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Do any of you have a bird with PDD and other birds?

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Tangle Elf

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I'm waiting on Judy's test, but the combination of feather picking and neurological symptoms is enough to have me worried. If her age is right, then she's also in the right age group and has a bad/unknown history. Hopefully it's a stroke or tumor, but I'd like to have some information on PDD just in case that ends up being the issue. I deal with things by looking at the worst case scenario, deciding how to cope with it and going from there. If I'm ready for the worst case, I should be ready for just about anything else.

My concern is for Korbin Dallas and Zena. If Judy has PDD, we'll deal with it. What I want to know though is how do I keep it from spreading. No one really knows how it spreads. I was going to move Korbin Dallas and Judy into a double macaw cage soon and eventually move them in together. I would have done it already, but it's on backorder. Everything happens for a reason I guess. Anyway, if it is PDD, they won't be moving in together. I was just wondering if anyone has birds with PDD and birds without PDD (or at least without symptoms) and how you keep the healthy birds safe. If that ends up being the case, I'll ask the vet, but I'd like to be armed with some knowledge.
 

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There is no test for PDD on a live bird at this point in time. There are tests for AVB which may or may not mean that your bird ever comes down with PDD and that test is not very reliable. PDD can strike at any time, there is no age group. Picking is not a sign of PDD. Issues with perching (serious issues, not just clumsiness, but the bird cannot perch without help) and serious undigested food along with significant weight loss is one of the halmarks of the disease. It's hard to say whether or not your other birds will or will not get PDD if Judy actually even has it. There's really not a whole lot you can do at this point other than to be very vigilent about cleaning. I know of people who have had PDD in their flock and with absolute sterilization of food bowls, perches, etc, no one else in their flock came down with the disease, but I've also heard of it traveling throughout an entire flock. It's impossible to tell.

I would try not to freak out just yet. It has been my experience that vets are jumping to PDD diagnoses quite easily these days, especially now that they can test for ABV which really means nothing at this point in time.
 

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Bob flew on ahead because of PDD. Not trying to scare you. Our other birds are fine. We seperated him as soon as we were told it might be PDD. That was about a year and a half ago. With our Vets blessing we have brought in Juliet, Sam, and Neka into our house. The one we worry about the most is Neka because she is young and her immune system has not fully developed. Every watery poop has me thinking. But she is doing fine and has been to the vet for check up.
PDD is hard to diagnos. They may start on preventative meds even if the test come back neg. But stay positive for yourself and for Judy. Hopefully Judy is just exhibting signs but does not have PDD.
Good Luck.:)
 

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Jen, I know you are asking to see if anyone here on AA can give you some advice, but there is a yahoo group that might be worth asking on too? Here is the link: livingwithpdd : Living with PDD Support
 

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I've read about the age, picking and neurological disorders on many sites, including in peer reviewed research. I've also discussed them with my vet. Undigested food happens with the gastrointestinal version, but not the neurological version. You're correct in that the DNA test is for ABV, however the crop biopsy is a definitive positive (meaning there can be false negative, but positives are positive). According to my vet, the neurological version has symptoms very similar to a stroke. Judy is not just a little clumsy, she's unable to grasp anything with her left foot. The feather picking is also thought to be a result of the neurological symptoms, causing pain/itching of the skin. The age relationship is tied to a belief that birds are most susceptible before they fledge and take time to come down with symptoms.

I'm trying really hard not to freak out right now. I'm not succeeding. We've ruled out just about everything else. Even stroke and tumor don't seem likely, but would be better.

Here's one of the sites I went to. It's not the most reliable, but was the quickest to find. Dr. Doolen has been working on PDD research for a very long time, and is cited as a source in a great deal of the current research, including this one Detection of an antigen specific for proventricular dilation disease in psitticine birds -- Villanueva et al. 163 (14): 426 -- Veterinary Record and this one http://exoticdoc.co.il/VCNa paper_ draft.pdf which discusses the neurological, gastrointestinal and combination versions. I wish I thought that he was jumping the gun, but I don't.
 

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Jen, I know you are asking to see if anyone here on AA can give you some advice, but there is a yahoo group that might be worth asking on too? Here is the link: livingwithpdd : Living with PDD Support
I've looked at that group. I generally don't like yahoo groups because of the layout, but I will probably make an exception for this one. Thank you. I want advice and support. We're out of tests. After these results, the next thing that might tell us something is an MRI to see if it shows a tumor or clot. They might not even show up. In any case, I'm only going to do the MRI if she has another major event. I really just want her to be ok.
 

