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Forum HOUSE RABBIT Q & A Incontinence due to hormone imbalance?!?

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    • LolaBuns
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        I took Lola to get her xrays today to make sure she didn’t have any stones or sludge. The xrays were good…no evidence of anything wrong. The vet now thinks it might be due to a lack of estrogen due to her being spayed. Except I don’t even know for sure if she is spayed or not. The vet thinks that if she responds to some estrogen treatments then we can safely assume she is spayed. I don’t know what to think. I mean, other than those two days her bum has been dry although it has been kind of a yellowish color and some days it’s more yellow than others. And some days she pees on the floor constantly. Like when she is laying there and getting pets she will hop away and there will be a wet spot on the floor behind/under her. Or she will hop around the room leaving little puddles everywhere. Or she will hop around the room and I can see little bits come out with every hop. Sometimes she will pee a little and then go hopping for her litter box and finish in there. Some days it seems to be getting worse then on other days she doesn’t do it hardly at all. She does pee in corners (we were warned about that one when we adopted her) and she occasionally tries to pee on the dogs (she peed on me the first night we had her too). How do I tell the difference between marking/spraying and incontinence? I tried soaking up the pee and putting it in the litter box like they say for litter training but it’s been 2 months and it’s not any better if not worse. 


      • Sarita
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          Well, what did the person tell you about her being spayed that you adopted her from? Surely they would know if they were the first owner….


        • Megabunny
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            I believe hormonal wetting would be the spraying and infection would be peeing on the floor. How old is she? I know dogs get that hormonal thing but don’t know if rabbits can be treated the same. Dogs get it because their lower estrogen level, later in life, makes things relax and the urine just spills out of their bladder when they’re laying down . Don’t know if this can really happen in rabbits. I’ve only heard of it in dogs.


          • LolaBuns
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              The person I got her from was the second owner and didn’t know much about her. She didn’t know if she was spayed or not. She will be 2 years in August. The vet treated her for a UTI first but nothing changed. She is the same now as before the antibiotics. Then she did a urinalysis and it was negative. Then yesterday we did xrays and they didn’t show anything either. She had an appointment at the end of March for a spay but her liver enzymes were really high and the vet didn’t want to do it and put her on some meds for liver coccidia to see if that helped. I don’t know if I should give her the hormones and wait on the appointment to see if she is spayed (vet sad they had to basically sedate her and prep her for surgery to see if she had a scar or not) or just schedule the spay as soon as her liver enzyme levels are ok.


            • Sarita
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                If it were my rabbit I would wait for the spay. I’ve taken in a few rabbits from shelters for spays only to discover they were indeed spayed – it’s not always something you can easily tell.

                I would suspect that if she was spayed the original owner would have mentioned that fact to the 2nd owner as it is usually a positive for finding your pet a new home which is why I suspect she probably is not spayed.


              • LolaBuns
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                  So you think the peeing while she is sitting there being pet and hopping around is marking versus something wrong then? Sorry for so many questions I am just worried about her and I want to do the right thing for her I just have no idea what that is. I did wonder about it being just marking because she doesn’t do it while sitting on the dining room floor (she won’t hop or walk around out there because it is vinyl flooring).


                • jerseygirl
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                    Can the hormone levels be checked through blood work?

                    Was the vet able to determine any abnormalities to the liver with the X-ray?
                    What coccidia med is she on?

                    I’m wondering if E.cuniculi could be another possibility for the urine issue and possibly the raised liver enzymes.

                    I’m curious about Lola’s diet. I discovered by chance that some of the greens I fed *possibly* exacerbated Jersey’s urinating problem because of their diuretic properties.


                  • LolaBuns
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                      jerseygirl ~ I can ask about the blood work, I am not sure. She said the xrays were normal and I didn’t think to ask about how the liver looked. I was too worried about the bladder I guess. She was on Albon for 10 days. She finished that on April 7 and the vet said we had to wait 4-6 weeks to do another blood test to see if the enzymes were still high. What is E. cuniculi?

                      Lola gets romaine lettuce, cilantro, celery, parlsey, kale and mustard greens. She gets a tiny piece of banana when I have my protein smoothie every morning and a couple craisins during the day. And her pellets of course. When I got her she drank from a water bottle but she wasn’t drinking very much at all so I put a bowl in her cage to see if she would drink more that way and she immediately quit using the bottle. She started out only drinking a little bit each day but has been steadily drinking more and more and now she will almost finish her bowl just about every day.

