im sorry guys, i may be making things confusing and possibly leaving things out. now that i am a little more calm I will strart from the beginning.
Her Name is Chyna, She has been with me since she was weaned. At one time she was my bird, but she ultimately chose my husband(this started around 5 yrs of age). I really thinks she hates me, but thats ok I still love her! He has to do most of the handling with her. I am only allowed the occassional head scratch, and of course give her food and treats.
Her normal weight for most of her life has been around 400g.
The end of feb/first of march I contacted an avian vet when I noticed she was looking smaller and my scales here were saying 390g. Nothing else strange was going on. No respritory issue that I could see, she still ate and drank as normal. Her droppings were normal. She still played and talked all day. He said since everything else was normal to increase her food some and see if that helps and that it could be a fluctuation because her crop may be full when I weigh her sometimes and vice versa. eh...i weigh her at the same time of day when i weigh her (after big morning poop,before breakfast), so I wasnt sure this could be the case. But Avian vets are supposed to know right? So I said ok.
Fast forward to Friday March 2 (10pm) I notice her tracheal area rapidly going in and out. I paniced, we got her out and moved her to the steamy bathroom because thats all I could think to do. In the meantime I called every hospital and vet...no one was on call that would see a bird. I was devestated because I had read that once you can see they are sick..alot of times its bad. So I cried all night thinking she was gonna die and there was nothing I could do. I felt terrible for having her and not being able to get her help. I should of researched 20 years ago and found out that you are out of luck in this area if you have a sick bird in the middle of the night. This was gonna be my fault that this baby died. Well the next morning nothing strange was happening. My regular vet called to see if I had gotten her anywhere(I call them in the middle of the night to please tell me where I could go). I told them everything was a dead end. His office got on the phone to find me someone...all deads ends...noone is working or on call for birds until Monday morning (March 5) I left here at 4am that morning with her and this dr ran blood work, gram, and xrays (she weighed 393g this day). This is when i got the diagnosis of air sacullitis and even though he said blood count looked good he wanted to start her on antibiotics..he gave an injection of baytril and dexa...something..here is the things they did:
We did the medication and went back in a week. Nothing strange happened during the week of waiting. She "seemed" normal. Except for her droppings, I was seeing alot of bubbles and alot of urine. I took him pictures of the droppings...the bubbles I saw had me concerned with infection (starts with a c? cant remember the name of it) He said no it wasnt that and I asked if possible the antibiotics could cause this? he said no. but wasnt alarmed. He discontinued the antibiotic( a week early) and had her take flagyl. Her weight was down to 382g. This vet said the same as the one i spoke to about weight around the end of feb....she probably had a full crop blah blah when we were in a week before. She had breakfast before we left home for this appointment vs the other one. So idk. here is what they did that day:
Almost one week later 3/19 is the first time I witnessed the tail bob and a very raspy breathing. She also began to take her foot and pull at her beak and shake it aggresively. i immediatley emailed him the video and told him what was goin on. Also her droppings were still not right so I sent more pictures. In my mind the tail bob would make me say "get her here asap!" but no he said she probably had something go up her choana into her sinuses and wanted me to continue with extra humidity,albuterol, and metacam and drop saline drops in here ceres (i did not do the drops, i was not comfortable with the idea and i was afraid). So into the steamy bathroom we went and gave her the meds as instructed. she settled down and was ok (to the naked eye) for now.
Other things that have started happening in the last month..I have mentioned to every doctor that noone seems worried about:
She still does the occassional beak pulling, she twitches her wings alot before she goes to sleep....like every 30 sec for an hour at least.
She twitches her head sometimes... just a quick jig.
I feel she is over preening...her tail tips and wing tips look ragged.
She makes a yawning motion alot
She sometimes (randomly) has a squeaky, hoarse voice...they say its mimic...i dont think it is.
Then that takes us to where I met you all yesterday. I apologize for the length of this post and apologize for being so confusing...my mind is all over the place right now.
I am running out of options for avian vets. All of these car trips cant be helping her, they stress her out terribly. I said to her on the way yesterday, "maybe this will be the one that helps us Chyna, just please hang on I am trying so hard to help you."
I am not sure about this one either. At least I have the Asper test...I overnighted it so they would get it today. I hope to know something soon. I have her xrays too if anyone is interested.
Thank you all so much for your help...I felt alone with this until I posted here.
What you would be getting is an oxygen concentrator. NO bottles involved. It take the air out of the room and concentrates it into 93% pure oxygen. If you buy from the place I listed - they have not asked me for a prescription.
she is finally sleeping, i think i will take a nap near her cage. I am mentally exhausted. Thank you all so much...i will check back in the morning.
