Older rabbit having trouble with hind end - any advice?

[doodlebugger]

Our older rabbit, a mini lop, who is a little over 7 years old, has started having a few issues lately. He had this happen before, so we treated it like we have in the past, but this time, something different happened. So, in the past, the rabbit savvy vet determined that it was bladder sludge, which caused a UTI or bladder infection. He got an antibiotic, and we also treated him with metoclopromide and metacam (which he gets daily due to severe arthritis - he was a rescue bun whose previous owner likely dropped him). The big sign that this was happening, was that we found pee outside his litter box and he's very OCD about keeping his cage clean, so we knew there was something wrong. When this happened again later on, the vet suggested we try just the metoclopromide (plus the metacam he already gets), and it worked. So, the few other times this happened, we just do that and it stops. This time, it happened, and the meds didn't work. We took him to our rabbit savvy vet, and they gave us antibiotics. She did mention that she was a bit concerned about his back end, and the x-ray she took showed a very mild spur on his back spine near his hips, but she wasn't too concerned. She did mention that if he didn't improve after a few days, she would be inclined to think that this was more of a nerve damage issue. He did improve with antibiotics, and is finishing them, but yesterday, he was having problems getting in and out of his box. He's had one accident on the floor of his cage, and we are noticing that he is not realizing when he is having his cecatropes (probably didn't spell that right) which is very unusual for him. Some of his running outside of his cage is resulting in him dragging his hind feet at times. The weather here is horrible - with lots of very cold days and the humans in the house with arthritis are in a lot of pain. Could this be that the arthritis swelling is causing him to lose lower functioning somewhat? Because the last issue we had recently, was around the same time that a big cold front came through. Or, do you think we are looking at nerve damage in the spine? If so, what kind of quality life will he have? I guess we are trying to determine depending on what our vet tells us, what will be best for our sweet old boy. My hope is that this is just related to the cold weather, and that once it subsides, he will be walking more normally. I guess my mind is just trying to prepare myself for the potential that we could be saying goodbye soon. :cry1:

 

[Lucky_2017]

I am extremely sorry to hear about this, I am no vet, but I know what it feels like to lose a pet, I had a hamster, he started having seizures, we thought we were going to lose him, be then he recovered, then he had another episode and he sadly passed away [emoji22]. There is still hope though, never give up [emoji4][emoji846]

 

[doodlebugger]

The rabbit savvy vet diagnosed him with spondylosis. She thinks it might subside once the weather clears up, but we have to increase his metacam dosage until at least Monday and keep monitoring him. She also said we could do 5 minute ice compresses (frozen peas wrapped in a towel on his spinal area where he has the inflammation). Any one have any more experience with this issue?

 

[JBun]

My old rabbit had this. She did pretty well on meloxicam, and was able to stay mostly mobile until the last few months of her life. She started to lose mobility in her hind end, but she could still scoot herself around pretty well. Then I'd say that it was maybe the last 3-4 months of her life where she lost even more mobility where she could hardly use her hind end and could really only scoot in a 2 ft circle. She was old(10 yr) and slept a majority of the time anyways, but still got excited at feeding time, and despite not having much mobility anymore was relatively happy, and she had a bunny friend to keep her company and snuggle with.

I did have to manage things more for her once she lost most of her mobility. I had her flooring surface set up to be soft and drain her urine away from her so she stayed pretty clean and dry. I kept all of her food and water in that 2 ft circle that she could spin around in. I did have to check her at least every 4 hours, morning and night, to make sure she hadn't got stuck and make sure she had been able to get to her water and food. She also started to have reduced blood flow to the hind legs at the end, so I had to keep a very close eye on that. I also had to keep an eye on her weight and had to add in some higher calorie foods to her diet to help with weight gain. So caring for her was more time intensive and required a lot more care on my part. I considered if pts would be better for her, but I felt like despite her lack of mobility her quality of life still remained good. Aside from the mobility issue her health was decent, and she still seemed happy for an old bun, so I decided to just manage things the best I could and let her enjoy the end of her life as much as possible. And I feel like she did stay happy right til the end.

