My budgie is fighting with a respiratory disease for a while. One occurred a year ago, and he was much worse than today, but regained his health quickly with simple medicines. 2 weeks ago, I had to visit same avian vet for similar problems. Before visiting, I tried to treat the bird myself with previously prescribed drugs. I would visit sooner instead of trying to cure on my own if this vet wasn't too far away, but I got too scared of losing my budgie on travel. Tried to find proper places near me, they didn't return. There are quite a lot vets here, and some are avian vets but I wouldn't trust other than research hospitals. By the way, research hospitals for pets are so good even humans might not be treated this well in hospitals in the area. Anyway, after my visit I got some different medications, and treatment mainly included using a nebulizer. But no improvement. And sometimes it was like getting worse. Right after using nebulizer, bird looks significantly better, but he gets worse a few hours later as if he keeps catching cold. This happened 3 times, I started to use heating pads after first time this occurred, for the other two, heating pad wasn't warm enough (or simply wasn't enough, I don't know, warming this way is the best I can do right now).
After 2 weeks today I revisited vet and my budgie got an x-ray this time. It seems that the bird's breathing problem is kind of chronic -and vitamin A deficiency amplified this issue- and he needs longer treatment that will last at least like 2 months. But as I've heard it is high likely that bird's problem isn't anything fatal. There is still small chance bird has one type of fungal infection instead that unfortunately has no cure - even for humans. Though before this x-ray, vet also had warned about small chance of having thyroid disease, but x-ray results show that his thyroids are fine. Vet also found small amount of gas in bird's crop, but I'm told it isn't to worry about. Other than these, all of my birds' organs are revealed healthy. I got additional medications and will be seeing the vet in a few days again.
Honestly, I wasn't aware of my bird's vitamin deficiency because he was always eating what I was eating and I was serving him additional vegs so I never thought he had poor nutrition. Maybe I couldn't calculate the portions. And recently I've been giving him a powerful multivitamin (vet's prescription) but looks like these still weren't enough. Although my bird is 11 years old. Things such as vitamin and mineral deficiencies aren't an unusual thing at his age.
Symptoms: difficulty in breathing, wheezing sounds, enlarged chest, partially clogged nostril, weight loss, lethargy.
For treatment:
-Nebulizer was used 3 times a day for a week. In mornings and evenings, I poured bronchodilator, an antibacterial solution (that doesn't affect immune system like other antibiotics, this is normally injected but they don't recommend such thing on birds) and isotonic sodium chloride solution mixture into nebulizer, let the bird inhale this mist inside a box. I reduced this to one per day after revisit. In afternoons I poured expectorant and isotonic sodium chloride solution mixture into nebulizer. Same procedure as above. I will keep doing this.
-An antibiotic for a week, which seemed to me ineffective. Now we replaced with another antibiotic with amoxicillin (might not be a regular one though, I used amoxicillin before but it wasn't for chronic illnesses then, this is for chronic respiratory diseases). 2x4 drops pday.
-An anti-inflammatory drug. One drop per day.
-Multivitamin, 1 drop per day. I am told that this can be used everyday regardless of showing any sign of illness.
-Keep the bird warm, as can be guessed.
-I also used Guardian Angel recipe provided in this website when necessary. My bird didn't stop eating completely but I am hand feeding his favorite seeds and give fresh veggies.
I am still in the beginning of treatment, and feel like I have much more to go. But I am not giving up.
