Willow leaves

Owing to Reboot needing pain relief for arthritis and having had a blow up with his vet about other aspects of his treatment (see post in Infirmary) I decided to look to Nature for possible help with his probs. I took down Virginia Richardson's book Rabbit Nutrition. V.R. is an MRCVS so isn't just another Jo claiming to be an Herbalist.
In her book she has Weeping Willow as an aid in pain relief; it as Asprin like qualities. I'm wondering: does anyone know anything about this? Whether to feed the leaves (it can be fed) and how much? Or is there a powder/potion/pill that can be used with rabbits?
Or any other pain relief than Loxicom, Metacam etc?

I am afraid I don't know sweetie but please let us know if you find out if it is OK and if so, has it helped the little man at all with his pain.

Hugs
Jo xx

In her lectures Frances Harcourt-Brown talked about giving Calpol to rabbits. Paracetamol being the active ingredient is safe. Apparently Molly Varga uses it too. My vet has been to some of Molly's lectures and says she has started giving Calpol for stasis recently.

Apparently the active substance in willow is predominantly in the bark (another gem of wisdom from FHB lectures)

Turmeric, acts as an anti inflammatory. Lots of people use it successfully on themselves (myself included) and for their animals. There is a very helpful facebook group "Turmeric User Group".

I've considered giving it to my boys as they are 7-8 now and the D!ck Vet owners night we went to a while back they said they had found that 100% of buns over 4yrs they had seen (and x-rayed/ct scanned) had arthritis to some extent. However I am always nervous about feeding the buns something new :|

I'm nervous about it too) feeding new stuff that is).
Reboot has an appointment with the exotics specialist at my old vets on Wed morning.
I'm wondering if this eating/pooing prob could be connected to the GA he had for his X-ray on the 4th June. Looking back I recall he was a long time eating/pooing right after the GA he had for X-rays in Dec. GA's can take a long time to clear and three weeks isn't an outside time, especially when we threw a few days on anti-biotics into the mix.
As I'm thinking at the moment, looking back to the fracture he was anorexic then because of the fracture pain, he was just starting to come back to normal eating/pooing 20 days later when he hurt his mouth and bloated. It took him a good month to recover after that and he had another sedative to allow his mouth to be examined then. Now, he has arthritis and becomes anorexic, we X-ray him and he goes into this weird eating/pooing thing.
It's got my head spinning with all the 'possibles' that keep coming up.
The willow bark would be good, even better the calpol.... if I can get him to take it.

I think you are wonderful for coping as you are doing sweetie, in your mind, you must keep going over the possible causes. I hope the exotics vet gets to the bottom of things. Thanks for keeping us informed lovey and I am sending lots and lots of love to you both.

Hugs
J xx