Questionable vet treatment for clostridium? (pls help)

[nakedziggy]

Hello everyone,

Apologies for asking a question here when I'm not a regular member; but, I really need your help.

My senegal, Simon, has had a clostridium infection in his intestines for about a month. This results in stinky morning stool of softer consistency. Our vet (an avian specialist) is suggesting some odd treatments, and for this reason, I wanted to hear what other parrot owners have to say.

Simon was first prescribed metronidazole dosage once a day for seven days. During this treatment the odor disappeared within 2 days and consistency returned to normal. We did a gram sample and it indicated there was no clostridium present. 5 days later, the odor returned and a subsequent gram stain revealed clostridium once again. As far as I know it never went away as its tricky to test for. Next our vet now prescribed Clinsol for treating the bacteria.

This medication is used to treat dental and skin infections in dogs and cats. According to drugs.com, "Dogs: Skin Infections (wounds And Abscesses) ..... deep Wounds And Abscesses Due To Bacteroides fragilis, Prevotella Melaninogenicus, Fusobacterium Ecrophorum and Clostridium Perfringens. Nothing in the way of avian is mentioned, nor do we know if his clostridium is the perfringens type as another lab test proved futile in growing any bacteria."

1.) In light of this, does it seem like reasonable treatment or should we change vets?

The primary warning on Clinsol (below) states that the medication may actually promote more clostridia.

The use of clindamycin hydrochloride occasionally results in overgrowth of non-susceptible organisms such as clostridia and yeasts. Therefore, the administration of CLINSOL Liquid should be avoided in those species sensitive to the gastrointestinal effects of clindamycin (see CONTRAINDICATIONS).

2.) What's the best treatment for this bacteria? he's had it appear a few other times in the past even though his cage is cleanly...we've been given metronidazole as well as baytril previously. The vet recommends an x-ray because of Simon's "pre-disposition" to acquiring this again. I don't think it ever went away...

thank you everyone,
Zig

[charlotte&mango]

I'm only a vet student, not a vet so I can't really help with the best treatment ..
But I have spent a lot of time shadowing an avian vet and he seemed to use a lot of treatments that weren't officially for birds. Ie. a lot of dog/cat drugs and occaisionally human. It just means that it wasnt designed for birds, and hasnt officially been tested on them - therefore the risk of using them is in your hands and the vet is not responsible for any side effects. Often though there arent any drugs licensed for birds but another one is completely adequate and is very unlikely to harm them.
An avian vet is sure to know what he/she is doing and will have used the drug before or have looked into before prescribing it so I wouldnt let that concern you too much

[nakedziggy]

Thank you, this has seems to be the general consensus from what I've found in my research

[Pajarita]

The problem was that he wasn't given any probiotics during and after the antibiotic treatment. Clostridium infections usually come from not having enough beneficial bacteria which keeps the bad bacteria in check not allowing it to grow and, while the antibiotic treatment kills the bad bacteria, it also kills the good bacteria so when you treat for bad, you always have to boost the good or the bad comes back. Give the bird probiotics in his beak with a syringe two hours after giving the antibiotic during the treatment and every day for a week (in his water or his soft food) after the antibiotic treatment is finished as well as apple cider vinegar in his water (the organic, unpasteurized, unfiltered kind with the mother) and use the human probiotic that has the most number of strains you can find.

[rebcart]

There's been a lot of research recently showing that the safest and most effective treatment for clostridium in humans is a faecal transplant. Exactly what it sounds like - take the stool of a healthy human, mash it up with water into a slurry, then pump the slurry into the sick person's intestines so the good bacteria overwhelm the bad. I wonder if your vet might consider replicating that in a bird... although the bird would have to go under anaesthetic to get the tube down past the stomach.

[Pajarita]

The treatment for humans you mention is done through an enema, not with a tube down the throat, and it cannot be done with birds.