Help with my rabbit

Question
Hello,

I have an 8 (almost 9) year old rabbit who up until 2 days ago was behaving normally but in the morning I saw her laying on her side and she seemed to have lost weight. She can't hop around and pretty much just drags herself a little. She still is eating and drinking plenty of water but I must put plates right in front of her. Her lack of movement is making her deficate on herself and I must constently clean her but her under belly is always wet.

I would think it was her age but this happened so suddenly that I think its something else, I just don't know what. The vet said they can run blood tests but that will take time and I don't want her to suffer. I would like to know if this is a common thing and what I can do asap. Also the vets always seem quick to want to put animals down like my 14 year old cat who 3 years ago had kidney failure. The vet says that he's completly recovered now and he's just as frisky as he ever was so I don't want to put my rabbit down unless she truely has no hope.

All I know is that she isn't able to hop around and has lost a fair amount of weight. She seems fairly alert but her lack of movment makes her seem somewhat despondent. She has been like this for 2 days now with no progression for the better or worse. She just seems weak

Any ideas?

Answer
It's so hard to know what's going on, but my first instinct was E. cuniculi. I would suggest reading up on this condition and the treatments and take her to a rabbit savvy veterinarian armed with information.

Here's a list of rabbit savvy vets:

http://rabbit.org/vets/vets.html

And here's a list of resources about E. cuniculi:

http://homepage.mac.com/mattocks/morfz/rabrefs.html#ec

(copy and paste the links into your browser's address bar)

Good luck!