHO just incase.
You could always just fly her down here and ill send her to the vet ;) We also have the specialty vets at Canada west over here, but they usually tack on $2000 just because they can.

Re-setting the joint will be the easiest and is the least invasive. The longer you wait, the harder this will become. Try it, and see what happens.
All your other options including amputation can easily be preformed after resetting has been done.
 
Before you do anything else, talk to chiropractors and explain your problem and tell them you have Xrays too. A friend of ours is an MD and they have a small dog that has a hip problem, so he's always putting it back with no meds needed. I know from personal experience that a dislocation feels much better when it's back in place.
 
We have a reset booked for 4:20 tonight, but we're not getting a lot confidence it will work and it's going to be a little over $600 total.

We were literally debating driving to where you are in BC, no one around here is offering a lot of confidence, whenever I get a call back that they can do the surgery, they always seem to think it's more likely she wouldn't make it out.

We've been calling around all morning and we've found two clinics who can do the femoral head surgery (One starting at $3000 and the other going between $2000-$4000) and one that is waiting to hear back from their surgeon that would be around $1200, which I'm hoping will be positive because $1200 would be doable.

Chiropractors weren't sure what to make of her either, unfortuanatly. Today I've called more vets then I can count, wildlife rehab centers, chiropractors, the University for Vetrinary Sciences and the Humane Society to no avail.
 
Well regardless if the re-set doesn't work, you still have options! The FHO, Amputation, Chiropractor.
We have an amazing Animal chiropractor down here. http://www.fortfamilychiro.ca/animal.htm
And if you would Like I can e-mail the vet here and ask her oppinion on the surgery.

Maybe if all goes well tonight with the re-set you can schedule a few Chiro visits after to make sure it all stays well.
 
Well, I have some good news! I found a place that is just 15 minutes from us who has done the femural head surgery on rabbits successfully before who would be willing to do it for $1000 so I honestly think, rather then going through the $600 to reset it and more likely then not have it fail (Every vet I have talked to says that it probably will, and I've probably talked to about 20 clinics today that deal in rabbits), we're just going to do the femural head surgery. We're going to the Avenida Pet Clinic and they come highly recommended by the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. This way, we also don't have to worry about arthritis in the future and hopefully all will just work out well.

We're going in for a appointment to have them look her over today.
 
Watermelons wrote:
Can you request photos of the surgery?!?!?!?!

Would be a great learning opportunity for people on the forum if they got to see what happens.

http://www.vetratingz.com/ratings/1795/Veterinarian-Clinic-Avenida-All-Pet-Clinic.html
Some of the comments about this clinic make me a littly iffy however.
Click to expand...

I'll be sure to ask!

That's odd because they do all the treatment for the Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Center and came extremely highly recommended from them, as well as some members in the hopping club having positive experiences. Weird.
 
Whenever you read reviews of a vet online, it's important to take them with a grain of salt because people who have a single poor experience are much more likely to take to the internet with their reviews than people who have many positive experiences. It's easy to anonymously say horrible things on an internet review site with no one to police you. If they come highly recommended from a source you trust who has used them frequently, I'd pay more attention to that.

I'm glad to hear you found an affordable solution.
 
Glad to hear you've found someone who's successfully done this and will do it for you at a reasonable price. I'll continue to pray all goes well.
 
Just thought I would give a quick update,

We need to set a few things up (We need to find a date as she has to get the anesthesiologist in and a couple other things set up) and in the mean time, the vet said that if she's alright, we could let her out for maybe 5-10 minutes a day since she's been going completely stir crazy. And the little booger, we let her out for the first time today and we had to put her back after a few minutes since she was running around and trying to popcorn! It's like she was trying to hurt herself worse!

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4-AN11uITM&list=UUaNMYeUdpiUndlvmy6-je6g&index=2&feature=plcp[/ame]

As you can see, her leg is not in the correct position... I'm glad to see, all things considered, she still seems relatively okay.
 
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