- 2 year old FS rabbit with a history of inappetence
- Bloodwork shows an elevated ALT
- Ultrasound showed a normal liver, normal kidneys, normal bladder, and lots of gas in the GI tract
- The stomach wall was normal but the lumen seemed distended although all I could see was strong shadowing.
- Is this normal rabbit stomach gas pattern or could there be a hairball in there? I also can’t remember if rabbits get aerophagic when stressed (they breathe through their nose).
- 2 year old FS rabbit with a history of inappetence
- Bloodwork shows an elevated ALT
- Ultrasound showed a normal liver, normal kidneys, normal bladder, and lots of gas in the GI tract
- The stomach wall was normal but the lumen seemed distended although all I could see was strong shadowing.
- Is this normal rabbit stomach gas pattern or could there be a hairball in there? I also can’t remember if rabbits get aerophagic when stressed (they breathe through their nose).
Comments
With the progressive
With the progressive shadowing this fits with a hairball. Gas artifacts do not progressively shadow. I would GI lube him up:)
Just to clarify, progressive
Just to clarify, progressive shadowing means very black and not a dirty shadow as you get distal from the probe? There were also areas of small intestine that had similar strong shadowing but no echogenic FB and no evidence of obstruction (not distended and no fluid retention). I am wondering if she could have hairballs through out her GI.
Hairballs have I guess you
Hairballs have I guess you can call it a ‘dirty shadow” as it looks like stool shadow in the colon but its against the liver when the hairball or similar is in the gastric lumen. So you can help differntiate transverse colon from gastric luminal material with similar sonographic appearance by position with the liver. The colon is always separated from the liver by the stomach but they can butress right up next to each other and be confusing at times when sonographic appearance is the same regarding luminal material.