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u know annie was eating her feet and she also never held anything in her left foot ,but she is doing good on the celebrax now ///:)
 

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I've read about the age, picking and neurological disorders on many sites, including in peer reviewed research. I've also discussed them with my vet. Undigested food happens with the gastrointestinal version, but not the neurological version. You're correct in that the DNA test is for ABV, however the crop biopsy is a definitive positive (meaning there can be false negative, but positives are positive). According to my vet, the neurological version has symptoms very similar to a stroke. Judy is not just a little clumsy, she's unable to grasp anything with her left foot. The feather picking is also thought to be a result of the neurological symptoms, causing pain/itching of the skin. The age relationship is tied to a belief that birds are most susceptible before they fledge and take time to come down with symptoms.

I'm trying really hard not to freak out right now. I'm not succeeding. We've ruled out just about everything else. Even stroke and tumor don't seem likely, but would be better.

Here's one of the sites I went to. It's not the most reliable, but was the quickest to find. Dr. Doolen has been working on PDD research for a very long time, and is cited as a source in a great deal of the current research, including this one Detection of an antigen specific for proventricular dilation disease in psitticine birds -- Villanueva et al. 163 (14): 426 -- Veterinary Record and this one http://exoticdoc.co.il/VCNa paper_ draft.pdf which discusses the neurological, gastrointestinal and combination versions. I wish I thought that he was jumping the gun, but I don't.
I know of people who are dealing with this issue right now who are working through Dr. Tizzard at A&M University. It isn't nearly as clear cut as vets are making it seem. The neurological issues come with the undigested food as well and a crop biopsy is only going to positively diagnose PDD if you are lucky enough to hit a PDD lesion in the crop which is probably less than 5% chance if the bird even has lesions in its crop.

PDD can strike at any age. It can lie dormant in the body for up to 20 years. There have been cases of single birds getting the disease at 20 years of age after not having had any contact with any other birds. Very young birds can and do get it too. It's an awful disease that I think is getting misdiagnosed more and more these days, especially since we have the ABV test. I think we are more confused about this disease than we've ever been before, partly in thanks to the fact that it's used as a catchall when nothing else makes sense.
 
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Tangle Elf

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I know of people who are dealing with this issue right now who are working through Dr. Tizzard at A&M University. It isn't nearly as clear cut as vets are making it seem. The neurological issues come with the undigested food as well and a crop biopsy is only going to positively diagnose PDD if you are lucky enough to hit a PDD lesion in the crop which is probably less than 5% chance if the bird even has lesions in its crop.

PDD can strike at any age. It can lie dormant in the body for up to 20 years. There have been cases of single birds getting the disease at 20 years of age after not having had any contact with any other birds. Very young birds can and do get it too. It's an awful disease that I think is getting misdiagnosed more and more these days, especially since we have the AVB test. I think we are more confused about this disease than we've ever been before, partly in thanks to the fact that it's used as a catchall when nothing else makes sense.
I agree that it's not clear cut. Dr. Doolen is also aware of that. However, as far as neurolgical impairment being caused by lesions in the brain, that has been documented through necropsy. I also agree (and stated above) that a crop biopsy gives false negatives. It cannot, however, give false positives. A positive is a definite positive based on the method of testing. We won't be doing a crop biopsy unless the blood test comes back positive. If it comes back negative, I'll treat it as such because that's all I can do right now. If the crop test comes back positive, there is no question that it's PDD.

I realize there is a lot of confusion and a lot just isn't known, but we can't pretend like it doesn't exist at all.
 

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I'm just very passionate about this because of a personal friend who has had possible PDD in her flock for almost five years. She's lost two birds and even the histopathology has come back as almost definitive for PDD. I know of others who have lost birds to PDD as well and it just isn't clear cut and so many people do not quite understand the realities of it.

Every time someone says they are getting their bird tested for PDD I want to cringe and I correct them because the information is absolutely false. There is no test for PDD in a live bird today, period, end of story. Yes, you can do a crop biopsy but like I said, your chances of getting a lesion in a crop biopsy are slim to none and the amount of pain and suffering you put your bird through is most likely not worth it. The first case of PDD that touched me personally was when a friend's grey came down with symptoms of the disease back in about early 2005. Wowwie succumbed to the disease within six months. She had the neurological issues and couldn't keep weight on. Nat tried everything possible but in the end, she couldn't save Wowwie's life. Necropsy alone will also not diagnose PDD. You have to have a histopathology done on the bird. This is another thing that gets thrown out there and a lot that people do not understand. When Nat did a necropsy on Wowwie, there wasn't a single indication of PDD...nothing. The histopathology that was done showed that Wowwie's body was riddled with PDD lesions. This is why I get a little crazed every time I see someone posting about this disease saying that they're going to get their bird tested for PDD or they're going to have a necropsy done.

