Worried. New here. Sun conure bruised wing.

[lizarosco]

Sorry I've taken forever to reply. It's been super busy and with me having problems health wise and having bloodwork and a diagnosis and grad school. Just things...

I'm definitely going to try to incorporate the gloop thing for all of my birds. It seems like a definite worthwhile attempt. But I'm still concerned over Fawkes' wing. It's been 2 weeks since the day it was bruised at the vet during her X rays and it's still not working. Is this normal? How long can it take to heal? She still can't fly and the wing still droops and sometimes trembles still. I gently felt around on it and she doesn't seem to be in pain but it feels almost as if her joints are thicker and harder. The wing is no longer swollen like before but I'm just baffled that it could still be like this if all she had has is a bruised wing...

[Pajarita]

Well, there is actually nothing you can do about it so worrying is not going to achieve anything (I know, I know, easier said than done, right?). The thing is that she might never regain full use of that wing though. I've seen it happen several times... Sometimes, when the trauma is to the bend (you know, where we would say the 'elbow' is -which is not really the elbow but the wrist), you don't see any broken bones on the XRays but if one or some of the tendons were torn and don't heal back on their own, there is nothing you can do...

[lizarosco]

That really breaks my heart
I feel like I should've never taken her to the vet to get looked at to begin with because she came out worse than she came in. It makes me so sad just to look at her..

[Pajarita]

Well, she might still regain some use in it. Tendons take a loooooong time to heal and stop hurting (and I know because I hurt one on a knee and it took an entire year for the pain to go away). I've had several birds that had one droopy wing that could still fly with it. Not as well as the others (maneuvering is hard for them) but good enough for them to feel good about it...

[lizarosco]

That gives me some hope. I really do hope it heals. I have her scheduled for an appointment tomorrow to check her up but it's with the same vet. My sister is telling me I should find someone else because it was that clinic's fault that my sun was injured. Should I get a second opinion somewhere else? I'm honestly beyond lost at this point..

[Wolf]

Well you have two ways to look at this, if you look at it the way that I do. And that is to either use a different vet or insist on being present when they do anything with your bird. If you like the vet just don't allow your bird out of your sight, which is a good policy anyway.

[Pajarita]

I would go to another vet. Being present is a good policy but, in reality, all it takes is one wrong movement or a bit too much pressure and the harm is done before you can stop the person doing the wrong thing. And, if the technicians are not properly trained on bird handling (they don't learn anything about birds when they go to school to get the degree -they only practice on dogs, cats and farm animals if they are lucky) it's entirely the vet's fault because he is the one that needs to do the training. I am not much on giving second chances when it comes to my animals... it's one thing to do it when something happens to people because they can tell you what happened and/or complain but animals can't so I play it safe and if I don't like a vet, I just don't go back. I also don't like the fact that they did not take responsibility for what they had done to your bird -which is the least that one can expect!

[lizarosco]

I ended up taking her back to the same vet because her appointment was today. It turns out her wing's joint is broken and they didn't notice in the X rays last time. These X rays were more focused and it showed the break...
The vet said she'll probably never fly again..
He bandaged her wing (just the feathers) and said to come back in two weeks and we'll see from there about doing physical therapy. He didn't charge me for anything. But I honestly almost broke down crying. Fawkes is flighted and would always fly around in my room. She's lost some weight since it's happened and she doesn't want to leave her cage much anymore. I'm honestly truly upset with myself. She was healthy when I first brought her in. I just wanted to find the source of the seizure she had had (which to this day we still don't know why it happened) and that checkup led to her wing injury. I'll never forgive myself for letting this happen to her.

[Pajarita]

Well, my dear, you are been too hard on yourself. None of us has the crystal ball and we all do what we do out of the best of intentions. You took her to the vet in good faith and they failed you. It's as simple as that. The fault lies smack on this vet's shoulders and not yours, if you ask me. He did give you pain killers for her, right? That will make her feel better -I bet she is not eating as much or coming out of her cage because of the pain but now that her wing is bandaged (they did an 8 bandage, right?), if she gets a bit of metacam (they sometimes give you a daily dosage but I like to start them off on the whole thing and then half in 12 hours and continue doing half twice a day), she will feel much better and start eating. Nothing you can do about it now except give her as good a life as possible...

[lizarosco]

She's not on any pain killers now but she was on them about a week ago or so. The bandage is a simple wrap on her lower wing feathers. I don't know how it helps at all and she's been nipping at it since yesterday. Right now we're just giving her even more time to just heal on her own until I come back in two weeks and see about starting or talking about physical therapy. That's really it.