HIP DISLOCATION IN A RABBIT
Dr
Sing Kong Yuen, BVMS (Glasgow), MRCVS
Saturday
09 July, 2010 |
 toapayohvets.com
Be Kind To Pets
Veterinary Education
Project 2010-0129 |
This 24-year-old
veterinary student with bronze yellow hair and a left
ear stud towered one head over Auntie Margaret
who used to help his mum to change his diapers when he was an infant. He
hugged her and said goodbye after the dinner. He would be
going back to Perth for his second session of the year
veterinary undergraduate studies in Murdoch University
tomorrow Sunday, July 4, 2010.
Auntie Margaret had
been feeling pain in her left leg for many years and had
seen many doctors. She could not walk for long now.
She even went to the Chinese TCM doctors and took all
sorts of multi-vitamins, herbal medicine and drugs. Yet
her pain persisted over the years. One doctor diagnosed
spinal problems. Another thought it was due to a nerve
disorder. X-rays and scans were done over the last ten
years. The pain persisted.
"What's the diagnosis?" I asked Auntie Margaret at the
dinner. She could not put a name to it. "One doctor
asked if I had fallen down when I was young," she told
me. "But I don't remember any fall."
"What did X-rays and scans show?" I asked Auntie
Margaret who is in her late 50s. "Is it hip joint
arthritis?" The joy of daily walks with her husband
Uncle Francis was no more nowadays. She was advised not
to squat nor jump. Drugs stop her pain for some time and
then the pain would recur. From her description
that the X-rays show a normal right hip joint with
"rounded (joint) space" compared to the left hip joint
which had "rough" edges, I deduced that she had a left
hip dislocation not diagnosed early. Now, the femoral
head had rubbed against the acetabulum and had shown
arthritic changes. I had not the chance to see her X-ray
but from her description I could guess that she has a
chronic left hip joint arthritis. Has she got a
shallow acetabulum and therefore had dislocated her
right hip after some exertion?
"What treatment did
the doctors propose?" I asked. The student's mum, Julia
had told me that Auntie Margaret's doctor had proposed
sticking a metallic pin into the bone but that pin had
to be removed after 10 years. Auntie Margaret did not
fancy some metal sticking inside her bone. So I asked
Auntie Margaret what was the doctor's advice during the
farewell dinner yesterday, Friday, June 2, 2010 at a Toa
Payoh Eating house selling steaks and fried chicken
which would shoot Uncle Francis' and Julia's blood cholesterol
through the roof. Both are not bothered with the Health
Ministry's campaign to lead a healthy life-style by
eating more vegetables and no fried food. Steaks and
fried chicken are too good to resist. I did not order my
steak as the others did. I try to restrain myself
and I can assure you that the temptation to eat steak
once in a few months was just too much to resist. The
spirit is willing but the flesh is weak as I see Uncle
Francis finishing all his deep fried chicken wings and
Julia enjoying her steak.
Auntie Margaret had resigned to her fate of growing old
with pain. Therefore getting joint pains was due to old
age. She said: "The doctor
says it is too late for laser treatment now. He wants me
to rub a gel." To me, it seems that this not a
treatment. How would gel help? Auntie
Margaret can walk but with pain. I don't know whether
there is a cure for her. What is the medical name of the
diagnosis actually? She could not tell me. Coincidentally,
I had just treated a rabbit with an equivalent hip
dislocation pain problem like Auntie Margaret.
 In the rabbit with hip
dislocations, the intense pain stopped the rabbit from eating or
drinking normally. I put the rabbit under isoflurane gas
anaesthesia to manipulate the left femoral head back
into the hip joint. Without the anaesthesia, the rabbit
just would be stressed out by pain and may just die of
fright. Under anaesthesia, the joint was clicked
back. When the rabbit woke up after slinging the left
leg up, the rabbit
eats and drinks.
