Never thought I'd be doing this again.
We had a rabit with respiratory problems and he was on a mix of treatments, non of which had been tried on rabbits as far as I am aware. He was sadly PTS last year after he developed a head tilt as well. We had bought a aerocat inhaler for him and he was on corvental, a medication for dogs to open up the airways.
Yesterday we rushed Fliss, one of our rats into the vet as she was breathing heavily ( she has had regular treatment for this problem and it has never really got any better), off her food and cold. The vet gave her a steroid injection and an antibiotic, and told me to take her back today. When I tok her in, he confessed he didn't think he would see her and doesn't hold out much hope. He suspects she has lung scarring due to previous damage, and there isn't much more we can do, it makes sense really as if she had an infection she would be more likely to have a fever than lowered temperature.
SO, the fight is on. We have made a chamber for her to have a squirt of bronchiodilator from the inhaler and she will go onto corvental. I did a bit of research last night and found a rescue that uses corvental and metacam to treat this type of problem, but the inhaler idea is a last ditch attempt to help her.
We headed off to Tesco after work to buy bananas, chicken, fish, raisins and cheese to temp her to eat, and so far she has eaten the chicken and banana. The banana is particularly good, because with Smokey we used it to pick up the little corvental balls and he ate them on the banana., so hopefully they will work with her. She also has a snuggle pad to keep her temp up.
I admit, I will be a bit anxious about checking her in the morning, but live in hope we can help her.
Please keep your fingers crossed for her.
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