Conure sneezing excessively. Help!

[marie83]

Oh blummin heck, never rains does it?

Hopefully these meds will 100% work. Does your vet have any diagnosis yet as to what it is specifically?

[Andromeda]

Oh blummin heck, never rains does it?

You're telling me!

Hopefully these meds will 100% work. Does your vet have any diagnosis yet as to what it is specifically?

No, she ruled out sinusitis due to the lack of inflammatory cells in the Gram stain but put him on an antibiotic to "rule out infection." If he doesn't respond it will let her rule out certain things but there will have to be more testing. Maybe a culture and most definitely blood work.

If he does respond (and I think he is, knock on wood) I guess I won't know for sure what it was which doesn't thrill me but I'm going to completely sterilize their cages, toys, stands, perches, etc. tonight to try to stop re-infection. I did it a week ago after Bubba started his meds but haven't done it since Jimmy started displaying symptoms so it needs to be done again now that he has been on the antibiotic long enough to stop being contagious.

Looking back on it I wish I would have asked the vet to do a culture in addition to the cytology as the cytology was kind of inconclusive. Oh, well.

[friend2parrots]

sorry that Jimmy's sneezing now as well...although its good to hear that Bubba's sneezing has started to subside. i do hope the antibiotics will take care of whatever he has, and that its on its way out. hopefully you will get to the bottom of this soon. keep us posted with what happens.

wishing all the best for Jimmy and Bubba

[Andromeda]

Thanks for the continued support. Bubba didn't sneeze that much on Friday, Saturday or Sunday (2 - 4 times) which is why I thought it was getting better but today he has sneezed 10 times (that I have counted) and although they have been dry sneezes it has me worried again. I mean that's better than 15 - 20 times with some wet sneezes but it's still not normal. I did give him a bath so I considered maybe some of the sneezes were a result of that but I just don't know anymore. He has finished the antibiotic.

Jimmy on the other hand has only sneezed 3 times today...

I don't know what to think. I'm going to call the vet tomorrow and make an appointment for Saturday or early next week. That way I can monitor the sneezing for the next several days and if it's fine then I can cancel but if it's not I have an appointment just in case.

[Andromeda]

Well, I spent $660 at the vet today. I knew it was going to be expensive but that was more than even I thought it would be. The aspergillus test alone cost $280.

He had another nasal flush and Dr. Holder is doing another Gram stain. She's also doing a culture this time. He also had a CBC as well as a test for aspergillus and a second test for psittacosis (even though he tested negative for psittacosis about 5 weeks ago).

I wanted him to have an x-ray, too, but they said their x-ray machine had broken down earlier in the day and they had a technician coming out to try to fix it but they thought they might need to replace it so an x-ray was impossible. I was fed up about it but what can you do?

In the past for annual exams and nail trims Bubba has done very well at the vet as he is a happy and friendly bird but as this was his 4th visit in just over 5 weeks he's now become very stressed about it. When he first saw Dr. Holder today he was okay but when she left the room to get some supplies he started vomiting which is something he does when he's extremely stressed out---he only did it once before years ago when we had to evacuate our apartment in the middle of the night due to a fire in the complex. The vet said she'd never heard of a bird vomiting from stress but Bubba does! Also when he was being restrained and having blood taken and a sinus flush he screamed bloody murder the whole time which is something he's never done before. He has always been calm and quiet in the past.

On one hand I don't want him to turn out to be sick but I also kind of hope the tests show something because I don't want to have to keep taking him to the vet due to A) the expense and B) how stressful it's become for him so I really hope I can get to the bottom of things. If everything comes back normal I'll feel like I at least need to take him in again (*sigh*) for an x-ray before I just totally give up and say it's allergies.

[marie83]

So sorry about this, you've been through the whole mystery illness thing before and now its happening again I hope you get to the bottom of it very soon.

This article suggests the WBC count will be elevated in the event of allergies
http://www.birdchannel.com/bird-diet-an ... rgies.aspx

This may be why allergies have been ruled out for my two but i will need to speak to my vet to confirm that. Hope this is of some use to you.

[Andromeda]

So sorry about this, you've been through the whole mystery illness thing before and now its happening again I hope you get to the bottom of it very soon.

Yeah. Thanks for the well-wishes.

This article suggests the WBC count will be elevated in the event of allergies
<span><a class="smarterwiki-linkify" href="http://www.birdchannel.com/bird-diet-and-health/allergies.aspx">http://www.birdchannel.com/bird-diet-and-health/allergies.aspx</a></span>

This may be why allergies have been ruled out for my two but i will need to speak to my vet to confirm that. Hope this is of some use to you.

That was very useful information, thank you. I didn't know WBC could be elevated with allergies so that was very informative.

One thing really caught my attention:

"For example, it has been observed that some Amazon parrots housed outdoors under or in close proximity to some species of oak trees found in Florida can develop a profound periocular redness and swelling, conjunctivitis and ocular discharge.

Some also sneeze, develop rhinitis and swelling of the cere. This suspected allergic reaction usually occurs when the oak trees are in bloom in the spring, producing prodigious amounts of fine yellow, highly irritating pollen, leaving a yellow dusting on cars, windows and the ground."

I live in Florida and there are quite a few oak trees around where I live and I know they are blooming right now because I was complaining to my dad about my allergies the other day and he said his had been bad as well and that he had tons of yellow dust on his car from all the pollen.

Bubba is not an Amazon but it's not a giant stretch that if Amazons have had strong allergic reactions to Florida oak tree pollen another South American parrot such as a green cheek conure could also have a similar reaction.

[cml]

Aye, I believe its the dust thats causing Leroy's sneezing, in combination with dry air.
Allergies seems likely if the test results come back negative.

[Andromeda]

Well only the cytology results are in but they were the same as last time: Gram negative rods. Dr. Holder said that's abnormal because although there is normally some bacteria in the sinuses it's cocci and not rods. However, again she noted a complete lack of inflammatory cells which is really unusual because typically when there is an infection or illness there are inflammatory cells attacking the bacteria.

Maybe the culture will show something but that won't be back until late this week or early next week.

In the meantime everything is normal with him but the excessive sneezing continues. I feel bad for him because at this point if he is sick he's already been sick for over 5 weeks while I've been trying to get to the bottom of things.

[marie83]

Oki, this is part of a response from my vet to me as there were some questions I was asking him anyway regarding my birds health problems. It isn't detailed about the allergies but I thought you may be interested in the reply when I questioned why we had almost totally ruled allergy it. He does seem to confirm what the article I gave you the link for said but obviously elevated cell counts can indicate other stuff too. Hopefully he wont mind it being posted on the internet if it may help others although I guess I should probably ask permission first but I can imagine how anxious you are.

"Thank-you for the update. Allergic disease is a bit of a grey area in avian medicine. There is no current commercial skin test (although there are some studies being performed in the US) and diagnosis appears to be from clinical signs and by a process of elimination of other possible conditions. The blood tests performed are to rule out systemic disease (liver or kidney problems), calcium imbalances and possibly heavy metal poisoning. The haematology looks at the body's response to infectious challenge and possible inflammatory changes. You are quite right that eosinophil cell elevation can also indicate allergic response but may also indicate parasitic disease. I have some articles on feather disease and wondered if you wanted me to forward them (I realise you may have already seen some of them)."