Posted by Katherine on August 28, 2000 at 12:43:19:
In Reply to: bladder stones??? posted by iZ's mom on August 26, 2000 at 18:40:54:
You're right, it doesn't sound like stones, but I thought of bladder sludge..rabbits can get this. It causes their urine to be thick and 'chunky.' I think it's basically the beginning of stones due to a too high level of protein, I think? I could be wrong about that. Could you get a piece of the stuff in his urine to the vet so they could send it to a lab for analysis? That way you could know for sure if it's the beginning of stones and what kind of stone (i.e. what kind of crystals are forming.
Katherine
: (cross posted)
: ok ~ last fall when iZ had surgery (see footnote) the doc opened his bladder cuz it was so distended and "cleaned out a ton of chunky gunky stuff" ... at the time, i didn't ask any questions about it cuz, well, i'd just found out he had severe kidney damage and bladder chunks didn't seem important at the time ... (also the vet didn't seem sure as to what they were either ...?)
: after surgery, for a few weeks, iZ passed alot of chunks in with the urates ... they got smaller + fewer in number until i quit seeing them altogether ... since they disappeared, i just never bothered wondering or finding out what they were ...
: the last week or so, i'm seeing them again ... at first just small flakes in his urates, you can't see them, but you can feel them when you squish the urates between your fingers ... (yes, i 'play with' poop too ... ) ... tonight he passed some bigger chunks than i've seen in a while and so now i'm worried/wondering again ...
: they do not look like any bladder or kidney stones that i've been able to find any pix of ... they look exactly like bits of plaster ... most of them are pure white, but some are more cream colored ... most of them crumble into nothing very easily ... some crumble to nothing except for a teeny hard crumb that doesn't crush ... it's white or cream also ... last fall, alot of the ones he passed looked exactly like plaster that had hardened in a bowl or something and then broken off ... they were very smooth on one side ... so far the ones i'm seeing now are jagged all over ... one was close to the size of a nickle ... *yeouch* don't ya think that had to have *hurt*!?
: any thoughts on what these are, why they are????
: thanks!
: Bon.
:
: Footnote:
: iZ had emergency exploratory surgery last fall to determine why some very small pieces of plastic were stuck in him (per x-rays)
: his stomach was opened, his cecum was opened, his bladder was huge + grossly distended + also opened + cleaned out ... his kidneys were huge, swollen + pressing against the cecum ... kidneys were biopsied + he was diagnosed as having severe kidney damage due to a long-term, low-grade infection ...