My friend who lost the two birds and was tentatively diagnosed with possible PDD in both birds is still trying to understand the diagnosis. The histos on those birds didn't quite make sense and she has since done more tests on her living birds than you could ever imagine, all going to Texas A&M and other leading researchers in the field. There is more than one test for ABV and one type consistently comes back showing that her remaining birds do have ABV and the other one consistently comes back as to them not having it. There's even some question of whether or not the two birds who died really had PDD or not. It's incredibly complicated and I've seen what she's gone through because even the experts don't understand this disease.

I want to be very clear on the issues. Many birds have ABV and just because they have ABV does not mean that they have PDD or that they will ever get PDD. A diagnosis of ABV basically means nothing considering the fact that the tests aren't even that reliable yet and they still haven't definitively linked ABV to PDD. They're close but they're still missing some of the information.

I'm seeing vets jump to PDD in so many cases now. It's like the catch all. When my Taco SIE was sick last summer, even my vet, who has done a lot of research on ABV and PDD felt that his symptoms were indicitive of PDD. She wanted to run the ABV test. I resisted but then decided to do the test right before Taco passed. Upon necropsy and histo, it was shown that Taco did not have PDD and we never bothered to test for ABV.

My point is, there are facts that people don't understand or seem to confuse or gloss over...no test for PDD in a live bird, necropsy alone will not show whether or not a bird had PDD, ABV does not mean PDD. That and the fact that so many people are having birds diagnosed incorrectly these days. I really want to make sure that at least the facts are understood and that people don't freak out completely every time a vet says, "I think it's PDD or ABV." It's not worth the heartache.
 
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Tangle Elf

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Jen, I think you misunderstood me. A necropsy is a histopathology performed post mortem. I was just saying that labs have shown the lesions caused by pdd in the brain after the death of the bird. These lesions cam cause neuological, stroke like symptoms. Also, the Schubott center published in 2010 that they had difinitively linked PDD to ABV. Not that ABV always causes PDD, but that there is a definite relationship. I think of it like HIV and AIDS. I know the crop biopsy isn't ideal and I will only do it if there's a positive ABV result, but I need some answers. The only things left on the table at this time are PDD, stroke or tumor. If it was a stroke or tumor, an mri might show something and it won't be transmittable to my other birds. I believe that the cost of an mri and the danger of anesthesia are riskier than the danger or a blood test for ABV. If the blood test is negative, we're done testing for now. If it's positive, I have to consider the health of all three birds. I'm not sure what you mean about there not being a test for PDD. The crop biopsy tests for PDD, not ABV. If it's positive, that's it. Negatives cam be wrong, but not positives.
 

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A necropsy and a histopathology are two totally different things. You can only test for PDD if you do the histopathology. Many people do not do the histopathology and as in the point with Wowwie, the necropsy did not show any forms of PDD anywhere but the histo showed that her body was riddled with PDD. That is the point I'm trying to make. Too many people do not understand that a necropsy alone may not tell you anything about PDD. You have to do the histo as well and many people don't understand this.

For now, there is no test for PDD in a live bird. Yes, you can do a crop biopsy but one time in maybe a thousand, you may actually hit a lesion. PDD can be present in a bird with no lesions in the crop or very few. In order to get a positive result with a crop biopsy, you actually have to hit a lesion in the crop and the chances of that happening are slim to none. Honestly, I wouldn't put a bird through a crop biopsy, it's not worth it considering the fact that your chance of actually hitting a lesion are so slim and the only way to prove the bird has PDD is if you hit a lesion. Does that make sense? Just because a crop biopsy comes back negative means nothing, your bird could still have PDD and it just doesn't have any lesions in it's crop or the doctor wasn't lucky enough to hit a lesion on the biopsy. You still have to put the bird under to do the crop biopsy.

As for the ABV test, it really means nothing. Just because it comes back positive doesn't mean your bird has PDD or will ever get PDD. It may not even mean that your bird has ABV because the test is still so unreliable. It's another test I wouldn't even bother with because it basically tells you nothing and can get many people very freaked out for no reason at all. And they are still not 100% sure that ABV and PDD are positively linked. There are four or five different things they have to prove to link them and they haven't proved all of them yet.

I don't know what Judy is showing in the means of PDD. If you are just getting neurological issues, I'd do the MRI before anything else. If you are seeing weight loss and undigested material in her stool, then I'd start considering PDD. You can also run tests on the proventriculis to see if it's digesting food slowly but even that doesn't mean you are dealing with PDD.

