[Mysticalwings]

It's been a while, but Im back from school for the summer. I came home and took Zippo to the vet because he had watery poops for a while. Well turns out he had some Giardia and some yeast infection stuff. He had a first round of meds that didn't quite help, but now we are on a second one.

I can tell you restraining him everyday, twice a day is no fun... =[ I got the hold down and all, but catching him is a whole other story, plus he's flighted so meh.
Anyone have any tips? He doesn't do well with the towel, so I prefer just bare hands.

[GreenMeanie]

I prefer a pillow and a couch back for Bill, nothing for Zoey, Zora and John are unpredictable and will bite if they think it will lead them to freedom. With Bill, I had to give up our drug trial a year ago because restraining twice a day and giving bitter yuk was stressing him more than bad liver, so I totally feel for you! Remember PROBIOTICS!

[NorCalDubber]

I use a hand towel or a undershirt, there is no was I can grab him without him being in the cage. What kinda meds do they have him on? My bird had yeast, only saw him poo water once, but he had a lot of bubbles. Hope your bird gets better.

[Boomers girl]

Poor Zippo, not one but two things in him Giving them meds is no fun at all, no matter how you do it they still struggle and hate it. We used our bare hand to hold boomer and made him bite us so we could use the thumb he would bite to keep his mouth open for the syringe to go in or he would clamp his beak as tight as he could.

I hope he gets better soon, yeast can really do some things to there guts if not fully treated.

[Mysticalwings]

Sigh.

A few days after the start of medicine #3, there was no visible change within the droppings. I called the vet and she said that since Zippo is otherwise eating, being normal (relatively),we should just leave him be because he's been through enough with the multiple medicines for 3 weeks. She said if anything else changes we could do a blood test... which is $140 goodness. thats a lot. So for now we've just stopped the meds and i'm just watching him for now. He eats a lottt these days, but otherwise alright. I'm still rather worried of course, but the blood test is a lot of money these days. rawr.

And for some pics...
here he is foraging, being a fatty... literally he's about 40-42 grams these days. Argh. He's flighted so he can fly around, but he doesn't really fly around outside anymore since I've gotten back from school


And while I was weighing him the other day he left a dropping on the scale. To show you how much liquid there is. This one was a lil milky colored. Just a picture if anyone has a clue what might be really wrong.


Oh and He was on...

First:
Nystatin
Metronidazole

Second:
Itraconazole

This post has been edited by Mysticalwings: 11 July 2009 - 11:42 PM

[GreenMeanie]

Well, I am used to paying bills like that... Brenna is sick (the dog) - $150 and no answers, Bill's bloodwork runs around $400, when Zora was sick - I think it was close to $800 without hospitalization... thats when you start bleeding out of your pocket... I feel for you!!!

Remember to put him on good probiotic.

42grams???????? OMG Zora and Zoey are around 53g and they are GCCs John is in the 70's ...
I had a budgie that was into 60's. HE WAS HUGE - big bird for a budgie, I dont think I have ever seen one like him. But he was an English Budgie too, so I guess it makes sense...

[Mysticalwings]

Zippo is apparently part English (or full, so they said at the store, but he doesn't look like one)..so he was always a bit bigger than other budgies. He causes the cage door to move a bit now when he lands on it. xD He was around 35 g. before I left for school.

Also whats this good probiotic you keep talking about?

This post has been edited by Mysticalwings: 12 July 2009 - 02:26 PM

[GreenMeanie]

yogurt, benebac, Harrison's enzyme.... when you give antibioitcs you kill bad bacteria and good - so you have NO bacteria to digest food = stomach ache. You need to put bacteria back in.

[NorCalDubber]

I got bene bac gel from my vet but my bird will not eat it, you can get the power and gel at petsmart. I spent 300 so far on vet bills.

[Mysticalwings]

hm yogurt? like regular plain yogurt? do you just kinda feed it normally?

[NorCalDubber]

Plain live yogurt, my bird didn't care for it much, and gave him some pretty runny poo. Bene bac power is pretty cheap like 15 bucks at petsmart, you can just sprinkle it on his food but it does have sugar in it witch feeds the yeast. I got all this info from green meanie and boomers girl.

[GreenMeanie]

Melody, your vet carries Harroson's enzyme if she is the same one you used a LONG time ago... I much rather use Enzyme than benebac because you are running the risk of feeding yeast with all the sugar in benebac. plain live yogurt is great, but the amount of good bacteria per serving is a lot less. My birds get yogurt as a part of their diet... well MY diet that they claim

[Mysticalwings]

I go to a more bird specific vet now in Santa Clara (Santa Clara Pet Hospital), which is a bit far from where I live about 30 min. heh. Hm.. I shall think about these different stuff. Yea...Zippo doesn't need anymore watery poops, he still has em.

[Boomers girl]

Do you know what kind of yeast Zippo had? Just wondering because one of the signs of Avian gastric Yeast (megabacteria) is eating tons of food, boomer ate like a hog and actually got hefty when he first got the AGY. If they killed the yeast for sure the benabac will be OK and I wonder about the Harrisons too because I thought it had sugars in it too or something in it sure flared up boomers yeast when we tried it on him.

The poop looks odd, I dont think I ever saw a cloudy white poop like that one. When boomers yeast flared his would get bright green or more greener with lots of liquid water in them and some were all water and he would eat like he was desperate to eat almost. Maybe once Zippos off the meds for a bit he will come back to normal, I know the meds made him so tired and weak but after about 3 or 4 days he seemed to perk right up. I never used the other yeast medicine you gave Zippo, boomer used the Nystatin but its the weakest one he usually took the Dyflucan and Flagyl for his yeast.

[Mysticalwings]

sigh its been a hard week.. But we got the blood test results back from the vet and she told us that Zippo has a bad case of kidney disease. There was nothing that we could do to really "cure" it, but she recommended 2-3 electrolyte treatments a week for the rest of his life. This was going to be like $20-30 each time. bleh. Basically some needle that would put some liquid between his skin and something else.. i forget. But I've decided not to stress the poor guy out because our vet is about 30 min each way and me going to school that would be impossible to maintain. Especially since it doesn't really help him in the long run just prolonging his fate. heh.

I think this morning things changed a bit.. he seems a bit tired and closes his eyes a lot... We'll see.. =[