Hi everyone! First time Reddit poster here so go easy on me.
I am looking for some advice. Some background, in July 2022, I noticed my rabbit Tallulah had seemingly had a cataract appear overnight. It’s important to note she was a solo bun at this point as her partner had passed away, so this was around the time I was attempting to bond her into my already bonded M/F pair. As soon as I noticed the cataract (video attached) I took her straight to the vets and got her seen. The vet I was with at the time suggested that it could be E Cuniculi so they gave me some medication for her, I think it was panacur. Anyway I took her back home and started the round of meds. I took her back a few weeks later and that was kind of that? The cataract never cleared but they never told me it was EC for definite and then we just went about our day. A few months later, I left the vet practice I was at due to an unrelated incident whereby they medicated the wrong rabbit (took my other M/F pair in, M was poorly but they ended up treating the F and I quickly realised they were not rabbit savvy).
Tallulah has been absolutely fine since obviously, no other signs of EC such as head tilt. She’s also lived in close proximity to 5 other rabbits who have also never shown any signs of EC. Fast forward to Tuesday night, I looked and her and knew something was off. She didn’t come out to greet me and she was also off her food, only eating a tiny amount and slowly. She had a dental back in Feb and had similar signs so I rang the vet, explained I think her molar spurs had grown back and she may be in the start of stasis. I took her in and they agreed she needed a dental. They kept her in overnight and then on Wednesday morning they rang me to say they were booking her in for a dental that same afternoon. I agreed. I heard from the vet at 4pm on Weds, they told me she’d woken up and was in recovery and they would ring me tomorrow morning should all be well in the night.
Fast forward to this morning, I heard from the receptionist as opposed to the vet that’s been treating her at about 11:00. They told me that she was doing okay but not as well as they had hoped. She had done a few poos but was now rejecting the syringe feed so were hoping she’d start to eat on her own, which they were are yet to see. She has also had a wee and seems to be brighter. However, her body has rejected the catheter? Apparently it looked ‘sickly and thick’ and nothing was going through anymore and they can’t put it in her other ear or her leg as they can’t get it in (this is completely new to me so not sure if this is normal as my bunnies have never had this issue), which means she has not had any fluids or pain relief since last night. They told me they advised another overnight stay (tonight will be the 3rd night), but I asked them to call me this evening with an update and I’ll make the decision then.
About an hour later, the receptionist rings me back and tells me they forgot to mention some things. They then go on to say that they noticed my rabbit has a cataract and that last night she had a head tilt and some white discharge coming out of her good eye. I told them the cataract has been there for years and asked them to elaborate on the head tilt as I’ve never seen her have that. They said she hasn’t got one now and it was only last night. I then asked them could that not be because she would have just woken up from having GA so she would have been tired? I’m not an expert obviously but that would have been my first guess. The receptionist said they were not sure but to be on the safe side they recommended taking some bloods to test for renal failure. I then asked what have her kidneys got to do with anything as I’m confused where this suddenly all came from to which they just said to check her kidneys?
Now I don’t know what to do as I’m expecting a call in the next few hours but I’m not sure whether it’s best to bring her home as the receptionist I spoke to sounded like they didn’t really know what they were talking about and were reading from a script as they couldn’t really answer my questions. I would have much rather of spoken to the vet who has been actually looking after my rabbit but they were unavailable.
I guess my question to you all is, does this sound like EC? Should I send her bloods off to test for renal failure? She is going to be 7 in January so I know she is a little on the older side, but I don’t understand where the head tilt has suddenly come from as well as potential kidney failure when she has no symptoms? I just would have thought that if it was EC the head tilt would be permanent and wouldn’t come and go? I don’t know much about EC at all so I could be completely wrong. Thank you for reading if you got this far. Pics of the beautiful Tallulah attached so you can see the picture of the cataract when I first found it vs her now (couldn’t find a picture of her cataract now but it is solid white now, no longer milky like in the first pic)
by chIoerose
2 Comments
My bunny had ec and eyes and kidneys are very often damaged because of that. My bunny needs eye drops for life(alternative would be eye removal) because it has been damaged past recovery. Also head tilt in the early stages can only show when bunny is too tired or too relaxed to keep the head upright.
There is no method to verify with 100% certainty that your bun has EC (blood test can show elevated antibodies but it is not definitive by itself) so they may want to check for a few things to be on the safe side.
To confirm EC, you need to perform a blood test. The way it was described to me is if your bunny has had EC they will always have evidence of it in their blood, but if the titers are elevated then it is an active infection that needs to be treated with panacur. The tests are actually pretty good about determining active infection. (My bunny has been tested multiple times and she’s only tested positive for an active infection once.)
EC can cause damage to both the brain and the kidneys. For instance, my bunny wasn’t experiencing any neurological symptoms. She was having chronic stasis. Because we only checked her blood while she was in stasis and dehydrated, her elevated kidney numbers didn’t appear unusual. We checked for EC on a hunch and she did have it, which was causing the kidney problems.
Assuming you’re in the US, the EC test is a few hundred dollars and gets shipped off to the University of Miami. You can actually check their [website](https://med.miami.edu/departments/comparative-pathology/divisions/avian-and-wildlife-laboratory/e,-d-,-cuniculi) to learn more about the test, results, etc.
It does sound like EC, so I’d encourage you to get that test done. But it takes about a week to get the results back.
In the meantime, I might ask for imaging if you haven’t already. Head tilt/rolling can also be caused by inner ear problems. If your bunny has a history of teeth spurs and has a weepy eye, it could be a different issue that is causing an inner ear problem.
ETA: Depending on the severity of the infection, head tilt can go away in EC. I don’t think it’s inner ear related, but it’s something about the nervous system. If it gets bad, you can ask for the bunny equivalent of Dramamine, essentially. It’s like an anti-nausea medicine. We didn’t need it for our rabbit so I don’t know the name.