A few weeks back, I took Lady and my other 2 birds for their annual health check. They were booked in for a full blood work.
With Lady and my Amazon both being rehomes, I knew their results were not going to give them a clean bill of health due to their previous poor diets, and exposure to all things nasty.
Having their bloods taken was traumatic enough, but the results of the tests were worrying!!
All 3 birds showed a problem with their liver! To which the Pathologist wrote on the bottom of the paperwork HAVE THESE BIRDS BEEN TESTED FOR PSITTACOSIS?!?
The answer to that was YES and they all tested NEGATIVE!!
After having a chat with my vet, and going through the possibilities of a positive result, a negative result, or the possibility that it could just be a virus of some sort, it was decided that they should be retested as a first port of call. He suggested that I combine all 3 samples together, at first I was unsure about this, as I wanted them each to have a separate test. However, after deciding that if one bird had it, they all had it, and not wanting to know which ones could test positive, and which ones may not, I decided to combine the sample and have 1 test for all 3 birds.
Due to the fact the builders were due to start work to finish the extension, I decided to wait until they had started work before collecting samples. This was to ensure that the birds were under a stressful situation when the samples were collected, because Psittacosis usually rears its ugly self when birds get stressed. I also decided that I would take the samples over a longer period of time, which was 9 days in total.
When I spoke to the vet about the possibilities and treatment, he informed me that the usual treatment via injection was imported, but were being stopped until later on in the year!! Which meant an alternative, but less effective treatment would be used.
I had prepared myself for the worst……. My babies testing positive, my babies being treated but to no avail, my babies having to be put to sleep…
The tears I have cried, and then one morning I walked into the livingroom to find Lady chewing on a toy that she’d previously refused to go anywhere near!! That was it!!! I was not giving up on my babies!!! I have worked too damn hard and have made too much progress to give up…….. I would fight this all the way!!! Later that day, the sample was ready to be sent off, and today I had the results!!!!
My biggest concern was that the disease would be lying dormant, and therefore would not give a correct test result, but speaking to the vet, and researching the tests available, the test that was done ( the PCR ) is the most accurate test available, which does not test for trace in the sample, it tests the DNA.
The result – Psittacosis NEGATIVE!!!!!!!
However, this does not mean that we are out of the woods just yet!!
My vet is on holiday until next week, but I need to discuss with him the possibility of an alternative test, ie a DNA blood test, to completely rule out any chance of Psittacosis. The vet had stated that if we get a negative result, he would like to endoscope Lady to take a biopsy of her Liver, as she had the worst results, but before I consider putting her through that, I need to be sure that the Psittacosis risk is zero!!
So, stressed doesn’t even come close to how I’ve been over the past few weeks, Lady however, has been her usual cheeky self.