                      I have been trying to slowly introduce her to more variety. We just started the mustard greens at the beginning of this week. Which ones should I stay away from?


                    • jerseygirl
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                        Many of the good bunny greens are diuretic to some degree and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I imagine they help flush out excess calcium the body didnt need.
                        Parsley and celery are certainly 2. I’m not certain about mustard greens…
                        If you’re keen to experiment, try eliminate just one veg at a time and note any changes.

                        Curly endive was a regular veg I fed and that was the one I started to give less frequently. Just personal experience. It no way solved the problem but there just seemed to be less pee puddles.

                        E.Cuniculi is a parasite and can cause a wide variety of different symptoms. Hopefully this below explains better. Link to full article is at the end.

                        What is E. cuniculi?

                        E. cuniculi is a protozoan parasite that is spread through spores that are shed in the urine of infected rabbits. A rabbit may contract it at a young age from an infected mother or from cage mates who are shedding spores, or later in life from an infected companion. The parasite attacks the nervous system and major organs, causing a variety of symptoms including head tilt, liver disease, kidney disease, cataracts, incontinence, loss of function in the legs (back, front, or both), nystagmus (eye twitching), and/or other neurological symptoms.
                        Kathy Smith http://www.rabbitnetwork.org/articles/treatment.shtml


                      • LolaBuns
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                          She does get celery frequently as it’s something we always use for us for dinners and whatnot. I could try cutting it out and see what happens. She doesn’t get that much parsley. I buy it once a month or so for her because she seems to really like it but I heard that she shouldn’t have too much of it somewhere though I can’t remember why exactly.

                          I think we are going to try the hormone treatment the vet wants to do. We still have 3 weeks before we can do another liver enzyme test anyway. The vet seemed to think it wouldn’t take long before we saw some improvement if it was going to work. I am definitely going to ask about the E. cuniculi though if it doesn’t work and her liver enzymes are still high.


                        • GemmaW
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                            Hi, just wondered how you & your bun are getting on? We’re having similar problems with Mini our 2 1/2 yr old mini lop. She’s had X-rays & ultrasound & everything looks ok. She’s spayed & the vet thinks the incontinence is caused by hormones so we’re using a drug for dogs called Propalin (I’m in the UK). It seemed to help for a while but recently she’s had yet another infection (we thought it might be vent disease), possibly brought on by a lowered immune system & the incontinence, so the accidents have been more frequent. We’ve had a particularly bad day today & she’s been wet several times. We’re hoping that since she finished antibiotics today, the Propalin will kick in again soon. Otherwise it’s back to the drawing board! I’d be keen to hear how you find the hormone treatment.


                          • LolaBuns
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                              GemmaW ~ Sorry I haven’t updated in awhile but life here got very hectic and I just haven’t had time to be online for anything. When I called the vet back to tell her our decision I asked about possible side effects of the hormone if she wasn’t spayed (since we really don’t know yet if she is or not) the vet said she didn’t know but was going to find out. She called back saying that when she called a couple of rabbit vets that she knows somewhere else, they didn’t think it was the hormone thing and was reluctant to put her on the hormones without knowing if she was spayed or not. So we decided to wait until her liver levels are normal and we can schedule the spay while doing additional blood tests when we go in for the liver enzyme test.

                              She was really good for about 2 weeks, only had a few spots of pee where it didn’t belong and mostly in the spots that the dogs like to lay by her pen. Then this past week we are back to peeing and pooping EVERYWHERE. So maybe it really is marking. I have to call as soon as the vet opens this morning and make her an appointment for her blood tests. It’s finally time! Fingers crossed everything comes up normal this time.


                            • GemmaW
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                                We’ve also had lots of pooping outside the litter tray, and I’ve wondered if it’s just a loss of litter habits, esp as the start of it all coincides with us getting Jay, who Mini is now bonded to *sigh* so hard to work out!

                                Fingers crossed for you! Let us know how the blood tests go if you can

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                            Forum HOUSE RABBIT Q & A Incontinence due to hormone imbalance?!?