Quaker with heart disease

[CrazyQuack]

Hi all,
I joined this forum to see if there was anyone out there with experience with heart conditions in birds and/or experience using diuretic medication like furosemide on them?

Back story:
I have a 2 year old Quaker with a grade 3/6 heart murmur and suspected dilated cardiomyopathy. She is on Pimobendan (compounded into a liquid) twice per day for heart strength but now has mild pulmonary oedema (fluid in lungs). My avian vet (who has discussed on veterinary forums with no answer) is not happy for us to start furosemide as she can not find any info on it being used in birds so doesn't know if it's safe and doesn't know a dose rate.

Basically I don't want to leave Nibbles without treatment but I'm also trying to respect my vets' opinions. Wanted to see if anyone had experience with this problem. I think I'll push for meds when she gets worse as it'll mean the end of her without treatment (for the fluid in lungs that is) so it's worth a try (the medication might kill her but it's more likely to save her and by that point she'll be no good anyway )but at the moment she's doing well otherwise.

It's an uncommon issue and we haven't been able to find anyone with the knowledge to help. Of course I listen to my vets' advice and am not here to undermine her. I wanted to see if anyone here has a pet with a similar problem or if you have an avian vet that you know to deal with something like this. I would put this info to my vet. Basically just grasping at straws - I don't even know if someone has a bird with a similar problem

I'm happy to share more details if requested. Thanks in advance!!

Kirsty

[CrazyQuack]

I should also introduce 'Nibbles'.
She is such a wonderful, intelligent and super brave little girl and I love her to bits!

Her stance is a bit off - she's crooked because of the 2 strokes she had before starting the heart medication (Pimobendan) but still happy and gets around well!

(Please no harsh comments about me keeping her alive cruelly or anything - trust me, I'm very aware of her quality of life and prepared to make hard decisions when the time comes).

[Pajarita]

I know of a bird that was put on diuretics because of fluid accumulation in her abdomen (advanced liver malfunction) but she died less than a couple of months after she started the treatment. Diuretics are very dangerous for parrots because they are not hard-wired to drink a lot of fluids as they are supposed to derive most of their hydration needs from the plant material they eat. But, because in captivity most people feed them a diet too dry (pellets are terrible this way), they could end up dehydrated and damage the kidneys in the process. You could try some mild herbal diuretics while providing a very wet diet all the time and some electrolytes (but not Pedialyte, an avian one like Electrovites -http://www.allbirdproducts.com/newproductpages/electrovites-electrolytes.html- or, better still, you can make your own without any sodium).

[Wolf]

I am sorry to hear of your birds condition. I have no information that can help on this but I wanted to express my sympathy for you and her. She is a very pretty little bird, wishing the two of you all the best.

[CrazyQuack]

Thanks so much Wolf, I appreciate it

And wow Pajarita, that's good info. Thanks. I'll look into it. I don't know anything about making my own electrolytes but i know I don't want to add any sodium to her diet

Nibbles is on pellets - seed only as a treat, not keen on the high fat in them. But mostly fruit and vege. She also gets lots of 'wild food' (flowers and seeds from trees native in Australia) as well as green seeding grasses so hopefully her diet is wet enough.
Later down the track, if she goes on diuretics, I can encourage her to drink more fluids too. Adding juice, cordial or other flavouring to her water wouldn't be good for her but better that she drinks more.

That's interesting about the other bird who was on diuretics. Do you know any more about the case? Good to know he at least had a few months. I imagine it was probably more the liver that did it for him in the end? But maybe a bit hard to know.

