Urgent Help

[ameya7214]

My alexendrine parakeet of 13 yrs she is having a serious breathing problem. We removed xray of chest. It turned out to be very bad news...she hardly had any lungs present in that xray...Avian told that she is suffering from fungal infection(fungal pneumonia)...she is currenlty on ketoconazole (NIZROL). Even avain told her condition is very serious.Sometimes she gets attach and then breathing problem starts in between. she starts gasping for air. during that time she keeps on scratching her nose with her nails, keeps on doing open mouth breathing with her tongue kept out and later after 15 mins she becomes alright..
can any1 help me its quite urgent....she is on ketoconazole since past 5 days.Rest of the time she is quite active... and yes sometimes she loses her voice and gains it back in a day or two.

[Pajarita]

Well, the first thing to do is an endoscopy because what she has is most likely aspergillosis and there are two kinds of it. The 'regular' kind which can be treated with anti-fungals (like the one you are giving her) and the one that is also caused by aspergillus but which has made what's called an aspergilloma. The aspergilloma is like a 'ball' of fungus with thick walls and the medicine does not go through them so it needs to be surgically removed, the area treated topically and continue with oral treatment after the surgery so, if she has this last kind, the antifungal medicine is not going to do its job. In the meantime, I suggest you put her in an oxygen box because it seems to me that she is not getting enough on her own and she cannot get better without it. There are commercial ones you can buy (see here: http://www.snydermfg.com/avian-treatment-cages) but you can also make one yourself by attaching an oxygen concentrator (you can buy an used or refurbished one - you might also be able to rent one) to a box (better if it's made of plexiglas so the bird can get light and see through the walls) and placing the bird inside for an hour or so three or four times a day.

Aside from that, you need to treat her immune system because unless she has been eating moldy seed for some time, the only other reason for aspergillosis is a depressed immune system. You also need to change her diet and give her comfort as well as super nutritious food.

Good luck and let us know how she does.