Once she started losing that mobility though, it just continued to deteriorate. So unfortunately I don't have anything hopeful to share with you in that respect. And though not all rabbits will continue to be happy and have a good quality of life once their mobility is lost, some do just fine and can still have happy lives if the situation can be well managed by us owners, which I know isn't always possible. So I think it's something that just has to be considered and evaluated on an individual basis. You as an owner, are in the best position to determine how your bun is able to cope with the changes and health issues. When our buns hit this old age period, you're always having to evaluate how any health issues affect their quality of life, and try and determine what the best course to take is.

 

[Aki]

I don't have any experience with that particular problem and I hope that it clears up soon, but I also feel that whatever the problem is managing the pain is the main thing you can do for now. So increasing the metacam and trying to relieve your bunny as much as possible sounds like the right decision to me - having a sick animal and knowing that you might have to say goodbye soon is awful, but at least you'll know that your bunny had the best life possible until the end, no matter the outcome. Like JBun, I think you are the best person to evaluate your rabbit condition and to take decisions if it comes to this - some rabbits are more resilient than others.

 

[Nancy McClelland]

We use joint supplement from amazon from the small pet section--helped our old girl. Other option was injections but the cost is enormous and she's 18.

 

[doodlebugger]

Our poor guy is really struggling tonight. It's almost like one leg is paralyzed, but the rest of him is moving as hard as he can. We are pretty scared, so we called our rabbit savvy vet to see what we can do. We have a pretty nasty cold weather front thing coming through. A lot of people around here are complaining about how painful it is, so I can only imagine what it's like for him. I just don't know how to help him, how to protect him when he panics and falling over.....he was just dragging his back foot and then laid down and started stress breathing. We tried an ice pack wrapped in a towel like our vet said, and then we checked his movement and it seems like he has more movement in one side, but not the other. We have him in his large carrier right now, and he's eating greens while we wait for our vet to call us back.

 

[JBun]

That's kind of what happened with my old bun. She couldn't use one hind leg pretty much at all. One thing I did for her was place a space heater just outside of her pen, gently blowing warm air on her area. I made sure it was far enough away that she wouldn't get too hot if she slept right in front of the bars where it was. She seemed to really like it. I would often find her curled up as close as she could get to it, to keep warm.

I mostly did meloxicam for my bun at 0.5ml twice a day, and she was a 1.7kg bun. Though it didn't reduce the hind end weakness, I could tell she was much more comfortable for having it. One thing I had considered trying, that I heard of helping other old arthritic buns, is tramadol. I never got around to trying it, but if you feel like your buns pain isn't well controlled on meloxicam, it might be worth asking the vet about adding in tramadol.

I think putting him in his carrier was a good idea, to help him calm down when he's panicking about his reduced mobility. One other temporary thing that might be helpful for assisting his hopping and movement, is placing a towel or band of some sort, under his belly and holding the ends of it up on each side of your bun so that the loop is helping support his back end, allowing you to assist his use of his hind end. This may or may not work depending on how much his hind end is being affected, but I thought it might be worth mentioning.

 

[doodlebugger]

Thanks. Our rabbit savvy vet hasn’t returned our phone calls and it looks like the people who handle her emergency calls don’t have the number to any other vet in the practice. The office doesn’t open until noon tomorrow and even then, it’s likely that the only rabbit savvy vet will not be there. I’m frustrated because I don’t know what to do. We are supposed to have snow and ice on Sunday night. He panics when he can’t move. And he has a moment of stress breathing afterwards. He is cleaning himself and eating. I just worry about how to fix up his water bowl, litter box, etc. We will check him every hour or so tonight. Hopefully this turn of events is simply because of the weather. 😥

 

[JBun]

If it won't stress him, it might be worth keeping him in his carrier overnight to help restrict his movement and maybe help him stay calm. You could place some towel rolls alongside him to help support him if you think that would help as well. Then towels on the bottom for any pee accidents, and his food and water within easy reach.

For changes you might have to make to the litter box if you haven't already, what I initially did was cut a low side for my bun to be able to get in. This is while she could still scoot around and get herself into it. After she lost most mobility and basically stayed in one spot, I used puppy pee pads spread out on the floor of her pen, then in the main area where she stayed I had a couple layers of towels over the pee pads to absorb the extra urine, and over that faux shearling fleece type material(vet bed type fabric) to help drain the urine away from her and keep her dry. Under it all was tile, then a base layer of a foam puzzle mat. I changed out the pee pads as needed, the towels twice a day, and the fleece once a day.