Belle is having problems again.

[Hazel-Mom]

tonyshuman wrote:

I couldn't find that thread about silica, but definitely try oat hay and maybe prairie grass if you can get it: http://www.dynamitedistributor.com/Images/PDF/grassvsalfalfa.pdf

I mentioned the silica in grass in this thread: http://www.rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=35622&forum_id=48

The sourses for that info were mainly "Grass Leaf Silicification: Natural Selection for an Inducible Defense against Herbivores" by S. J. McNaughton, J. L. Tarrants,
www.grassbioenergy.org/downloads/Bioenergy_Info_Sheet_5.pdf and
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1636089
Not all about rabbits, but all related to silica content of grasses.

 

[JadeIcing]

I can't post to much now but Dallas and his brother both had ALL thereteeth removed. I know the vet has done the surgery a few times. If it can be avoided than of course but I would be concerned if it is happening to often. Could you try and figure how far apart it has been so far.

 

[krsbunny]

Hi Maureen (and Everyone else),

Sorry for the delay getting back to you on your question about molars. What I said about risk of breaking the jaw is based on what I have heard from my own vets and from what other people have been told by their vets. I do think that going very slowly/carefully is the key to not causing damage. However, my understand is the same vitamin/mineral deficiencies that cause tooth problems can also weaken bones, including the jaw.

When I get time (may be a couple of days) I'll see what is in the various vet books to see what they say and give you some references. If I forget, please remind me (via PM) ... and bug me until I answer because, as I read your question, I realized that this is one of those things I have been saying for so long, I no longer know whether it is something I "accepted on faith" as "fact" without verifying (or questioning) it.

The more I learn about bunnies, the more I realize there are exceptions to almost every "rule" of bunny health or care. If you have experiences that contradict what I (or anyone else) says, please speak up. You will find me doing that frequently here. Everybunny's experiences are unique ... and it is important for all of us to remember to "think outside the box" and question each others "assumptions."

Kathy

 

[Maureen Las]

Hi Kathy
It makes a lot of sense that if a rabbit had a lot of problems that weakened the strength of the bones in the jaws (like abscesses) or even severe periodontal disease............ that a jaw would be more prone to break.

When I took Beau (holland lop) to the vet who is training indenistry (but not yet a dentist) I asked her if she felt like she was able to do his teeth. She examined his mouth and expressed a lot of confidence.

When she "did his teeth" I didn't know that meant pulling 5 molars. I am not sure if that is what you typically do with a dog or cat but when I said "doing his teeth "I didn't necessarily mean pulling. Iremembered things that I remember the dentist professor saying ;. he would say things like "we need to realign his bite "

When Beau did not recover well after this surgery I called the dental professor who said that it was probably inexperience on her part that caused her to pull his teeth. He saw Beau at the end of Jan. and did things like file and shape his incisors and all the cheek teeth that were growing askew. he didn't pull anything.
I think that he may have mentioned the danger of breaking a jaw in the past but to be honestI don't remember.
Then I hear about JadeIcings buns with no teeth and Ifeel that she is so luckyto have a toothless bun as I associate bad teeth with a whole lot of suffering on the part of the rabbit and a tremendous financial stress on me.

Ifeel that my rabbit Beau has had a very painful life. it took a long time before it was even discovered that his molars (and not just his incisors and peg teeth ) were abnormal. and he has even had stitches in his mouth due to teeth growing into his the interior of his cheek
I really would be interested to know why a vet like JadeIcings would choose (or be comfortable enough) to pull all of the rabbits teeth whereas it could be a catastrophe if another vet tried it.


Hi Chandie

I am hi-jacking this thread but I i feel that all of this material will help you decide what to do with Belle. Her problems sound very similar to Beau's except that despite everything going on in his mouth he never stops eating his soft diet nor ever goes into stasis depite the fact that he eats no hay or veggies (rabbits are a strange lot)
Maureen

 

[Maureen Las]

ChandieLee wrote:

$1200!? That's insane....
Poor Beau and poor you...

I did some digging and found some of the vet bill receipts. It seems that Belle's molar's were in need of a trimming every 2-1/2 months. Seeming as how the last time Belle's molars were shaved was around Christmas time, I'd say she's due in at the vet's... or over-due by the looks of her. That's something I don't understand. She was seemingly fine yesterday. She was even running around and trying to rip open her food bag... how is that she fell so quickly? Right now, Belle is in her cage, laying down with her ears lying flat on her back. She just doesn't look comfortable. I gave her meloxicam for the pain, but is there anything else I can do to help ease it? For the record, I also syringe fed her some critical care and watered down apple juice, which contained no sugar. I offered her some greens, but she's far from interested in them.