Honestly, we don't know enough about PDD or how it spreads to give you the answers you are looking for and I'm just stating, knowing others who have gone through the actual diagnosis and have lost birds, we just have so much more to learn. I would highly suggest the Living with PDD group on Yahoo. There is also a lot of information out there on it if you google but it gets so confusing, even for those who are dealing with the disease and know they have it.
 
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Tangle Elf

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Volume 16, number 3 of the emerging infectious disease journal published by the cdc states that there are 3 criteria to prove a causal relationship and that ABV meets them all. The conclusion is that ABV is unequivocally the cause of PDD. I realize that a lot is unknown about this disease, but it takes a lot for the CDC to back a statement like that. I'll post the link later, I can't do it from my phone. The research was also conducted at the Schubott Center. They're been researching PDD for quite some time.

I'd be very happy if Judy's issues are caused by something else, but I can't ignore this possibility simply because I don't like it.
 

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Here is an interview done with Ian Tizard as late as February of this year where he is still unwilling to say that ABV absolutely causes PDD. He says he's almost sure, but they aren't ready to fully state yet that this is the case:

Proventricular Dilatation Disease: The Avian Bornavirus Link

There is a growing amount of data that supports the idea that Avian Bornavirus (ABV) is the cause of PDD.

They state in the writeup that the link is only still theoretical:

Ian Tizard, DVM, Ph.D, Director of the Schubot Exotic Bird Health Center at Texas A&M University has long studied Proventricular Dilatation Disease (PDD) and Avian Bornavirus (ABV). BIRD TALK sat down with Tizzard to learn about the latest developments regarding PDD and its theoretical link to ABV.
 

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And this from Wikipedia (Proventricular Dilatation Disease - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia):

ABV is not the sole cause of PDD and testing should not be used alone to confirm or rule out PDD. There are still other suspected viruses and conditions that are considered risk factors to developing PDD. Detection of ABV does not mean that PDD will follow. The disease does not follow a clear path of development or transmission.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Truly, I'm not trying to say that Judy does or does not have the disease and I'm not suggesting that you throw out the idea that she may have it...I'm saying please proceed with caution and don't put all your thoughts into a single test on ABV. I wish the best for you and for Judy and I hope they come up with a different diagnosis. I'm just saying that it has been my experience that too many vets are jumping to conclusions when identifying a bird with a diagnosis of PDD and the link to ABV is making it easier to do even though the test isn't necessarily a good one and we still aren't completely sure that ABV is the reason behind PDD. Personally, I wouldn't bother with the test and I see people putting a lot of reality into it when maybe they shouldn't be. That's all I'm trying to point out as well as the issues with PDD that are a reality.
 

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I'm just very passionate about this because of a personal friend who has had possible PDD in her flock for almost five years. She's lost two birds and even the histopathology has come back as almost definitive for PDD. I know of others who have lost birds to PDD as well and it just isn't clear cut and so many people do not quite understand the realities of it.

Every time someone says they are getting their bird tested for PDD I want to cringe and I correct them because the information is absolutely false. There is no test for PDD in a live bird today, period, end of story. Yes, you can do a crop biopsy but like I said, your chances of getting a lesion in a crop biopsy are slim to none and the amount of pain and suffering you put your bird through is most likely not worth it. The first case of PDD that touched me personally was when a friend's grey came down with symptoms of the disease back in about early 2005. Wowwie succumbed to the disease within six months. She had the neurological issues and couldn't keep weight on. Nat tried everything possible but in the end, she couldn't save Wowwie's life. Necropsy alone will also not diagnose PDD. You have to have a histopathology done on the bird. This is another thing that gets thrown out there and a lot that people do not understand. When Nat did a necropsy on Wowwie, there wasn't a single indication of PDD...nothing. The histopathology that was done showed that Wowwie's body was riddled with PDD lesions. This is why I get a little crazed every time I see someone posting about this disease saying that they're going to get their bird tested for PDD or they're going to have a necropsy done.

My friend who lost the two birds and was tentatively diagnosed with possible PDD in both birds is still trying to understand the diagnosis. The histos on those birds didn't quite make sense and she has since done more tests on her living birds than you could ever imagine, all going to Texas A&M and other leading researchers in the field. There is more than one test for ABV and one type consistently comes back showing that her remaining birds do have ABV and the other one consistently comes back as to them not having it. There's even some question of whether or not the two birds who died really had PDD or not. It's incredibly complicated and I've seen what she's gone through because even the experts don't understand this disease.

