Thread: jarjar is sick

thanks connie. yes, im beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel with this. im just hoping im not in a train tunnel!! lol

How is JarJar doing now??

Originally Posted by mom2caique

thank you phil and jon!

jarjar finished off his antifungal on tuesday. the 2 times before when he went off it he went about 2-3 days and his weight began to plunge. this time (its been 5 days now!) he is still holding!! woohoo. he has been averaging in the low 190s for his early morning weight before hitting the food/water bowl. another 10g and he will be at his normal weight before he got sick!! im kind of expecting him to actually go a bit higher. he is still a baby after all. he was only 5 months old when this roller coaster ride began in early dec.

keeping my fingers crossed that we have this licked this time!! (every time i post how well he is doing he takes a plunge......... sigh.)

forgot to mention that the dr still wants him on the anti inflammatory. he still cant get PDD out of his head. actually, he didnt want to remove him from both meds at once so he knows which on it was that was really working. i had wanted the boy off the anti inflammatory 1st but doc wants him on it at least another month or so.

been awhile since ive updated so here goes.

after the last update jj went thru a punky period of a few days. his weight didnt plunge but he was just sitting around, kinda fluffed, eating, but clearly not as much. after 2 days of that he was back to his devilish self playing and talking and eating. i did run him to the vet and he was swabbed in the crop. no fungus showing now so dr would not put him on more anti fungal. he basically threw up his hands and said he doesnt know whats wrong with him. kind of made me feel so all alone with this.

since that incident his eating habits have COMPLETELY changed. he is more back to normal. instead of pigging down in the morning and putting on 4g as soon as he hits the food bowl, he now basically just maintains his morning weight pretty much thru the day. then before bed at night he will eat enough to put on about 4g. sometimes more. on average now, he is only about 4g less in the morning than when he went to bed. this is also more normal. he had been taking 10g-13g weight plunges from his night/morning weight.

he isnt putting on weight but not losing it either. ranges 189g-194g as his morning weight. this is still about 10g less than before he got sick. ive had several people tell me that after their birds recovered from illness it can take a year or so to put all the weight back on and sometimes they never get back to what they were.
he is playing so much he is using all the calories up instead of fattening up. good i guess but i will forever base his weight on the 200g mark.

the dr still has him on metacam. after this bottle is done i want him off it. im concerned about him being on it so long. dr still has PDD on his mind. i still say he has no signs of that. he has NEVER regurgitated, passed whole foods, had crop binding, weight loss even though eating, etc. dr did a barium xray and stuff was passing normally thru him. only thing the dr is basing it on is the fact that when jj was at his sickest point and weak from refusing food he was very clutzy and fell a few times from the perch. he is saying that could be neurological signs of PDD, which a bird could have and not have any other signs of PDD. i still think he is wrong and want to yank him off the metacam but dont want to feel like im in denial and not looking at the big picture too only because i dont want it to be PDD.........

so (KNOCKING ON WOOD HERE), he is holding his own still. now that ive updated im so afraid he will go into another of those wierd funks and mope for a day or 2. if he continues with those funks, its just more of the dr leaning towards neuro issues and PDD...... :(

i do have to add though that the funk he went into about 9 days after the last of the antifungal treatment (mentioned at the beginning) that he was still in the very HEAVY molt. while feather were no longer raining down he had many bald spots so im kind of wanting to pin the funk on the molt (denial about pdd). he has since grown in all the feathers he lost and is my pretty little boy again. he is still molting and has tufts of down with occasional feather loss but not heavy.
and the feathers that came in........ some of them have yellow on the ends instead of black. dr said that is do to stress while molting because of being sick when this happened. so i now have a golden trimmed jardine!!

i love this little guy!!

If your vet did a fluoroscopy and still found nothing, why is he still leaning toward PDD rather than fungal? Can Jarjar just be taken off the metacam or will he have to be weaned? It sounds like Jarjar is pretty much back up to speed in his weight and energy, hopefully it holds.

he can just come off the metacam but the vet wants to be sure of which med it was in deed helping him. if he took him off them both at the same time or to close to one another it wouldnt rule out which one was helping him.
all the medacam is is an anti inflamatory.

after this bottle is gone i will take him off that one whether he wants me to or not. im afraid of kidney damage being on it long term.

Thanks for the update. Sounds like things are going better.

what ever medication you decide to stop , it is best to wean him off slowly, ex. if given 4 times a day, go down to 2, if given 2 times a day go down to once a day. sorry if it sounds silly, but just trying to help.

Originally Posted by susan

what ever medication you decide to stop , it is best to wean him off slowly, ex. if given 4 times a day, go down to 2, if given 2 times a day go down to once a day. sorry if it sounds silly, but just trying to help.

doesnt sound silly at all susan. he is only on .05 ml 2X/day. ill be in contact with the dr before i take him off it and see what he says. thanks!!

ar, i hope he is doing better. seems like every time i post he takes a nose dive. or beak dive........

i sure hope he gets over this soon!!

just talked to the dr today. jarjar is down to the anti inflamatory 1X/day now!! (KNOCKING ON WOOD) he seems to be doing well. weight holding. not gaining to get to his original weight but holding at the low to mid 190s with an occasional dip to 188 or so.
starting weight before getting sick was 200g.

I'm so sorry! This must be really hard on you and your family. I will keep Jarjar in my prayers, I hope he gets better soon! Keep us updated!