Hind weakness

Question
Hello, I have a bunny who we think is about 3 years old, we got her from an animal rescue shelter two years ago. She's always had weakness in her back legs, before we got her she'd been found wandering the streets and the shelter think she may have been hit by a car or kicked by someone. We got got home from work a few weeks ago though and she just couldn't move her back legs, she was dragging them behind her, she couldn't lift the back half up of herself up off the floor. We took her as an emergency to our vets, thinking that we wouldn't be bringing her home, that she was paralysed. However, the vet put her on the floor of the consulting room and she started hopping around as normal. The vet said it was probably adrenalin but that it proved she wasn't paralysed and thought there was some hope. She gave her an injection of metacam and gave us enough metacam for 3 weeks to give her. As soon as we got home she went back to dragging her legs behind her again. We gave her the metacam for 9 days, there was no improvement to her legs, only that her appetitie seemed to greatly increase. Just before Christmas we gave her 9 days of panacur as her regular top up and it seemed to help her general weakness and she put on weight (she's always been very skinny). Now she is back to skin and bones though. She seems fine in herself, as I said she's still eating, she loves her treats and she's still trying to get about as normal. I looked up her symptoms on the internet and the first thing I saw was that it was a classic e-cuniculi symptom. That along with the fact that she seemed to respond well to panacur over Christmas made me start her on another course of panacur two weeks ago. I think she is trying to use one leg more, and she is trying to stay more upright, although is a bit wobbly. Her legs shake when I sit her up right and she try's to walk normally but then ends up flopping over on one side as her leg won't support her. She's still dragging one leg underneath her so we're keeping her clean and trying to keep her as comfy as possible, we've bought a vetbed to try and keep her dry. My question to you (I don't really trust my vet, she's nice enough but is not what I'd call a small animal specialist) is do you think it does sound like e-cuniculi, do you think she will fully recover?  How long should I keep her on the Panacur? I hope you can help, she (along with her bunny friend who had e-cuniculi a couple of years ago [he had the head tilt but made a full recovery]) mean the world to me. I keep thinking she's making progress day by day but then I wonder if I'm just kidding myself. She's so happy in herself though, it's as if she's not bothered about her legs and has got used to not using them. Should I try massaging them for her? There's definitely still feeling there as she does respond when I manipulate them for her.
Thanks for listening.

Answer
Hi,

I have some first hand experience with this.

First I would look around for a better rabbit vet.  Start here:

www.rabbit.org/vets/vets.html

to find a House Rabbit Society recommended vet near you.  They are generally much better treating rabbits and figuring out what's going on more accurately and also faster.

According to what you're tellign me and what you are seeing with her, she has some kind of infection/parasite that seems to be able to be dealt with, with panacur.  The metacam should also help because with either an infection or parasite/virus, there will be inflammation and swelling and metacam not only reduces pain, but reduces swelling.

The classic symptoms are the loss of function in the hind legs, as well as the weight loss.  Often with infections/parasites, it affects appetite and/or taste centers.  E cuniculi generally migrates to the nervous system, and can affect legs, motion, balance, head tilt, etc.  Panacur is the drug of choice to treat.  However secondary infections can also set in during this time so that she might be dealing with more than one problem now, so please keep that in mind.

The fact you went to a vet that either didn't suggest doing an e cuniculi test (for antibodies) or they did but you didn't get one, or didn't know about it, is a problem.  It needs to be done to know if she has it in her body.  To rule it out or confirm it's there.  given the fact panacur improved her condition, keep her on it until you know what the results are.  

This needs to be done by a good rabbit vet though.  They will send out for the test to be done, but you need a good rabbit vet to examine her.  They also need to do bloodwork on her and a fecal float to see if she's got anything else in there she's dealign with.  They should also give you prescripts for panacur and metacam.  If they find out she's got an infection they will later put her on an antibiotic.  You should also possibly consider doing an xray of her back to rule out trauma.

As her appetite is off, and it appears she is fighting something that is affecting her appetite, you need to give her something called Bonine.  It is seasick medicine that you can find at walgreens, get the walgreens brand, cherry flavored.  One tablet is 4 doses.  Split the tablet into quarters.  grind each quarter up, put about 8 drops of water on it, stir up, and suck up into a medicinal feeding syringe.  You will need to give her this twice a day and see if it helps start to improve her appetite.  Generally you will see it return in a few days of being on the bonine.  Only get bonine, no other nausea medicine.  She may need to be on this until the parasite/infection is gone.

So the key is getting her to a rabbit vet, getting real tests done to really see what's going on, and know what's really going on in her, and if it's just one thing or now, it's more than one.  And then getting proper treatment for everything that needs to be treated.

Go on the assumption at the moment it's e cuniculi.  Keep on the panacur.  Put her on the bonine as I have described.  But get her to a rabbit vet as soon as physically possible.  Nearest one.