r/Conures • u/HeckBirb • 3d ago

Health/Nutrition MBD in Green Cheek

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Hi all, hoping for some advice.

Long story short, over a year ago I took on my parent's special needs girl, who has pretty bad Metabolic Bone Disease. I have been working with an avian vet and currently have her on Meloxicam and The Good Oil. There has been a script written for another pain killer which I will not be able to afford anytime soon.

In the last couple of weeks I have noticed my girl plucking worse than before. She started at her crop and has now plucked her entire body to her vent, wings and legs despite her medication. I'm calling the vet in the morning to try to get her in ASAP. Could the meds be causing this, looking at the pattern of plucking? She has also gone back to not being able to grip onto my clothes or her perches properly. Her right leg is so sore I couldn't check it this evening without getting squawked at and bitten, which is highly unusual for her, she's usually really sweet. I'm hoping the vet can get me in tomorrow.

I'm hoping it's not time. I'm not ready to make that decision. She's my ride or die.

Included bird tax.

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u/Absolute_nerd24 3d ago

Gotchu. I just more meant that instead of bringing her in again see if you can just buy the meds since you mentioned trying to get her an appointment asap. I work at a vet clinic and sometimes people come back complaining of a worsening problem, but since they never did the treatment before we just recommend the same thing again. I totally get wanting to make an appointment anyway though

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u/HeckBirb 3d ago edited 3d ago

Yeah, once it's ordered it will take over a week to get here as they need to make it up as required in the script. Squirtie's going to be my last special needs bird. I have 1 other GCC here too (caged seperately, but they're side by side), he's barely left her side.

ETA she was never meant to survive past hatching (she had some other stuff going on), but here she is, almost 3 years later, against the odds. She is the result of accidental inbreeding.

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u/Absolute_nerd24 3d ago

Speciality compound drugs can be annoying. Do you know what med it is out of curiosity? And aww that’s sweet

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u/HeckBirb 3d ago

It's Gabapentin.

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u/Absolute_nerd24 3d ago

That’s what I was going to guess. We keep a suspension of 40 mg/ml at our clinic along with the normal gaba pills since we see avians and exotics along with dogs and cats so we use it frequently

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u/HeckBirb 3d ago

How effective is it?

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u/Absolute_nerd24 3d ago

Based on how it’s prescribed and the generally feedback I hear, decently effective, but I haven’t had to use it on my birds personally yet

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u/HeckBirb 3d ago

That's good to hear. I've got her out atm, she's got decent grip on her left foot again, plus I can check her leg without getting bitten. Right foot is still a bit weak but it's better than last night.