You sound like you know what you're talking about. Do you know much about herbal diuretics? I'll chat to my vet about it and look into it myself but if you have any info, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks so much

[Pajarita]

I don't know much about the other bird. The lady posted the bird had certain symptoms and she was advised to take her to an avian vet because it sounded like advanced liver malfunction. She ended up taking her to PennU (Pennsylvania State University which has an excellent veterinary school and avian clinic) on her avian vet's advice and that's where they put her on diuretics as well as antibiotics and milk thistle. I actually disagreed on the diuretic because, in my personal experience, birds with liver damage in advanced stages do get the fluid in the abdomen but it diminishes greatly or goes away altogether on its own once the liver starts working better (I also would have added more supplements to her diet as well as changing it to fresh food, exclusively) but she did was she was told by the avian vet, I assume, because less than two months later, she posted the bird had died (you can't do anything to impair kidney function when there is liver malfunction because those are the only two 'filters' we have in the body)

As to herbal diuretics, I would feed her lots of dandelion leaves (mild diuretic effect as well as very rich in vit A and C) and use a bit of hawthorn extract in her water (good for cardiovascular health -it improves the muscle metabolism- as well as getting rid of the fluid). You might also want to give her a bit of Ubiquinol (a better form of Coenzyme Q10) as it works at cellular level improving oxygen utilization.

[sam4life]

Hi, I registered just to answer this question. My much loved 45+ year old parrot was on Pimomenden without a diuretic and he died last week. The autopsy showed fluid lungs. I just learned learned that Pimobendan actually causes fluid in his lungs as a side effect, and Im horribly distraught. Please think about getting another medicine for your baby.

Are you in NYC, by any chance? I wonder if it is the same vet. I understand you don't want to share the vet's name publicly, but if you could share the city,I'd appreciate it,

[Wolf]

If it were me I would always disclose my avian vets name, this is the best way that we have as parrot owners to find decent vets for our friends. It may on occasion help us to avoid poor quality medical care for them as well. If we have a good vet then disclosure of his/ her name is the best advertisement that no amount of money can buy and the same holds true for less than adequate vets and may actually encourage them to improve the quality of care that they provide.

[Pajarita]

Hi, I registered just to answer this question. My much loved 45+ year old parrot was on Pimomenden without a diuretic and he died last week. The autopsy showed fluid lungs. I just learned learned that Pimobendan actually causes fluid in his lungs as a side effect, and Im horribly distraught. Please think about getting another medicine for your baby.

Are you in NYC, by any chance? I wonder if it is the same vet. I understand you don't want to share the vet's name publicly, but if you could share the city,I'd appreciate it,

So very sorry about your loss, Sam4life. Yes, I've used vetmedin (same as pimobendan) on dogs and they are always treated with a diuretics at the same time because of this side effect... but, in truth, congestive heart failure (which is pretty much the only condition this is used for as it should never be used for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy) causes fluid accumulation on its own, anyway. Having said that, it's also true that avian vets experiment with drugs that have not been approved or even tested for birds... but, there are just a few drugs approved for birds so it becomes a matter of trying to do something that might or might not work out or do nothing.

A poster on another thread on this same site mentioned her AV prescribing allopurinol for her bird with high uric acid and everybody knows that allopurinol damages the liver, an organ that is always compromised when a bird shows high uric acid levels because they are always caused by a diet too high in protein, the same cause of fatty liver so, when high uric acids levels are present, you KNOW the liver is compromised, too. So, although allopurinol works great for humans and other mammals (like dogs), it ends up killing the bird.

People need to do research on their own and not trust their AVs 100% because avian medicine is in its infancy and lots of vets make mistakes. Well intentioned mistakes but mistakes nonetheless...

[sam4life]

Dear Pajarita,
I am completely and totally devastated about losing my one and only parrot--a parrot I have had for my entire life. I joined this forum to tell the OP about my recent bad experience with Pimobendan so that she might think about asking her vet about one of the other medications that are available for heart failure in birds. I also wondered if we had the same vet, since I haven't come across too many parrots being prescribed this medication.

As is common when dealing with grief after the death of a pet, I feel incredibly guilty and am second guessing every single decision I have ever made in my parrot's care, and I was hoping to spare one stranger this pain.

In the past, I've spent hours reading avian medical journals in the hopes of figuring out what was wrong with my pet and how best to treat it. In the end, I decided that kind of involvement did more harm than good. Instead I took my parrot two certified avian specialists and mostly followed their advice.

Perhaps you didn't mean anything by it, but the "tisk-tisk, you should always do your own research on medications" comment has made me feel *awful* at a time when I didn't think I could possibly feel worse....