Temporary Neurological Episode?

[sidney_bunny]

Hello,

My rabbit is almost 5 years old, male, and other than an intolerance to vegetables has been healthy. He just had a full physical exam with blood work and other tests two months ago. No issues.

This morning he was not able to bend forward to eat his cecotropes and literally rolled/fell over each time he tried. I noticed that he was unable to move his right leg like normal. His entire body was leaning to the right. I got him out of his cage and he was acting disoriented. After about 5 minutes he began to slowly improve and was completely back to normal within an hour. The following five hours have been perfectly normal with eating, drinking, using the bathroom, jumping, and general playing. He has a 3 story cage with ramps and is having no problems going up and down.

My rabbit vet is not available until next week.

I've read a lot about EC and other problems but have yet to find any stories about temporary "episodes". Has anyone had this experience?

Thanks

 

[JBun]

It sounds to me more like a stroke or possibly a seizure. EC can be a cause of seizures, but there are also many other causes. With a stroke, it can cause weakness or loss of function on one side of the body. Hopefully it was just a one time thing, but that will also depend on what may have caused it. If it was a stroke, I'm not sure there is a whole lot besides supportive care, that can be done. With seizures, there are treatment options depending on the cause, and it's usually best to start them asap, especially in the case of EC. But to me, it seems like it could have been a stroke. It would probably be good to contact your vet office asap, even though your vet isn't in, and maybe they can advise you what to do. It may just be a matter of keeping an eye on him to make sure it doesn't happen again, but I'm not sure as there isn't a whole lot of info regarding strokes in rabbits.

Here is some info on both conditions, if you want to read up on it.

http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/Neurology/seizure.htm
http://wildpro.twycrosszoo.org/S/00dis/Miscellaneous/Stroke_lagomorphs.htm

 

[sidney_bunny]

It sounds to me more like a stroke or possibly a seizure. EC can be a cause of seizures, but there are also many other causes. With a stroke, it can cause weakness or loss of function on one side of the body. Hopefully it was just a one time thing, but that will also depend on what may have caused it. If it was a stroke, I'm not sure there is a whole lot besides supportive care, that can be done. With seizures, there are treatment options depending on the cause, and it's usually best to start them asap, especially in the case of EC. But to me, it seems like it could have been a stroke. It would probably be good to contact your vet office asap, even though your vet isn't in, and maybe they can advise you what to do. It may just be a matter of keeping an eye on him to make sure it doesn't happen again, but I'm not sure as there isn't a whole lot of info regarding strokes in rabbits.

Here is some info on both conditions, if you want to read up on it.

http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/Neurology/seizure.htm
http://wildpro.twycrosszoo.org/S/00dis/Miscellaneous/Stroke_lagomorphs.htm

Thanks for the information. I did not see what happened immediately before he was falling over. It did not occur to me he might have had a seizure. I will report back what the vet has to say. In the meantime it's been almost 12 hours and he seems to be 100% back to normal.

 

[majorv]

We have a 5 1/2 year old rabbit who has had temporary episodes of, I would call, a minor seizure. He doesn't fall over but looks unsteady and sort of hunkers down with his ears flat. It passes within a minute and he's fine after that. We had him checked, did Safeguard for possible EC, but never figured out what the problem is/was. At least he doesn't have them very often...hopefully, you can figure out what's going on with your bunny, but you may not.

 

[sidney_bunny]

We have a 5 1/2 year old rabbit who has had temporary episodes of, I would call, a minor seizure. He doesn't fall over but looks unsteady and sort of hunkers down with his ears flat. It passes within a minute and he's fine after that. We had him checked, did Safeguard for possible EC, but never figured out what the problem is/was. At least he doesn't have them very often...hopefully, you can figure out what's going on with your bunny, but you may not.

Does he have any issues with movement after the seizure?

 

[majorv]

No, once it passes he acts normal.

 

[JBun]

A stroke would be more likely to affect movement.

 

[sidney_bunny]

I just remembered that his very first x-ray showed some type of damage to his spinal cord (or discs?) that must have healed when he was a young bunny. Presumably he was dropped or something before I got him. My vet has been monitoring it but our annual exam this year did not include an x-ray. We were going to do that next year.

I was wondering if this could alternatively been a back spasm. He was in the position that would be the most stressful on his back when I found him (bending forward: mouth to his bottom area). FWIW, he has been very active in the past 24 hours after the incident. If I did not witness the incident, there would be no indication it ever happened.

I suppose this will be a question for the vet during our appointment.

 

[sidney_bunny]

After 1 week, there have been no more symptoms. Everything has been normal in terms of activity, health, and behavior. The problem was really only noticeable for 7 minutes that day.

The vet drew blood to do an EC test. It should take two weeks.

The vet's other theory relates to the healed spinal damage. It's possible he hit the side of the cage when trying to get his cecotropes. He would have hit against these wooden chew guards that are only 1" from the floor level. Perhaps he pinched a nerve or something else happened along that line of thought.

Something new might be an issue. We noticed that he seemed to space out or go into a daze in the corner of the vet's office. He did not react to sound or our movement toward him. After 1-2 minutes he was back to normal when the vet touched him. Since he normally sleeps with his eyes open, I don't know if this has been a recurring problem. I assumed when he is not reactive to slight sound or slight movement around him that he is just sleeping. Over the past year I have noticed he is nodding a bit when sleeping and also making some noise when sleeping. I'm just adding this to the thread for completeness.

I will update the thread with the EC test results since I was not able to find a similar story in the archives.

 

[JBun]

Certainly any spinal damage can cause motor function and neurological symptoms.

Neurological symptoms like spacing out or being dazed, can sometimes be due to EC, or other condition affecting the brain. I think this is especially significant for it to have happened in your vets office where most rabbits would be on high alert. Stress could have possibly been a trigger for it.

 

[Mai-Britt]

I’ve just found your thread and I’m curious what happened with you bun. I know of a rabbit with similar symptoms. The vet has been contacted.
I hope you will give me an update.

 

[sidney_bunny]

@Mai-Britt

I'm sorry, I didn't realize someone replied to this thread. I wish I had more useful news. We never had another incident exactly like that and it's 3 1/2 years later.

I am seeing a possibly related symptom where he cannot get himself upright from a laying down position (with feet kicked out). I think he may have pulled something due to the thrashing around because he was temporarily limping afterwards. That went away within hours. He seems to be walking around normal at all other times. He's currently confined so there's no climbing ramps, stairs, and no jumping. I use what I think is some kind of garden pan as a walk-in litter box. It has 3 short sides.

The nodding off issue probably became the new normal because I stopped noticing it. In the last month, it has become more noticeable. He's falling asleep (it seems) half way through eating hay or when he's doing something else. He doesn't normally space out with his head an inch of the hay basket. He has always slept with his eyes open so it's hard to tell when he's actually sleeping. Oddly, it's not like he has slowed down overall. He still like his routine of running around the house and exploring each room. It's just these few moments that are odd.

Otherwise, the only other medical issue since this thread started was he can no longer tolerate any type of food except timothy hay. No lettuce, treats, pellets. Even going all orchard grass (when our timothy hay supplier ran out for the season) caused a major overgrowth of cecotropes. No idea if this is related.

3 1/2 years ago I thought he wouldn't have made it 6 months. As grateful as I am for all that time, all I can think about is hoping we get another year.

Hopefully this particular fact pattern helps someone else figure it out in the future.