Itching - Twitching - Overheating??

[Alyce Johnson]

Berta has always wanted me to scritch under her right wing, for whatever reason.

She has been "twitching" her right wing since her beak injury. The twitch is more like a physical hiccup - it's not voluntary. She doesnt do it when fully awake, but only when she's in that interim state between awake and deeply asleep. It makes a sharp raspy sound as the folded right wing scrapes past the other wing. Then she has to make a little voluntary movement, to rearrange her wings for comfort.

Right after the injury, she was doing it about every 10 seconds! (literally - I timed her) So I took her to the vet and he decided to take her off of the anti-inflamatory med (meloxicam) they'd given her for the bump on her head and the beak bruising. Taking her off the meds helped the twitching a lot. But she still does it, and it keeps her from falling asleep easily, like she used to do. In fact, it keeps *me* from falling asleep as easily as I used to. I am up frequently during the night, which is how I know when this is going on with her.

My AV told me a joke about this situation - He says an "all nighter" for folks our age is when you get to sleep thru the night without having to get up to pee. LOL

Anyway:
I cant fiigure out how the twitch is related to the injury, or if it is. The AV said it would be unlikely to be some sort of neurological issue. For one thing, the bump on the head was not thought to be all that severe. The twitch did dramatically reduce just like he said it should, as the drug left her system. But it has been 3 weeks or so and she's still got the twitch - it hasnt completely gone away.

I do plan to call him later this morning to see if he thinks I need to bring her in - I just wanted some experienced opinions from others, as well.

Last night, worried because she is not regaining weight since her beak injury and has even lost a bit more, I cranked up the heat in the bedroom. She has seemed a bit shivery since she's lost the weight. Well, she twitched a lot last night. She was plenty warm, too, because she was on the opposite side of the cage from the heat element, this morning, for the first time since we started using it.

So now I'm wondering. The one thing that has happened since the injury is that I've tried to keep her warmer. She normally perches next to her new ceramic heat element, which I assume means she likes the extra heat. But now I'm wondering if the extra heat could be causing extra itch under that right wing, and if in turn an itch could cause the twitch, as she's trying to fall asleep? I'm concerned the twitch is part of the reason she cant gain back the weight.

What do folks think? Could Heat => Itch => twitch? Remember that the twitch is like a hiccup happening in her wing muscle (where it attaches to her body) and is not something she can control. Anybody ever seen or heard of that before?

[The Outlaw]

Alyce:

If you upped the heat, did you also up the humidity? If not, she may be getting dried out. If you notice that her down is dissapearing, she may be removing it to cool off. Is your room cooler than 70 degrees? Usually, birds are very comfortable anywhere from 68 degrees to 78 degrees. Frankly, 3 weeks isn't a very long time for post op problems.

I don't think the vest is what you really need. It doesn't sound heat related to me. I use one on Mia because she's so bald, she has no insulation to protect her from the cold and even the sun in the summer. It's more likely related to the meds. Many meds store in the liver in humans, not sure about birds. It takes a while to bodies to remove things of this nature. Of course, if it gets worse, you need to take her back to the vet.

Alyce, do you feed any pellets? If so, try removing them from her diet, too. Some birds (Eclectus especially) can have some real problems with pellets including wing flipping and toe tapping. Read more about that on www.landofvos.com. It sounds a lot like that, only with one wing.

And, thirdly, I'd add some calcium to her diet. She's older and often neurlogical problems can be linked to deficiencies in calcium. This is often noticed in African greys. I add it by upping the dark leafy greens (collards, turnip greens, mustard greens, dandelions, kale, etc) and I also add some powdered calcium that you can get in petstores for reptiles. I use Jurassi Cal, about an aspirin sized portion a couple of times a week.