Hello friends! Hope everyone is doing well! Dante and I need your help! So Dante keeps having these labored breathing, open mouth breathing, tail bobbing-episodes on and off for the past 5 years. I’ve taken him to endless avian vets, and no vet was able to help us. These past few weeks, his breathing episodes have been unusually severe. Upon X Ray, we found there were foreign bodies in his gizzard. Apparently he’s had these bodies in his gizzard for the past 5 years. I think it’s from some plastic toy he ate, I recall it now. The coloring in the plastic is likely the culprit. We did a toxicology test and his zinc levels are 4.2 (they should be 0.7-1.9) and his copper levels are high also. We are going to re-test his blood bc sometimes these levels do fluctuate. If they are high again, we’ll have to do chelation therapy (Ca-EDTA) injections. To remove the foreign bodies, surgery (via crop or gizzard) is out of the question bc he would not survive anesthesia and surgery. There is a treatment where they starve him and feed him this formula concoction. The vet said it’s not a very dangerous emergency situation right now. But we are going to treat this and address it. My thoughts are that maybe the zinc has reached such levels because of the gradual release that it’s reached a point now where the breathing episodes are very bad?
Has anyone had any experience with heavy metal toxicity? Or my situation?
Please help!
Has anyone had any experience with heavy metal toxicity? Or my situation?
Please help!
