Quail gasping for air

[PoptartTheQuail]

Unfortunately I never found out the problem, and she passed away shortly after

 

[TheWeeBee]

Oh dear I'm sorry ..I've got an appointment scheduled for Tuesday with another vet, hopefully they can figure out what's wrong with her. She doesn't seem to be getting worse, but she's not getting better either. She's still eating and drinking normally, but I'm sure this gasping for air is being very hard on her heart.

 

[PoptartTheQuail]

Oh dear I'm sorry ..I've got an appointment scheduled for Tuesday with another vet, hopefully they can figure out what's wrong with her. She doesn't seem to be getting worse, but she's not getting better either. She's still eating and drinking normally, but I'm sure this gasping for air is being very hard on her heart.

Can you let me know what the vet says, just for future reference? I hope your girl feels better!

 

[poorfarm]

Did you ever try treating for air sac mites? The definitely can cause labored breathing.

 

[TheWeeBee]

Can you let me know what the vet says, just for future reference? I hope your girl feels better!

Hi Poptart,
I finally got some more information to work with about Bee. Took her to the specialist vet, they did Xrays on her, and found that she's got a buildup of fluid in her peritoneal cavity that could either be ascites or peritonitis. The fluid is causing her to gain weight and is pushing her internal organs around, which is causing her to have to work harder to breathe when her heart rate is up. Without extracting a sample, (and extracting more $$ from my wallet), we can't know which one it is, but since she has laid two normal eggs in the past week, I'm guessing that it's ascites. It could be from liver or heart failure, or neither. Hard to say at this point.

They prescribed her Metacam to take for 15 days. But in humans, this medication has been known to cause ascites as a side-effect, and I'm not sure if I want to give it to her.

Looks like a no-fat diet and some milk thistle is in Bee's immediate future, and I'll see if I can't have that fluid drained from her to ease her symptoms. If anyone has any other suggestions to help manage her symptoms, please chime in! I'm all ears.

The office is supposed to be sending me copies of the xrays they took, so I'll post them asap.

 

[TheWeeBee]

Bad news: The ultrasound revealed that she has a mass growing in her chest cavity, not fluid.

The only thing I can do is keep her comfortable until she's ready to go.

 

[TheWeeBee]

Update: My Bee is still with me (amazingly!) but her gasping is making her weaker and she's lost several grams of weight. she's been hovering around 42g for the past month. Some days are worse than others, and some days she acts like she is (nearly) fine. She spends time next to a ceramic heat lamp I have near her cage, and she gets her fill of mealworms along with her regular crumble & seed.

 

[DK newbie]

Wow, that's amazing, she's still alive!
I recently read something on a budgie forum about "Knotweed" sometimes being able to cure or reduce all kinds of tumors in parrots. Don't know if it has any truth to it, but at long as you don't pick it from a polluted location, I don't think it could hurt to try. Apparently you just feed the fresh plant in as large amounts as the bird will eat..

 

[TheWeeBee]

That sounds pretty awesome! But I have no idea how I would source it

Bee is still holding on. I think it's a cyst, not a tumor. I could find another avian vet and get a second opinion, but she would have to undergo another ultrasound to have it aspirated (if it's even possible) and it could all be for nothing. Don't think I want to put her through all of that again--it took her a week to recover from the stress

 

[TheWeeBee]

Belated update: I had to have Bee put to sleep at the end of August. She was losing weight and either gasping for air (causing her to panic) or huddled in a ball by the heat lamp. It was so hard to do, but she's at peace now.

The Dr gave her an anesthetic before the euthanasia, and she slipped into a dreamless forever sleep in an instant and felt no pain.