Fearing Beans blood test!

[bean]

Bean my approx. 16 y/o Blue Front has nevev had a blood test b/c I have been fearful of this proceedure for years, after hearing horror stories. But he has been just a little off lately, a little diarrhea on and off, and his beak is growing faster than usual, so I have to have him thoroughly gone over I think, including a CBC. I going over a 100 miles to animal hospital in Memphis to have it done. Can anyone tell me, if they have had the CBC done before, with or without issues, and is this fear rational or simple paranoia, and noted exceptions. Thanks.

[Pajarita]

My dear, blood work on a large parrot is nothing to fear. They either take blood from under the wing or the side of the neck and it's done real quick and with as little stress as possible for the bird. But you need more than just a CBC, you need an avian chem panel and bile acids because a CBC doesn't tell you anything about the internal organs and with an overgrowing beak, you need to make sure the liver is working right and that the kidneys are not producing too much uric acid. You are ALWAYS better off knowing exactly what is wrong so you can treat it so don't worry so much about it, you are doing exactly the right thing! Let us know how it goes and what the vet says, please.

[bean]

Beans blood test was done today. Test itself not major problem, but Bean screamed lots. However, I am crushed to learn that he has Fatty Liver Disease. Bean IS NOT a seed eater, other than a few thrown in his crock, for variety. But, when going over his food in detail with the vet, many of his foods, contained way too many seeds, and fat. And we give him too many treats. For example, Bean likes Lafaeber Avi Cakes. Which are 50% seeds, he gets yogurt dipped treats, which are sunflower seeds in the middle etc., etc, . I try to post a pic of all the items that go into his crock every day. If your bird is a little more quiet than usual,very wet droppings, excess urate in dropping(soaking thru papers), less of an appetite, faster growing beak and or nails, pin feathers around neck area or anywhere, molt off schedule(delayed), get to a avian doc without delay. I hope someone can see this, and not make the same mistake as me, and not go thru this pain and anxiety, and uncertainty of now fighting to save Beans life. I cant imagine life without my friend. I always thought as long as my bird was not on a "seed" diet, and ate mostly pellets, he could have his treats, and even share some food with me sometimes, w/o much worry. I hope my ignorance does not exact the highest cost of all. If you have ever had a bird with this disease, I would really like to hear your experience, and any nutritional success you have had in rehabilitating your parrot, or any bits of wisdom you possess. Thanks. If you have a question about Bean, just ask.

[liz]

You did no know what you did not know. Now you know and can change his diet to help him.
Don't beat yourself up. This did not happen from neglect or abuse. It was your lack of knowledge and wanting to make Bean happy. Like rewarding your good kid with treats.

Thank you for posting all the symptoms. You are a good parent with concern not only for yours but for ours.

We need to keep the diet thread active. We may even need a thread on illness to describe the symptoms and what caused it. Other than changing diet, what did the vet say to do for him?

Please keep us posted.

[Wolf]

Depending on how far this disease has progressed, you have some option to make the remainder of his life very close to normal. Pajarita has had a lot of experience with treating birds through diet that have fatty liver disease.
Pellets are also largely seeds, they are just ground up so that the bird can't pick out the high fat and high protein seeds. Seeds in themselves are not bad for your bird, it is dependent on the amount of seeds in their diet as well as on the amount of exercise that a bird has, and by exercise I mean flight.
Due to the fact that I don't have the knowledge on this that Pajarita has I will back off and let her explain what you need to do to improve your birds life and diet. I just wanted to let you know that there are things you can do to help your bird live a fairly normal life, despite his having liver disease.

[bean]

Thanks. The vet vet said even though his liver damage is "fairly significant", the liver can be a " very forgiving organ". Also, that in conjunction with his other overall health is good(kidneys lungs, etc), and he was brought in before he was showing some of the symtoms that I listed in my last post, means we MIGHT have to chance to save him. With lots of attention, and special care. The immediate things the doc told me to do for the next 30 days is the diet change. NO SEEEDS, in any forms. NO FAT, LOW SUGAR, LOW CARBS, LOTS OF VEGGIES (fresh), fruit in moderation, no more millet sprays, and some other things I dont have my notes in front of me. Exercise, is something I am going to need help with, he has never flown before, but I would love to let him, safely. He is also on 2 RX/supplements, they are Omega 3 Booster (warm up liquefy, and coat food), and Liver MX LactusSylm/Sam E8 1cc orally 2x day. Which if I can not get him to take this goop in like yogurt or something, I am going to be screwed if I have to force it on him w/ a syringe 2x a day. It will be horrible, because ge will resist, and I fear stressing him. And I have to start, like today. Sorry for the long post. Is there a link on photo posting instructions? Lastly the vet said I MIGHT want to weigh the pro and cons of a liver biopsy. He did say it was very invasive and possibly dangerous. I am leaning towards declining this option at first thought. I must find a way to reverse or stop the damage I have done to my parrot. I look forward to hearing from Pajarita. Thank you.

[Pajarita]

I would not even consider a liver biopsy for now, my dear. Terribly invasive and hard on a weakened animal and, in truth, the chances of his problem been anything but a consequence of a bad diet are minimal.

