{{{Vibes for Simba}}} He choked on his pellets and is in intensive care!

[mijOok]

Please send some healing vibes for Simba! I am so worried right now and I could only think to turn to BinkyBunny. Last night when feeding him his usual dinner serving of pellets, he dug right in as usual and suddenly picked his head up and stopped… it was the most horrifying experience to see him choke. I read some other posts about choking where the bun coughed some and was okay afterwards. In Simba’s case he started coughing up mucus from his mouth and nose and would open his mouth to a wheeze! My husband and I rushed him to the ER and x-rays show signs of aspiration. But there are no exotic vets on ER shifts 24/7 so I had to hospitalize him in the ICU until he can be transferred to exotics in the morning. The ER vet said she was starting him on Baytril last night to prevent aspirated pneumonia while keeping him in an oxygen tank because he was still having a hard time breathing. I am just waiting for the exotic vet to contact me after seeing him today. I got to visit him before leaving him for hospitalization overnight and I am so heartbroken from seeing him sit there trying really hard to breathe that his head was just bobbing… 

Has anyone experienced their bun choking to the state that they’re coughing up wet discharge? Also, I’ve always said Simba inhales his food… but this time he literally inhaled it… any advice on how to get him to slow down when getting his pellets? Or should I be cutting pellets out of his diet altogether?? He currently gets about a 1/4 cup each day and is 2 yrs 3 mos old about 5lbs.

Sorry it’s such a long post… I just didn’t know where else to let it all out and that people would understand the extent of my worrying… 

[Deleted User]

OH NO! Not my precious Simba??? I’m so distressed mijOok so can only imagine how you are…..

((((((((((Simba)))))))))) hug’s and X’s for you all. I’m so sorry….

Worried!

[Bam]

(((((((((Simba)))))))))

[Cottontail]

{{{Simba}}}

Both our buns eat too quickly, and I end up either hand-feeding the pellets if I’m not in a rush, or mixing the pellets in with some hay so that they have for forage. I hope that the poor boy is okay! We’ve got an older cat in the house that chokes on his food sometimes and it’s horrible; but the only thing you can really do is try to slow them down to keep it from happening.

[jerseygirl]

{{{Simba!}}}
I just saw the pic of him in the other thread mijoOk. Hes so beautiful!
Keep us updated.

[mijOok]

<3 Thank you everyone for the vibes. So far the exotics vet doesn't think it's aspirated pneumonia but the news hasn't gotten better. They said he was doing better today and can be removed from the oxygen tank but something's still wrong. I approved for them to do blood work to investigate further and the results were not what I expected from a choking episode. He's dehydrated, appears to be in pain, is anemic and the vet is worried about a liver torsion or issue rather than pneumonia based on the x-ray that she believes he's had before the choking episode. Fortunately the vet said he was willing to eat some critical care not too long ago but wants to do an ultrasound and continue supportive care at the hospital. But being that they are an animal hospital that serves all pets, I just managed to fit Simba in as an emergency appointment with a rabbit/cat-only facility that is more specialized in rabbits and cheaper because it's not an emergency animal hospital. So I am now heading out of work early to pick Simba up from the animal hospital to transport him to the other facility for a second opinion and where I'm more comfortable with him staying if he still needs overnight medical boarding. =*(

I can’t even stomach the idea of Simba suffering right now or have been in discomfort while he was just hoppy, jumpy and fine less than 24 hours ago…

[jerseygirl]

There was a member that mentioned liver torsion in a post very recently. I’ll PM them and see if they can look in on this thread.
What about teeth? Choking and that dampness under chin is looking more and more like dental issue as Sarita suggested.
More {{{Vibes}}}.

[Cottontail]

{{more vibes}}}
Be well Simba!

[Hazel]

mijOok, I’m so sorry! Poor Simba. Oscar inhales his food too, and he has started choking several times, it’s so scary. We ended up getting him one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/PetSafe-SlimCat-Food-Distributor-Ball/dp/B0018CG40O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319570167&sr=8-1

I works great with his pellets and it really slows him down. The holes are adjustable so you can control how much falls out at a time. Oscar gets 1/8 of a cup a day, and we split that up into 3-4 feedings during the day, minus a couple of pellets for his going to bed treat.

Sending lots of vibes for Simba, I hope he gets better soon!

[CrazyGemini22]

I hope he’s ok. Poor little guy.

[JackRabbit]

{{{{{Simba}}}}}

[RosiePosie]

Oh my gosh poor little guy!!! Sending lots of vibes for Simba!
I hope things improve fast for him!

[BarbaraC]

Hi mijOok. Jerseygirl asked me to reach out to you because my bunny Finnegan recently recovered from liver torsion.
It started with Finn not eating and cowering in a corner of his condo. Finn is the type of bunny that comes running to us when it is time to eat and scarfs down his veggies, so I immediately knew something was wrong. I gave him Critical Care for about 12 hours and treated for gas, praying that that was all it was. When he didn’t get better by the morning I took him to the ER at Angell Memorial. I mentioned intestinal torsion to the vet since I had just read a story on budget bunny about Rocky who had passed away from this and Finn seemed to have all the same symptoms. The vet didn’t suspect this but did suspect liver torsion because his abdomen was tender in the spot where his liver is. However, she was not an exotics vet so I paid the extra to have a consult done. The vet that saw him was a former resident and he had several interns look at him as well. Apparently, they could actually feel the torsion. I’m told that this is fairly uncommon.