I want to be very clear on the issues. Many birds have ABV and just because they have ABV does not mean that they have PDD or that they will ever get PDD. A diagnosis of ABV basically means nothing considering the fact that the tests aren't even that reliable yet and they still haven't definitively linked ABV to PDD. They're close but they're still missing some of the information.

I'm seeing vets jump to PDD in so many cases now. It's like the catch all. When my Taco SIE was sick last summer, even my vet, who has done a lot of research on ABV and PDD felt that his symptoms were indicitive of PDD. She wanted to run the ABV test. I resisted but then decided to do the test right before Taco passed. Upon necropsy and histo, it was shown that Taco did not have PDD and we never bothered to test for ABV.

My point is, there are facts that people don't understand or seem to confuse or gloss over...no test for PDD in a live bird, necropsy alone will not show whether or not a bird had PDD, ABV does not mean PDD. That and the fact that so many people are having birds diagnosed incorrectly these days. I really want to make sure that at least the facts are understood and that people don't freak out completely every time a vet says, "I think it's PDD or ABV." It's not worth the heartache.
Great post.

When Bokka died, his necropsy showed lesions in his crop and upper gizzard (spread down into the giz. from the crop) but when a biospy was done, it was negative. But he had neurological problems the last 24 hours of his life, that had red flags pointing at PDD(not digesting food, throwing up, seizures, loss of balance and movement, paralysis). Yet nothing, even biopsy, said it was PDD. My flock right now, currently (back in feb) got over a megabacterial infection. Hard to beat, but occasionally have signs that Bokka had during the last 24 hours of his life.

PDD is tricky, and one day I hope to there is more information and knowledge on the subject.

:(
 

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Here's the link I was talking about. The research is pretty recent and the source is reliable. Use of Avian Bornavirus Isolates to Induce Proventricular Dilatation Disease in Conures - Vol. 16 No. 3 - March 2010 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal - CDC It's a lot to read through, but it's full of a lot of good information.

If it made sense to do an MRI at this point, I would. However, if I were to spend another $2000+ dollars on vet bills for Judy for something that might not show what's wrong, I wouldn't have the funds left to treat the things that are immediately life threatening. If the MRI showed a stroke, there wouldn't be anything I could do about it. If it showed a tumor, there's a tiny chance we could operate, but after $4000 of vet bills in two months, I wouldn't be able to pay for brain surgery anyway. The last blood test I can possibly do that might have any neurological impact is the ABV test. I understand the possibility for both false negatives and false positives. If it was any other vet recommending it, I probably wouldn't bother. I've even been on here telling others not to bother with the test. I trust Dr. Doolen based on recommendations, his very impressive resume and his years of research on this disease. The scientific data also seems to support the direction he's going.

I'd also like to point out that at no point has anyone, including Dr. Doolen, said that they think Judy has PDD, only that it's one disease that can potentially cause her symptoms. We've ruled out everything we can possibly rule out, so we're left with three possibilites that have a lot of grey area. There's also the possibility that it's something different.
 

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PDD is very scary. Thanks for sharing this information everyone. Just for clarification, ABV is still communicable, right? So if a bird has ABV but not PDD, it could still spread to other birds which could lead to THEM getting PDD? Sorry, not trying to change the course of the thread, but was just wondering.
 

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Here is an interview done with Ian Tizard as late as February of this year where he is still unwilling to say that ABV absolutely causes PDD. He says he's almost sure, but they aren't ready to fully state yet that this is the case:

Proventricular Dilatation Disease: The Avian Bornavirus Link

There is a growing amount of data that supports the idea that Avian Bornavirus (ABV) is the cause of PDD.

They state in the writeup that the link is only still theoretical:

Ian Tizard, DVM, Ph.D, Director of the Schubot Exotic Bird Health Center at Texas A&M University has long studied Proventricular Dilatation Disease (PDD) and Avian Bornavirus (ABV). BIRD TALK sat down with Tizzard to learn about the latest developments regarding PDD and its theoretical link to ABV.
I'm a little surprised that he would say that, as he was one of the authors of the study I posted above. The conclusion of which was:

"In conclusion, the results reported here together with previous findings confirm unequivocally that the long-sought cause of proventricular dilatation disease is indeed avian bornavirus. Investigations into this virus and the complex disease that it causes may provide useful insights into the pathogenesis of mammalian Borna disease. The origin and epidemiology, as well and prevention and treatment, of this infection remain to be elucidated."
 

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I think, whether or not or bird has PDD, isn't something you should worry about. It's such a terrible disease with still little known about it. I think It's the reasoning behind needing to know. The symptoms. A bird with just a poor GI can be on celebrex and not have PDD. If Judy has symptoms, gets her treated. Get her on celebrex and a soft food diet.:)
 
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