In this case, I had slung the rabbit's left leg up to
put the right femur back into the hip joint as requested
by the owner who must have had done lots of research in
the internet. He did not want surgery (cut off the
femoral head) and so came to me to get the sling
conservative treatment. His rabbit was prescribed
painkillers for 4 days. "It even hops onto the grate to
pee and poop too", the young man who is a student told
me 4 days later That was great news.
As the left hip was fully dislocated, the chances of
success are slim, I told the young man who really cared
about the rabbit. I think somebody had sat on the rabbit
and dislocated the hip. I have successes in many cases of
partial dislocation in dogs and cats. One I click the
femoral head back into the hip joint and enforce cage
rest for many days, the dog or cat will become normal.
The same applies to rabbits too. But this rabbit had
totally luxated the left hip. So, the owner will need to
come for weekly review, if he ever does.
In this rabbit's case, X-rays are useful and he had them
done at another practice. Even without X-ray, the vet
just extend the two hind feet backwards and compare the
length of the hind legs. The badly dislocated left hip
is considerably shorter. Also, the femoral head can be
palpated with fingers. Of course, X-rays comfort the
owner.
I hope this 5-month-old rabbit will recover back to
normal unlike Auntie Margaret. If only she was diagnosed
early as she had seen too many doctors over the years
without a diagnosis. For this rabbit, the
dislocation was less than 7 days and if it recovers
fully, it will be hopping on all 4 legs.
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 |
 |
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Gas mask isoflurane anaesthesia
prevents pain during the
manipulation of the hip joint. The
left hind leg is much shorter than
the right hind leg |
Under anaesthesia, the left
femoral head is clicked back
into the hip joint and the
sling is applied |
The rabbit was able to eat and
drink after being given
pain-killer and immobilising the
left hip with the sling. |
I hope that muscle
inflammation around the left hip had not been too severe
and that the femoral head would go back into the hip. I doubt that this
rabbit would be fully cured as the femoral head had come out
entirely. It would suffer a life-time of pain like
Auntie Margaret but would not be able to talk about it. But there are miracles
as the rabbit is young. When there is life,
there is hope.
For more information
on rabbit's hip dislocation, see the following:
http://www.fuzzy-rabbit.com/fuzzyleg.htm
http://homepage.mac.com/mattocks/morfz/dislocated.html
http://www.rabbit.org/journal/2-7/hop.html
|
July 9, 2010. The following
is from:
http://www.fuzzy-rabbit.com/phpBB2/posting.php?mode=quote&p=111232
My 7 year old english angora, Tiffany, got a
dislocated hip after taking her to a groomer. Of
course the groomer denied anything happened. This
happened 3 weeks ago, my vet tried but was
unsuccessful to put her hip back in place. We did
the bandage thing but she will not keep it on for
more than a couple of days.
My vet said it may be doing more harm than good
since the bandage comes loose then holds her leg
in the wrong position, plus the bandage made her
miserable as she tried to move. She tries to move
around, by pushing her feet while she is laying on
her side (she is getting quite good at it) but I
know this is not a good way for her to live.
When she was at the vet a week ago we were hopeful
she would recover on her own once her bones
started to heal and would be able to move around
with little discomfort, I have been working with
her, trying to keep her leg underneath her in a
natural position but it is getting harder and
harder for her leg to bend. My vet said that
surgery is probably going to be her only option at
this point. Surgery to remove the tip of the femur
to eliminate any pain.
I did some research on it and it looks to be
highly successful. Unfortunately it is not cheap,
US$700! I went ahead and scheduled her surgery for
the 19th of July, but I am hoping to keep working
with her and maybe she will be using her leg by
then and we can cancel the surgery. I hope your
little one can make it without the surgery.
What kind of a bandage are you using? My vet
called it a "sling" and was made of this stretchy
bandage material, but it did not take long for my
bunny to kick it off.
I can't reply to the above writer as the
administrators of the forum says:
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A successful case of sling
bandage is shown below: |
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Use a sticky sling bandage to
prevent the rabbit biting it off.
Use oral NSAID pain-killers for at
least 7 days |
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More info at:
Rabbits
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judy@toapayohvets.com
tel: +65 9668-6469, 6254-3326 |
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