Tigerlilly
Checking out the neighborhood
- Joined
- 3/5/17
- Messages
- 1
- Real Name
- Lilly
Hi All,
I've had my dearest sweetest Zhora in my life for the past 8 months. He's a beautiful make Ekkie, and just turned 1 year old, so still quite a young bird. In the past two months he's started having these strange attacks in the night. At first I thought it was toe-tapping, and although I have seen him toe-tap from time to time, we've progressed to these strange leg-slamming attacks.
They always start around 2-3am, and can go for as short as 15 minutes, but can also continue for hours. I've spent whole nights holding him, as his legs involuntarily spasm repeatedly. It's terrible, and breaks my heart.
We've taken him a number of times to an avian vet, and have run tests for psittacosis, and heavy metals, we've done his bloodwork to look at organ enzyme function. He's had courses of antibiotics and antifungals. So far everything has turned up negative. The vet basically concluded that it may be epilepsy, or it may be a viral infection that causes these spasms.
He gave us a prescription for phenobarbitol, and I've been giving it to Zhora for the past two weeks. So far it has been allowing him to sleep through the night. But lastnight he managed to spit out some of his medicine before bed, and then woke me up with a seizure like before at 2am. It went for half an hour, and then he managed to get back to sleep, but I didn't, just worrying that maybe the medicine is wearing off, or becoming less effective over time. Hopefully he'll have a better night tonight after a proper does, but I don't want him to have to be medicated his whole life.
Does anyone have experience with Ekkies doing this kind of spastic leg twitching? It's not toe-tapping, it's his whole leg spasming, and foot hitting repeatedly on the perch. He wing flips when he's having these attacks, and seems to go itchy all-over, with lots of head scratching and I would say frantic preening.
We've tried modifying his diet, and while we were running tests as per the vet's recommendations we only gave him leafy greens, and cut up veggies and a little fruit, and the vetafarm maintainance diet pellets. Since the medicine seemed to be working before we had broadened his diet to include a little more fruit, and the occasional treat of sunflower seeds (always less than 10) or a third of a spray of millet.
I really love Zhora, and want to make him as well as possible. Does anyone out there have experience with these kinds of seizures? Good news? Bad news? I just don't understand what's going on with him, and am scared it's going to get worse.
Thanks for any suggestions,
Lilly
I've had my dearest sweetest Zhora in my life for the past 8 months. He's a beautiful make Ekkie, and just turned 1 year old, so still quite a young bird. In the past two months he's started having these strange attacks in the night. At first I thought it was toe-tapping, and although I have seen him toe-tap from time to time, we've progressed to these strange leg-slamming attacks.
They always start around 2-3am, and can go for as short as 15 minutes, but can also continue for hours. I've spent whole nights holding him, as his legs involuntarily spasm repeatedly. It's terrible, and breaks my heart.
We've taken him a number of times to an avian vet, and have run tests for psittacosis, and heavy metals, we've done his bloodwork to look at organ enzyme function. He's had courses of antibiotics and antifungals. So far everything has turned up negative. The vet basically concluded that it may be epilepsy, or it may be a viral infection that causes these spasms.
He gave us a prescription for phenobarbitol, and I've been giving it to Zhora for the past two weeks. So far it has been allowing him to sleep through the night. But lastnight he managed to spit out some of his medicine before bed, and then woke me up with a seizure like before at 2am. It went for half an hour, and then he managed to get back to sleep, but I didn't, just worrying that maybe the medicine is wearing off, or becoming less effective over time. Hopefully he'll have a better night tonight after a proper does, but I don't want him to have to be medicated his whole life.
Does anyone have experience with Ekkies doing this kind of spastic leg twitching? It's not toe-tapping, it's his whole leg spasming, and foot hitting repeatedly on the perch. He wing flips when he's having these attacks, and seems to go itchy all-over, with lots of head scratching and I would say frantic preening.
We've tried modifying his diet, and while we were running tests as per the vet's recommendations we only gave him leafy greens, and cut up veggies and a little fruit, and the vetafarm maintainance diet pellets. Since the medicine seemed to be working before we had broadened his diet to include a little more fruit, and the occasional treat of sunflower seeds (always less than 10) or a third of a spray of millet.
I really love Zhora, and want to make him as well as possible. Does anyone out there have experience with these kinds of seizures? Good news? Bad news? I just don't understand what's going on with him, and am scared it's going to get worse.
Thanks for any suggestions,
Lilly
