Pain medicine

[Moonshadow]

I found out this morning that my dad accidentally stepped on my rabbit. Min-Min squiggled away before my dad put his full weight down but I think he knocked his chin on the ground and has tooth pain.

One of his bottom teeth is slightly loose and pushed forward a little. He is very gingerly eating lettuce but hay and pellets seem a little too much for him at the moment.

Does anyone know if there’s any over the counter medication I can give him for pain?

Other than tooth pain he seems perfectly fine, hopping around, curiously following us, licking my leg as I’m writing this.

We can take him to the vet if needed but it may be a couple of hours before that is possible.

 

[Moonshadow]

Update: We called a bunch of vets and each one referred us to someone else or said they were booked out till February.

Does anyone know any foods we can give him in the meantime? He takes nibbles here and there of things but it definitely isn’t enough. He ate about half a strand of hay trying to avoid his front teeth then gave up, though he’ll go back and try again every 15 minutes or so.

 

[Blue eyes]

Any vet worth his/her salt should know this is an emergency and they need to squeeze an appointment in right away. He has to be able to eat or he will go into GI stasis very soon. Perhaps the person answering the phone isn't getting this.

I'd look for a vet recommended by a rabbit rescue and let them know it is an emergency -- that the rabbit isn't able to eat.

 

[Blue eyes]

This place may be able to give a reference. Just explain your situation.
https://www.rescueleague.org/contact-us

 

[Moonshadow]

Any vet worth his/her salt should know this is an emergency and they need to squeeze an appointment in right away. He has to be able to eat or he will go into GI stasis very soon. Perhaps the person answering the phone isn't getting this.

I'd look for a vet recommended by a rabbit rescue and let them know it is an emergency -- that the rabbit isn't able to eat.

Thank you, we are currently calling a bunch of emergency vets. We’re calling one in Massachusetts right now because apparently the ones in NH ‘aren’t equipped to deal with bunnies.’

Update: My dad was able to book an appointment so we’re leaving now.

 

[Moonshadow]

He has a broken jaw and is being kept overnight for a cat scan in the morning. From there the doctors said they’ll figure out whether he needs surgery or can recover at home with pain meds and mush food. So glad we finally found an emergency vet that would look at him.

 

[Moonshadow]

The doctor called because he found out they are too short staffed and cannot due the CT scan tomorrow. Apparently the doctor who was going to check him was exposed to covid. The hospital called a bunch of other hospitals around the area and none can do the scan either since they’re all booked and short staffed.

Min-Min apparently hasn’t been eating at the vets office with a syringe so they’ve been giving him nutrition through ivs or something. The earliest they can now do the cat scan is Monday. They’re going to keep trying to feed him and will give us an update in the morning.

At the moment, my family thinks the best course of action will probably be to bring him home with pain medication and try to feed him in a place he’s comfortable with people he knows. We would bring him back to Bulger veterinary hospital on Monday for the CT scan. The alternative would be to leave him at the emergency vets for the weekend when they may not be able to syringe feed him either meanwhile we’ll be incurring thousands more since he’s under 24hour care.

2022 is not turning out to be a good year

 

[JBun]

He probably would be more comfortable and less stressed at home. Which may help him start to accept syringe feeding. If you still can't get him to accept syirnge feeds, you can always take him back to the vet.

 

[Freedom]

Oh no. Sorry to hear this. I agree bring him home with critical care and pain meds until Monday

 

[Moonshadow]

The vets were able to get him to syringe eat a few hours before we arrived to pick him up. And gave us four doses of pain medicine to get him through till possibly Tuesday. There is a giant snowstorm forecasted for Monday (possibly 10inches) so we may make the scan Tuesday instead.

On the drive home he kept flopping over in his pet carrier.

At home, he “slept” for about 15 minutes in the carrier before going out exploring and re-chinning everything. My dad actually noticed him trying to chew cardboard for a few minutes.

The first syringe feeding was successful. He didn’t really try to struggle at all especially when family members were petting him. Later I noticed him eat one strand of hay with a Timothy head. He ate it on one side of his mouth but it’s definitely progress.

 

[JBun]

That's really great news! Sounds like he's doing much better being at home.

 

[Moonshadow]

He does not like critical care but we got him to have about two syringe fulls this morning, although he spit out some. Vet instructions were to mix one table spoon of critical care with two table spoons of water and feed him as much of it as we can, every 8 hours.

In the following hours today, we’ve noticed he’s been going up to the bowl of crushed pellets we made Thursday and has been eating a bit from that. Also keeps eating a bit of apple.

He also attempted to eat one normal pellet from his regular bowl. He managed it but it took him a minute and he left the regular bowl after the one pellet.

 

[JBun]

One thing you can try is making a little bowl of pellets moistened in warm water. It will soften them up and make them easier for him to chew. If he'll eat enough of this on his own, you may not need to syringe feed as much.

 

[Moonshadow]

One thing you can try is making a little bowl of pellets moistened in warm water. It will soften them up and make them easier for him to chew. If he'll eat enough of this on his own, you may not need to syringe feed as much.

Thank you! We’ll make sure to do that!

 

[Moonshadow]

One thing you can try is making a little bowl of pellets moistened in warm water. It will soften them up and make them easier for him to chew. If he'll eat enough of this on his own, you may not need to syringe feed as much.

Update: Our bunny is so stubborn. We took your advice and softened more pellets with warm water. He refused to go back and eat them till they were completely dry again

 

[Moonshadow]

We switched his critical care to papaya flavored. He doesn’t hate it as much but only had 3/4 of a syringe full. Thank goodness he doesn’t mind the taste of the oral medicine.

We’ve just been feeding him as many random other things we can to see if he’ll eat those instead. So far it’s pretty successful based on what he did on my dad’s foot cushion.

 

[Moonshadow]

It was really bad with snow this morning so we cancelled the ct scan and hope to do it tomorrow instead.

Unfortunately he is out of pain medication and only the exotic doctor can allow us to get more. (I guess technicians can’t renew prescriptions?) Or tell us if the ct scan will work tomorrow. We’re still waiting for a call from the doctor but the way it’s looking right now, we may not be able to get any tonight…

For the record, on Friday we did ask for enough medicine to last till Tuesday in case the storm was bad but the technician checking is out forgot to give us the fourth syringe. We didn’t realize until we’d already driven the 45 minutes home.

 

[Moonshadow]

Took a photo of his teeth today though it looks a bit out of focus. I think it looks closer to normal

 

[JBun]

The tooth does seem to look a bit better and less pulled out of alignment.

 

[Moonshadow]

Min-Min actually did fine without the pain medication.

The vet did finally call us and said we could bring him in tomorrow morning. My dad doesn’t want the CT scan done because our bunny has improved a lot and he might die while being sedated for the scan. I feel like it needs to be done to see all the damage and how it could heal, but am also afraid about the same thing…