As far as prices go, I looked at one of the receipts and the cost of her molar shaving was $120.00. The cost of the anesthetic, isoflurane, was seperate, costing $45.

In a few hours, about 7, I'll be calling a few different vets offices in and near my area.
Here's to hoping I can get some help for her.

Did you find a vet that you feel comfortable with?

Also how isBelle eating and drinking. ?

Iwould continue to syringe her watered down juice or pedialyte if she is not drinking well on her own.

I was thinking that you could try pumpkin to see if she will eat it. Usually people syringe it to their bunnies but Beau likes it and will eat it out of a bowl. I take the pure canned pumpkin and put a little mashed banana in it and warm it slightly in the microwave. he loves it and will eat it on his own. Pumpkin has a lot of fiber.
I haven't used tramadol but a lot of RO memebers feel that this a good pain reliever for bunnies ( Angela (naturestee) has experience with tramadol)

let us know how she is doing?

Maureen

 

[ChandieLee]

Hi guys.
Thanks for all the info.
Well, I called around ad got some quotes for the actual operation. I'm actually waiting for one place to call me back. There's a place in Littleton and they gave me in estimate of $160. I don't think that's too bad considering that the last vet bill I got was $700.
There's another place in Boston that charges $25 but I'd also have to pay $95 for an "exotic pet exam." That doesn't seem to bad either, but Boston is a bit far from me.
I just need this last place to call me back, but if they don't call me back soon, I'm going to go with the place in Littleton. I'm hoping to get Belle in tomorrow.

Belle's eating very slowly on her own, so I'm still syringe feeding her critical care, plus the watered down juice. I did get her to eat some apple sauce though.

Would pedialyte be better for her?

 

[naturestee]

Pedialyte is helpful for rabbits that are dehydrated or have diarrhea, as it replaces the electrolytes they have lost. It's supposed to have around the same salt/mineral content as the body cells themselves so that it can be absorbed quickly. If she's not having problems with that, water flavored with juice is fine.

Three of my four adult buns go nuts for canned pumpkin. Oberon just gets upset because he knows Fey is getting a treat but he can't seem to find anything edible. He even licks the outside of the container looking for something worthwhile! I haven't tried with Dora yet, I'm still nervous about giving her anything slightly sugary even though she hasn't had diarrhea since she was a tiny(er) baby.

I hope this new place works out for you!

Maureen- it does seem like dental work with dogs and cats often involves pulling teeth. It depends on the vet, but one of my coworkers had every single one of his cat's teeth pulled on the vet's recommendation due to gum disease. I thought that was pretty extreme considering there are other things that can be done first. So it's possible that the inexperienced dentist vet thought do teeth= pull them. My vet considers pulling molars to be fairly dangerous plus causing problems with the opposing tooth. She's mentioned it as something that may need to be done if Loki's molar roots get too out of hand, such as interfering with his eyes.

 

[ChandieLee]

Thanks.
I got some canned pumpkin and pedialyte. How much (of both) should I give her?

I'm unable to get her into the vet in Littleton until Monday... I feel like that might be too far away.... I don't know though.

 

[Maureen Las]

Make sure that it is the pure pumpkin without the seasoning ..I don't know the exact amount thatI give?

try giving her a few oz in a bowl to see if she will eat it on her own.
pedialyte is in here if you look butI just give probably as much as they want if I am syringing.
http://homepage.mac.com/mattocks/morfz/rx/drugcalc.html
if you warm the pumpkin just briefly (make sure that it is not hot on one side ) it probably is tastier.

 

[ChandieLee]

Belle did not like the pedialyte at all- in fact, most of it ended up all over my shirt. And I got bit. Alot. I'll try giving her some more later.
I haven't given her the pumpkin yet, because she just had critical care about 2 hours ago, but I'll try giving her some in a little while.

 

[Maureen Las]

Is the pedialyte flavored:

if it is and she hates it you can syringe apple juice and water or other flavors diluted a lot and maybe she will like one of them:?

 

[ChandieLee]

The pedialyte is flavored. I think I may go back to the watered-down apple juice because she seemed to like it. I just thought the pedialyte would be better for her.

I tried the canned pumpkin. She didn't like that either. Belle is a very picky bunny. Should I continue to syringe it to her even though she doesn't like it? I mean, I do have critical care.

 

[Maureen Las]

Pumpkin was easier for me to get in them in a syringe than CC but if she likes CC better go with that..

 

[ChandieLee]

She honestly doesn't like either one of them. She's wicked picky. Which one would be best for her?