Now, as to what you need to do. First of all, I don't agree with less fruit. I don't know how this thing that lots of fruits are not good for parrots started but I can assure you it did not start with anybody who has ever watched wild parrots eat because they eat A LOT of fruits. I think it has to do with the sugar content in them but fructrose (the sugar found in fruits) is not the same a sucrose (the sugar we put in our coffee), fruits have lots of fiber, vitamins and water and even though they do have a considerable amount of fructose, it's effect it's highly diluted by the other nutritional elements (it's not the same to eat a spoonful of sugar than to eat a bunch of grapes, see what I mean?) and parrots, as canopy feeders process it differently.

I would feed him gloop and raw organic (it's important that he eats organic because the liver is one of the filters of the body -the other ones are the kidneys- and you want it to concentrate on healing and not cleaning up all the insecticides, fertilizers, antibiotics and other crap that regular produce has) produce. Gloop is a dish made out of cooked cereal grains, pulses and veggies (if you do a search you should find several threads on it) and, for dinner, I would give him less than 1/4 measuring cup of a good quality budgie seed mix (I know the vet said no seeds but if you don't give him something he is willing to eat until he gets used to the healthier diet, he will lose too much weight too soon and that always means a huge hit to the internal organs - besides, a good quality budgie mix is mostly cereal grains and low in protein and fat -usually around 10 to 12%).

He also needs to be kept to a strict solar schedule. You might think this has nothing to do with the liver but a screwed up endocrine system put a lot of stress on the body and you need to reduce stress to the max to allow his liver to heal. Good quality full spectrum lights (CRI 94+ and Ktemp 5000 to 5500 but try for 5000) during the daylight hours is also a must (they regulate their endocrine system -which, in turn affects the immune system directly- by not only the quantity but also the quality of light).

As to supplements, if you cannot get him to take the liver medicine from the syringe, get yourself some non-alcoholic liquid milk thistle and dandelion root extract (health stores, vitamin shops and the internet) and put half a dropperful of each in about 4 oz of water in his water dish. Add one capsule of methionine to his soft food as well as one capsule of vit B6 every three days (gloop is great for this).

Eliminate ALL people's food and animal protein (not only meat but also eggs and milk products) and feed lots of food high in vit C (it's needed to heal the liver - blueberries, strawberries, oranges, etc) and give him artichoke hearts, beets, carrots, lots of dark leafy greens, especially dandelion greens (he won't eat this on his own at the beginning but you can puree them and add them to the gloop), broccoli (they like it cooked or raw), Brussels sprouts and any other cabbage. Use extra virgin olive oil, a bit of fresh, chopped garlic (not a lot, mind you) and turmeric to flavor his gloop as well as some flax seed oil (for the omega 3).

If you change his diet now and give him the supplements, he won't die and, most likely, the damage to his liver will be reduced. The liver is the only organ that regenerates itself so he has a very good chance to still live a long, happy life so don't despair, just roll up your sleeves and go to work.

Let me know if you have any other questions and, if you will, please let us know how things go (we might be able to help with snags in the treatment/diet switch).

[bean]

I just read your post 2x. First thank you. I am going to go look for the gloop recipe when done here. I pray he eats it. I know everyone says thier birds are picky. Bean may be the one of the pickiest. Im glad to here that fruit would be one of your top food choices, he loves it, and it is a staple in his diet. He is not eating hardly anything today. I think this is both the stress of yesterday (5 hours in car plus appt), and much of his normal diet is missing. So what you said about him not losing weight and getting weak is going to be critical. I probably have many questions over the coming weeks, so thanks for your offer of help. Im on information overload right now, and I have to get organized and figure out what he will eat and wont, and what best for him. I will post as again soon. Thanks.

[Pajarita]

My dear, I currently have 6 amazons but I've had personal experience with 11, all of them 'second hand' so it's not as if I raised any of them on a good diet from babyhood and can assure you without the shadow of a doubt that amazons are EXCELLENT eaters! Start with a simple gloop made with cooked whole grains (don't cook them all the way through, leave them al dente) to which you add fresh corn and some peas and carrots (carrots need to be organic but not corn or peas) and add just a sprinkle of seeds which you need to mix into it. He will start by picking the seeds but soon will be eating the whole grains (you will see empty 'skins') and, when you see that the is eating the corn and peas (it might take longer with the carrots), you can start adding the chopped broccoli to it. Then, when he is eating this, you can add something else. The trick is to give them a small portion of the budgie seed mix at dusk and, once he is asleep when night falls, take the bowl away. The next morning, wait about one hour after sunrise to give him his bowl with gloop in it but you can give him the raw produce as soon as you uncover the cage to expose him to the dawn light (that's how I get them to try new veggies and fruits).

The vet is right in that you need to change his diet asap but the 'soon' in asap depends on the animal in question. You can change a dog, a cat, a hamster, a mouse's food and the animal will be eating it in two days but it's not the same with parrots, it takes a loooooong time for them to accept new things so you can never do the diet switch cold turkey on them, you need to go slowly and gradually.

You can always pm me when and if you have doubts, I always check my emails in the morning and will answer as soon as I see the pm there.

[bean]

I will thanks. I think I am going too fast already, bacause he is not eating near enough. I starvation will kill him faster than the liver disease. Im definitely going too fast. Thanks.