lory witrh enlarged liver

Shopping

Information

Find Answers

Site Info

Links

[?] Subscribe To This Site

lory witrh enlarged liver

by Eileen
(California)

I have a 14 year old yellow backed chattering lory with an enlarged liver. A teaching vet hospital recommended endoscopy due to an enlarged liver showed up on an X-ray. They also want to do a liver biopsy. What possible results can this procedure(s)bring and what are the chances of fixing the liver problem? Meanwhile, what can I feed my lory to help his liver? He is already on a low sugar, low protein and low iron diet. Thanks.

Comments for
lory witrh enlarged liver

Click here to add your own comments

Dec 08, 2011

Treatable diseases
by: Eileen

I thought iron storage disease and Fatty liver disease are not treatable. How do you test for chlamydophila? They had done CBC's and liver function tests several times. His bile acid is elevated and his albumin is low. These tests were done 3 times during the past 3 months and the last test results did not show any improvement. I hesitate putting him through the endoscopy since it is invasive and the possible side effects. I am hoping to find ways to treat the symptoms and to improve his liver situation through diet. Do you have any suggestions what to feed a lory without the high levels of iron, sugar and protein?

He was on antibiotics for a yeast infection and he had bad reactions to some of the medications. I wonder if the medications had possibly contributed to his liver problem. If so, can it be reversed? He was never sick before.

Dec 07, 2011

Bird liver biopsy
by: The Avian Vet

Liver biopsy is the recommended procedure for enlarged liver to diagnose the cause. This can be iron storage disease, Chlamydophila, Fatty liver disease, and cancer. These are only a few differentials. Some of which (the former three) are possibly treatable. Before surgery I recommend that blood work be done as well.

Dr B

Dec 06, 2011

lory witrh enlarged liver
by: Linda

First off, your bird's main diet needs to be organic pellets along with the other ingredients to a Lory's diet. High fat seeds and/or nuts should not be more than a very small part of her diet.

Secondly, a lot of liver disease cures itself because the liver is able to heal itself when the dietary problem is taken care of. For instance, fatty liver disease will heal itself once a bird is on a highly nutritional lower fat kind of diet like the organic pellets. The liver is amazing in how it can heal itself.

What the vets want to do is find out what, exactly, is wrong with liver. Hopefully, they've done the correct liver panel on the blood as this would have to be done before any type of surgery. Surgery is hard on a parrot because of the anesthetics, and if they did bloodwork, found elevated levels of an enzyme, then a biopsy may be the only way to diagnose this. All liver disease is not treatable. Liver disease that is long-term from improper diet or ingesting toxins on a regular basis, can cause irreversible damage to the liver, so I suggest you go ahead with the biopsy. If they have not done the correct bloodwork yet, then have them do a Liver Function panel BEFORE they even consider surgery.

Either way, your bird's diet will need to provide full, high quality nutrition, and whether this is an option will be found later. Have bloodwork done first so they can see what enzymes are elevated as this normally points them in the right direction on a diagnosis possibly without invasive surgery.

Let us know how this goes and thanks for writing,
Linda

Click here to add your own comments

Join in and write your own page! It's easy to do. How?
Simply click here to return to Parrot Questions