 

[Maureen Las]

Critical care has everything in it they need including probiotics so I would go with the CC

 

[ChandieLee]

Thanks

 

[krsbunny]

Hi All,

I did have time today to check out the various veterinary texts I have regarding extraction of molars or "cheek teeth" in rabbits. All that had information on the subjectseemed to be in agreement that extraction was recommended only if teeth were already loose or infected and that recovery tended to be more difficult when multiple teeth were extracted at the same time (although this is sometimes necessary because of the state the teeth are in). Reasons given were:

• Fragile bone structure of the jaw (and associated risk of breaking it)
• The fact that rabbits have very long tooth roots that go very deep into the jaw
• Removing cheek teeth that are not looseis major surgery (loose teethoften comes out with no difficulty).Recovery can be long and difficult (because of trauma to the mouth during extraction), especially if multiple teeth are involved.

A couple of the texts pointed out that each cheek tooth "opposes" at leat two other teeth, making it unnecessary (and sometimes inadvisable) to extract them in pairs. The more teeth that are removed, the more the others will "shift", making occlusion problems even worse.

My own experience (and that of close friendswho have dealt with dental problems in rabbits) is that when teeth are loose or badly infected, the bunny usually bounces back from removal quickly ... probably because the discomfort of having the teeth was greater than the discomfort of having them removed.

Personally, I would not choose to have a rabbit's teethextracted as an alternative to regular filing of spurs. At one point Murray was having his done every 2-4 weeks... and he stillhad to have them done every 6-8 weeks after he was diagnosed with heart disease. There is some risk every time anesthesia is required ... and I don't know that itisn't somewhat"cumulative."How badly the rabbit is stressed by having teeth done and what we humans can afford also have to be part of each individual decision.

As I was writing this, it occurred to me thatmolar extraction in rabbits iscomparable to humans having our wisdom teeth extracted ... whereas tooth extraction in dogs and cats is probably more like having our other teeth pulled.Different dentists have differentphilosophies on that ...what is right for one patientis not necessarily right forthe next. When I was in my late 20's, my dentist told me I needed to have my wisdom teeth out "before I was 30." I live by the philosophy "If it's not broken, don't fix it" ... so I got a 2nd opinion. That dentist looked at my wisdom teeth and said "If they were mine, I wouldn't have them pulled." I changed dentists ... my mother and my husband still go to thedentist who told me to have them removed. I'm now 54 and (knock wood) still have my wisdom teeth. If and when they really bother me, I'll have them pulled.

Kathy

 

[Maureen Las]

Well now I am convinced that thevet that was in training to be a dentist should not have pulled 6 teeth at once. I say in my post that they were infected but , to be honest, I think that they weren't as she only told me they were infected whenI told her that Dr. gengler would only pull the abscessed or loose ones (that almost came out with out any effort)

http://www.rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=39315&forum_id=16&page=1

This is my post from Sept. and the pics of his swollen jaw on page 2. I am very glad that he made it through that butI spent weeks being a private duty nurse to him


If you read this post it may back up what you are saying

Thanks so much for that info
Maureen

 

[ChandieLee]

Thanks for the info. The more I read up on it, the more I think extracting her teeth would be a really bad decision. Filing them every two months doesn't seem to be stressful for Belle and as long as I don't get another huge bill, it definitely won't be a problem for me.

I do have another problem- Belle was supposed to go to the vet tomorrow morning but apparently we're being hit with a snow storm, not to mention that it's snowimg pretty bad right now. Well, Belle is looking worse than she has all week. She's a little lazier than normal but still alert, she's drooling and she won't eat or drink on her own at all. I can't even get her to the emergeny vet because of the evil, evil snow.:grumpy:I'm kind of at a loss as to what I should do.

 

[Maureen Las]

ChandieLee wrote:

Thanks for the info. The more I read up on it, the more I think extracting her teeth would be a really bad decision. Filing them every two months doesn't seem to be stressful for Belle and as long as I don't get another huge bill, it definitely won't be a problem for me.

I do have another problem- Belle was supposed to go to the vet tomorrow morning but apparently we're being hit with a snow storm, not to mention that it's snowimg pretty bad right now. Well, Belle is looking worse than she has all week. She's a little lazier than normal but still alert, she's drooling and she won't eat or drink on her own at all. I can't even get her to the emergeny vet because of the evil, evil snow.:grumpy:I'm kind of at a loss as to what I should do.

I agree Chandie that I am not going to let anyone pull more of Beau's teeth unless they are infected or abscessed.
if you cannot get to the vet you will need to syringe fluids and food until you can get there. (Critical care, pure pumpkin, baby food , ground up pellets mixed with water etc)

Iknow how it is I had to cancel 2 appts because of the snow in Dec and my rabbit Beau was really bad.