Please Help Sick Bunny - update

Question
"Olivia, my bunny, is bleeding from her rectum. She also hasn't eaten, drank, or gone to the bathroom in about 24 hours. I took her to the vet they said that there is a very minimal chance that she will survive. I did take her home. In your opinion What are the chances that she will survive? I got two medicines from the vet. metoclopramide oral and carafate suspension."

Answer
- update

Hi,

I'm sorry you had to put her down.  It's an extremely hard decision.  What did the vet think her problem was?

- end update

Hi David,

sorry to hear about your little bunny gal.  

It sounds like the vet thinks she may have eaten moldy hay or moldy pellets or something, giving her mycotoxin poisoning?  If you are aware of wet/damp hay with funny smells to it, or pellets with an off smell to it that she may have eaten, then yes, it probably is this and the diagnosis is correct.

Metoclopramide is used to prevent vomiting and esophageal reflux (stomach acid backing up into the esophagus) in many animal species. It may aid in the treatment of hairballs in rabbits. It is also used to prevent side effects, such as vomiting, resulting from chemotherapy.
Carafate is used to treat mycotoxin poisoning.

If the vet wasn't thinking it was mold/mycotoxins, my suggestion to you is to get her to a good rabbit vet ASAP that knows something about diagnosing toxicology.  The best way she can survive this is to have a proper diagnosis and receive proper treatment.  I bring this up because few vets are trained in toxicology and this is often mis-diagnosed.

Make sure she is getting enough fluids.  You may have to syringe-feed her water if she doesn't want to drink.  Use a plastic syringe (pet supply store).  A few mililiters every few hours.  Without water the gi tract can shut down.

AS for her getting through this, it depends on a bunch of factors.  Her age, her strength, if other things set in that compound this, if she can handle the treatment,...there's no real way to say.  You gotta do what you can for her and pray for her to be healed.  Just tell her if she doesn't give up and wants to fight, you'll fight for her too.  If it gets too much and she can't keep fighting, you'll be there with her too.

PLease refer to this page regarding mycotoxins and rabbits.  It has information on what to feed her once she is over this.  If there is a clear contaminated source she ate from, get rid of the hay/pellets and clean that area.  Get rid of all contaminated products.  Get fresh pellets, and fresh hay.  This page will help:

http://homepage.mac.com/mattocks/morfz/myco.html

Try to watch her very carefully that she does not go into shock.  Watch gum color, should be purple/pink.  Whitish/bluish is shock.  She needs to be kept warm (NOT HOT) - warm up a gel heating pack to WARM, NOT hot, wrap with a light cloth (like a clean cotton dishcloth) so that she won't chew on the gel pack, and place next to her or partially on her or under her, depending what she can handle.  Do not put gel pack directly on her, it could burn her.  Just to get the body temp back up.  If she goes into shock, you will need to do this to get her temp up.

I will pray for your gal.  If you think you need to see another rabbit-savvy vet, go to:

www.rabbit.org/vets/vets.html

and find a House Rabbit Society recommended vet near you.  Not all vets are good rabbit vets, that's why this page exists.

Lee