Post by birdguhl on Jun 9, 2013 9:38:50 GMT
I hardly dare say it, but I think they are better...
My life over the past week or two has been taken over by chasing down and medicating panicked birds (and so destroying all that hard-won trust), scrutinizing and photographing droppings and sterilizing, sterilizing, sterilizing.
I spoke to the vet on the phone midweek at a particularly low point when I was doubting whether I was getting enough medication into them to make a difference and beginning to contemplate the worst having read up about how difficult it can be to control a protozoal outbreak.
It was a really interesting conversation and one that illustrated all too well the communication difficulties which arise in situations like this.
When I spoke to her on the phone before, after she had looked at droppings under a microscope, I remember her saying words like 'protozoa', 'ciliate', 'flagellate', 'giardia' and a few others. I wrote them down. I also remember talking about restarting Woody on liver support medication as a priority and keeping Flagyl in reserve depending on how things went with that.
But the day after that conversation, their droppings got worse and I got the Flagyl from one of her colleagues and all the focus was on that. I confess that in all the worry I forgot about the hepatosyl.
In the course of the recent conversation it became clear that there had been a communication failure. She thought she had made it clear that the protozoa she saw were ciliates (which move with lots of little hair-like structures) and not flagellates (which move with a tail). This is important because ciliates are not as dangerous as flagellates apparently. So this was not giardia - I did not get that. But then up until that moment I had never heard the words 'flagellates' or 'ciliates' or 'giardia' so it is not surprising I did not grasp all the details. Also, she explained that she thought she had made clear that the hepatosyl was the most important thing and she was only considering antibiotic treatment because there were so many of them. I do remember her saying the hepatosyl was important.
I am sure that she genuinely thought she had explained it properly but although I am quite a bright person I don't anything about all this stuff and I was anxious. It was a perfect situation for a communication failure to arise. The upshot was that I got overly focused on the antibiotics and neglected the hepatosyl. But the droppings were so abnormal that this was understandable.
There has been loads of research done showing that people understand and remember only a small proportion of info given by doctors etc.
Anyway, the decision was to stop the Flagyl after 7 days as it was so stressful and very doubtful as to correct dosages but to get the hepatosyl back in place. I have now done this. I have found that Woody - bless him - will hoover up seeds even if laced with unpleasant tasting substances so this makes things easier.
They have now been off Flagyl for two days and the droppings today look okay - not so great yesterday which were watery. She is going to have another look at some in a few days time.
Another long story - sorry - but the important message for me is that I need to be more assertive in checking my understanding of info given by vets and reminding them that people do not automatically understand what they are saying!
On a happier note, here is picture of Woody getting the idea that mirrors can be fun! (I reinstated some when they were seeming unwell and less interactive as a comfort for Charlie.) I don't know that Charlie is so impressed at Woody's incursion into this - there has been beakiness!
My life over the past week or two has been taken over by chasing down and medicating panicked birds (and so destroying all that hard-won trust), scrutinizing and photographing droppings and sterilizing, sterilizing, sterilizing.
I spoke to the vet on the phone midweek at a particularly low point when I was doubting whether I was getting enough medication into them to make a difference and beginning to contemplate the worst having read up about how difficult it can be to control a protozoal outbreak.
It was a really interesting conversation and one that illustrated all too well the communication difficulties which arise in situations like this.
When I spoke to her on the phone before, after she had looked at droppings under a microscope, I remember her saying words like 'protozoa', 'ciliate', 'flagellate', 'giardia' and a few others. I wrote them down. I also remember talking about restarting Woody on liver support medication as a priority and keeping Flagyl in reserve depending on how things went with that.
But the day after that conversation, their droppings got worse and I got the Flagyl from one of her colleagues and all the focus was on that. I confess that in all the worry I forgot about the hepatosyl.
In the course of the recent conversation it became clear that there had been a communication failure. She thought she had made it clear that the protozoa she saw were ciliates (which move with lots of little hair-like structures) and not flagellates (which move with a tail). This is important because ciliates are not as dangerous as flagellates apparently. So this was not giardia - I did not get that. But then up until that moment I had never heard the words 'flagellates' or 'ciliates' or 'giardia' so it is not surprising I did not grasp all the details. Also, she explained that she thought she had made clear that the hepatosyl was the most important thing and she was only considering antibiotic treatment because there were so many of them. I do remember her saying the hepatosyl was important.
I am sure that she genuinely thought she had explained it properly but although I am quite a bright person I don't anything about all this stuff and I was anxious. It was a perfect situation for a communication failure to arise. The upshot was that I got overly focused on the antibiotics and neglected the hepatosyl. But the droppings were so abnormal that this was understandable.
There has been loads of research done showing that people understand and remember only a small proportion of info given by doctors etc.
Anyway, the decision was to stop the Flagyl after 7 days as it was so stressful and very doubtful as to correct dosages but to get the hepatosyl back in place. I have now done this. I have found that Woody - bless him - will hoover up seeds even if laced with unpleasant tasting substances so this makes things easier.
They have now been off Flagyl for two days and the droppings today look okay - not so great yesterday which were watery. She is going to have another look at some in a few days time.
Another long story - sorry - but the important message for me is that I need to be more assertive in checking my understanding of info given by vets and reminding them that people do not automatically understand what they are saying!
On a happier note, here is picture of Woody getting the idea that mirrors can be fun! (I reinstated some when they were seeming unwell and less interactive as a comfort for Charlie.) I don't know that Charlie is so impressed at Woody's incursion into this - there has been beakiness!
