Greylady1966
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TAILGATING
Cutest Bird Ever!!!
@rocky'smom thank you.
Oh no...But in a previous post, I mentioned that possibility. You see because of the metabolism of birds, the spectrum of wide range fluctuations of diabetes can go from one end of the spectrum to the other. The injected medicine to treat it can also act in such a way as a beta blocker, thus ( as I mentioned) could cause a low sugar crash. And you did right by bringing that up by giving the syrup.@Hankmacaw 40 minutes after Howard's injection he crashed. Corn syrup brought him back up. We leave tomorrow at 5 am to see his avian vet.
Exactly...and insulin no doubt can be very dangerous to a bird because of the fast metabolism and wide fluctuation.That's very scary. Insulin can be so dangerous, especially with a bird that you never know just how much they have eaten. Are you going to switch him to glipicide?
Hi Jenny, that's true to a point. It seems that diabetes is uncommon in parrots. Truth is it's labeled uncommon, because very little was known as to how to detect it, measure it, and treat it.True diabetes is super uncommon in companion parrots so I don't have a lot of experience with it... I know that toucans are prone to developing diabetes and that the treatment of choice is metformin orally, and then going to insulin if needed. I"m not sure how long he was managed, but I know years ago my doc had a blue and gold that was diabetic that received injections twice a day (they gave him peanut butter and he would let them inject him) They can still develop ketoacidosis, but figuring out exactly how to check for it reliably can be challenging. Even with cats and dogs the process to get their glucose under control is tricky and requires careful dosing and retesting. I know that we've done pancreatic biopsies in the past to try and help diagnose it or to rule out other disorders of the pancreas.
I'm sorry I don't have much more information :/ My suggestion would be that at insulin time you give him something absolutely fabulous to eat to make sure that he has something in his system and it takes out the guesswork. You can try low glycemic index fruits and veggies (which are better for birds anyways) like berries or some veggies. You could also try offering him some fruit/veggie baby food as an extra special treat at those times. When I have to medicate my kiddos I get a couple of those pouch type baby foods and they go crazy for them.
Wait, what? How would insulin act as a beta blocker and in what way would decreasing blood pressure cause blood sugar to crash?The injected medicine to treat it can also act in such a way as a beta blocker, thus ( as I mentioned) could cause a low sugar crash. And you did right by bringing that up by giving the syrup.
Personally, I do not fully know. A vet gave it to me ( the info) in layman terms. When tigger died unexpectedly after having an injection, I needed to how and why.Wait, what? How would insulin act as a beta blocker and in what way would decreasing blood pressure cause blood sugar to crash?
It's a whole completely different aspect with birds compared to human diabetes. It's still widely understood in birds. It's not the same.I think you're thinking of glucagon and glycogen, and I agree that birds have a wide range of variability in their metabolism, but I can't make any sense of the rest of that explanation.