My head tilt story

[Brendon]

Hello all,

I just wanted to quickly recap my story of head tilt recovery from Jan-Mar this year.  I did a ton of reading while I was helping my little foster (now adopted) bunny (1.5 years old) Max deal with head tilt.  We’d only had him a couple months and were saddened to go through it all.

Early January I came home form work and noticed a slight tilt to Max’s head.  It didn’t look like much but not right.  He was hiding in his little house and not coming out for after work greens.  When I picked him up I noticed a bit more limp to his neck but not full on head tilt.  I called the Rabbit Rescue he was from and we agreed a vet visit (but non-emergency) was in order.  I dropped him off first thing in the morning.  He got put on Metacam, an ant-parasite and anti-biotic.  We were also instructed to give him critical care food every 4 hours (which we did religiously at first even getting up in the middle of the night).  After a week or so he go t way worse.  Had a full on head tilt and couldn’t stand.  Eye was swollen and wasn’t able to stay standing.  We got him a little dog bed which was soft and his head could be propped up on the side. Also expanded his playpen style cage and put down a waterproof blanket and removed all hay, food and water.  We switched solely to the critical care food.  When he got this bad we went back to the vet, and were told the prognosis was not good.  She doubted he’d be able to get passed the rolling stage.  We decided to continue treatment for at least 6 weeks total and see.  We slightly upped the Metacam dose and went to twice a day (1.5mil and 1.5mil vs 2.5mil).  We also added iso tears to help his red eye.  At this point he was going into work with my girlfriend so she could feed him and keep him clean.  He lived in a little laundry basket there with towels all around the sides.  Everyone there loved him and were so sad to see him so enfeebled looking.  She would pretty much tuck him in a hoodie and he’d sleep on her chest.  Seemed like he was comfy there.

After about 3 weeks of hardcore care he started to turn around.  Still had trouble standing but he was trying to.  He would eat carrots and started to be interested in parsley and kale.  This allowed me to leave him at home alone with his pen scattered with wet fresh veggies. After a couple more weeks he was up more and not falling down as much so we added water and pellets to his cage.  Soon after that he started rejecting his critical care food.  He was still lethargic but was eating and now pooping in the same spot each day again.  He did run out of Metacam and we didn’t renew it.  Well he perked up after that!.  Poor little guy was doped up!

All in all after about 6-7 weeks he was doing great.  He’s now binkying (which he never did before) and you’d never know he was every sick. His bonding with our other bun is going well and he’s even better at being affectionate with us.

Long story short – don’t give up!  If anyone needs any advice let me know (as the boards were so helpful for me).  I’ll post pics when I get a chance.

[Bam]

Thank you for sharing this lovely story and for taking such great care of little Max. Are you planning on doing repeat courses of the antiparasitic every 6 months?

[Author]

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