Greetings to all. Wow, it's been over three years. I reached out to so many sources for help back then, I forgot about this post. In my second post ever, I am bumping a really old thread. Here goes.
I thank all who replied. I do recall reading most of the replies at the time. I apologize for not responding back then. I got Grady a companion as soon as the infection was resolved. Then, I found out that companion was relinquished with a house-mate, and I felt bad that I unknowingly separated them. Within a couple of months, I went from never-had-a-pet to having three parrots. Wow. The third parrot turned out to be blind, and I was the only one to pick up on an issue, so that took another vet visit then special accommodations. And, I was giving them (the first two) full liberty, whole foods, etc. It is a lot of work to keep parrots this way.
Back to the three-year-old story: I took Grady to avian veterinarians far and wide, including out of state. We got the infection resolved fairly quickly, but Grady's toe was pink and scale-less, as well as stiff, only bending at the last joint where the nail is. The cytology was from cells taken from the toe. I never gave up on researching Grady's stiff, scale-less toe. About ten months after getting Grady, I contacted a rescue that is a couple hours away (not the local rescue where I adopted him). The owner referred me to a vet she swore was amazing. Well, she was right. He diagnosed the toe off the original, year-old x-ray, right in front of me, having never seen the x-ray before. I did not think to share the x-ray ahead of time, so I emailed it while we were in the exam room. He saw the cause instantly.
Grady has osteoarthritis in that toe. The board-certified avian vet showed me on that x-ray. It bothers Grady at times ( couple or few times per year), likely from using it and it getting strained. Grady bites the pain, as parrots often do. That likely led to the open wound, that got infected at the rescue before I adopted Grady. (The rescue owner would not ordinarily adopt out a parrot in need of medical care, but in this case it made sense, because I was willing to get it resolved and diagnosed.)
Grady is one cool parrot. He flies a lot, in my open-floorplan house. We have developed a great relationship. He has many 6' to 8' dragonwood branches. He gets direct sunlight through stainless-steel mesh on warm days. He is on a circadian schedule due to the many skylights here. I also dim my lights each evening, and "warm" them through the color-temp range to red before lights out. Grady especially enjoys "parrot the parrot", where I try to reproduce his amazing sounds. :] We often end up laughing together.
Oh, he recently had his third annual wellness exam, and the avian vet gave special attention to his toe. Knowing that it does bother him a little at times, she still thinks it best to keep that toe, because it works pretty well, despite being stiff, and he uses it for climbing branches, old jeans, etc.