Can treating gapeworm kill birds?

[adrian]

My dear little goose is in the care of an avian veterinarian right now, and has been in the hospital there since Friday. We've gone as far as to have her x-rayed, blood tests done, and on Tuesday her lungs, air sacs and trachea were scoped. The initial x-rays were taken before she was given a wormer, as gapeworm was high on our list; she had all the symptoms and a normal white blood cell count but very high red blood cell count due to lack of oxygen. These x-rays showed that her trachea seemed to have something inside of it. More wormers were given before she was scoped. They found nothing in the trachea, and nothing anywhere else, and her symptoms still persist. She has never been around any other birds or geese from different environments, all were hatched in the same clutch as her and she was kept quite distant from them anyway, as she is a pet. She did have access to the outside world where the geese enjoyed digging in, and eating, mud. I was recently noticing the abundance of slugs in our backyard, oddly enough.

Our vet thinks, because of the wormers, the worms are now lower than her trachea, in the bronchi. I don't know why - she's a board certified avian vet so I'm pretty sure she knows what she's doing. However, I was told my little goose might not survive the night because her symptoms are worse and she may asphyxiate the worms and die. I have never heard of this before. Does it happen often? I was told her symptoms are supposed to get worse before they get better. Is this the case with treating gape worm?

I do hope she pulls through, but I am a little confused about the whole situation.

 

[dlhunicorn]

yes... asphyxiation on the dead worms is quite possible... why does your vet not use laproscopy to remove them?

 

[adrian]

Endoscopy is basically laproscopy and unfortunately, she says going into the bronchi, which are absolutely tiny, would be phenomenally dangerous. Thank you for backing up the possibility of them asphyxiating dead worms, though... Everyone should know that gape worm is not only more difficult to treat than other worms, but can be dangerous.