Can my Quaker Has Liver Disease be revearsed?

[FieryPhoenix]

My Quaker was diagnosed with liver fesses after an ultrasound on March 10th. She www given an antibiotic to treat possible helictites and milk thistle. She is still taken the milk thistle twice daily.

Re had her levels checked April 11th and there is not much change in his levels. I guess the milk thistle is helping? She takes it ij liquid form.

I have improving her diet, too. I www really hoping her bike acid levels would go down.

Is there anything else I can do to help improve liver function?

 

[onamom]

I believe @HeatherG has experience with this

 

[ravvlet]

Our Amazon Kirby had fatty liver disease, and after two and a half years of liver meds (not milk thistle, he does take a daily supplement but he was also taking silymarin, a prescription medication daily) he is disease free and his liver and bile levels are normal. ☺️

In addition to medication & a supplement, we made drastic changes to his diet (gradually cut out seed and nuts except very, very sparingly as treats, transitioned him to pellet & fresh veg with limited fruit). I think it took at least 2-3 months to make the switch to mostly pellet and veg, and perhaps another couple months to phase out seed completely - we did use a seed mix made by TOPS that doesn’t contain problematic or high fat favorites like peanuts and sunflower seeds, which probably also helped.

Diet change is almost always required to recover from fatty liver if your parrot’s current diet is problematic. However, any time you change your parrot’s food, please begin logging and recording their weight every morning, first thing in the morning, to make sure they are getting enough calories - they should never lose more than 3-5% of their total body weight in a week. If they do, you need to call the vet! Parrots can and will starve themselves if they have a rapid diet change and refuse to eat the new food. Slow and steady is the way to go, and be prepared to backtrack a few times - parrots are rarely linear in their progress!

 

[FieryPhoenix]

Hi everyone,

Just to clarify a few things. Nikki, the Quaker Parrot, does NOT have fatty liver disease. I kind of wish she did because that is the most common liver problem I hear about Quakers.

The vet diagnosed her with Chronic Hepatopathy - aka Chronic Liver Disease. An ultrasound showed that Nikki has a small liver.

He put her on an antibiotic for 21 days to treat possible hepatitis and also gave me liquid milk thistle for liver support.

Though she really didn't have any signs or symptoms (her bloodwork at a routine physical), did see some improvement with the milk thistle. I felt like her energy level went up a little bit.

I changed the diet, adding fresh sprouts, which she and her bestie, Sunny, love. I felt like she was in great spirits so I was sad to hear that her labs didn't show much change in her number. Of course, has only been a month so maybe she needs more time for her liver to perk up. My vet said that she had had this for years but because I had not been diligently doing bloodwork every year (she had gone 10 years), I had not spotted it right away. When we initially saw the elevated values, we attributed it to her wing tumor (spindle cell carcinoma).

I love this little girl so much. She turns 19 tomorrow and I am so thankful she is still here. I know Sunny is two. The two of them are so happy in their brand-new larger cage.

Here are two pictures. One of her next two Sun besties is about a week old or so. One of her standing solos was taken before she went for her ultrasound in March. She has food stuck to her beak LOL!

 

[wrench13]

@FireyPheonix I am sorry I have no experience with chronic liver disease, but I wish you and Nikki both a huge amount of luck. She is lucky to have you!