Any way, they had drawn blood to check for elevated liver enzymes and this came back positive. The vet then told me that the next step was an ultrasound to confirm the torsion. This was going to be up to $500. Based on the fact that I had ruled out surgery, $2500-4000, since the blood tests had come back basically confirming that it was a liver issue and that all the clinical signs pointed to a liver torsion, I chose not to have the ultrasound. There was no benefit to it. I actually had to argue a little with the vet on this but in the end she agreed that if I wasn’t going to opt for surgery there would be nothing gained from putting him through another test. The treatment was going to be the same either way, supportive care at home.
After I got home I was torn about whether or not I made the right choice opting out of surgery. So I scoured the internet for info. I hadn’t yet joined this forum. What I found were a few anecdotal stories from owners who had all chosen surgery who’s bunnies had recovered and a clinical paper written by a vet at Angell Memorial that did a study of 16 rabbits over 5 years. 9 underwent surgery and 7 were treated with supportive care. Of the 9 that had the surgery all 9 had positive long term outcomes. Of the 7 that received supportive care only 3 survived. You can imagine how conflicted I was with my decision. However, at my followup visit with my vet, who is also a resident at Angell Memorial and a bunny owner himself, he told me that we had made the right decision. Not just because it had a happy ending but also because he has seen both good and poor ourcomes from surgery. I learned that rabbits have have extremely fibrous anatomies and that surgery on them has its own risks. In his experience the surgery has a high rate of failure due to complications and given that we had prior experience with providing supportive care to a sick bunny we were in a good position to choose this option.
He also told me that when he was going to school at Cornell they learned about liver torsion but no one had ever actually seen a case of it, that it is almost exclusivley diagnosed in Boston/New England. This may be because it is somewhat rare and vets don’t even know to look for it and since there was a clinical paper written on th3 subjext by a vet at Angell Memorial they are a lot more conscious of it up here.

You can find an excerpt of the article here http://www.exoticpetmedicine.com/article/S1557-5063(14)00104-9/abstract

Supportive care consisted of giving him Critical Care until he started to eat on his own, pain meds and GI motility meds for 1 week. What you are hoping for is that the liver will scar over where it is twisted and the affected lobe will shrivel up. After one week he was considered fully recovered. The risk during this time is that the twisted lobe will untwist and flood the body with fatal toxins.

I’m so sorry you are going through this with Simba and I am sending you good thoughts. If you have any more questions about this please feel free to reach out to me either through this thread or on a PM. Unfortunately I recently lost a bunny to E Cuniculi so I have more experience than I ever wanted with providing care for sick bunnies.

[jerseygirl]

Thank you so much Barbara! Whether this is what is affecting Simba or not, your account of the experience is valuable and an opportunity for many of us to learn.
Glad to hear your Finnegan recovered!
With the high liver enzymes, I would have been reluctant to have a rabbit undergo surgery too.

MijOok, how’s the boy doing? Hoping he’s through the worst now. I saw a video a few years back of little Dutch bunny coughing clear mucus out of mouth and nose. I can imagine how distressing it was for you to see that happen to Simba.

[Eepster]

{{{Vibes}}} for Simba, and a (((hug))) for you.

[RalphieRabbit]

{{{{{Simba}}}}} let us know how hes doing!!

[MissD]

Poor Simba, I do hope he gets better soon. Lots of hugs for you too mijOok

[mijOok]

Thank you so much everyone and jerseygirl for referring my thread to BarbaraC. I got home very late last night after all the run-around of switching Simba’s care and was going to update this morning with better news. But unfortunately, my Simba baby did not make it overnight and I got the call as I was on the train to work this morning that he had passed. I am at a loss for words at the moment but when I find the words I will be posting in the Rainbow Bridge section.

BarbaraC – I really appreciate your detailed account of Finn’s liver torsion and I’m also so sorry you’ve been through so much with your buns. From the second opinion received at the second facility, I don’t think Simba had liver torsion but I’ve approved a necropsy to be done to find out if Simba had any internal organ issues that would’ve taken him. But your response I’m sure will be very helpful to anyone that may look up liver torsion if they unfortunately come across it as I couldn’t find much when I first tried looking it up initially.

<3 *BinkyFree Simba*

[jerseygirl]

I’m so so sorry! I don’t know how you must have coped getting that call while heading to work. My heart goes out to you.

*** Binky Free Simba***

[LittlePuffyTail]

My heart just fell reading this….I’m so deeply sorry for your loss. I wish there were words that could offer you comfort.

Simba was so lucky to have a family that loved him so much.

((((Binky Free Simba))))))

[Gina.Jenny]

(((binky free, Simba)))

[Bam]

I’m so sorry for your loss. I’m crying for Simba now. So unexpected, so sad. At least he didn’t suffer long.

Binky free, Simba!

[tobyluv]

I’m very sorry about Simba.

[redbunbun]

Oh no, I’m so sorry to hear this! Simba was the cutest little bun. Binky free, Simba!

[CrazyGemini22]

Awe. I’m so sorry. ?

[lws84]

So very sorry for your loss – may your memories never fade of your lovely bunny. <3 +vibes+ <3

[Author]

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