Shower Seizure Behavior?

[BargleBeast]

Our blue & gold loves getting in the shower and has for years. She likes standing on the floor and getting totally soaked, and usually just stands there looking half asleep and relaxed for a few minutes until she's had enough and walks out of the shower. Recently while in the shower she's shown seizure-like behaviors: she gets distressed, shaking and stumbling around, blinking a lot, and seeming to lose control of one of her feet. The foot stays like this for a couple minutes, and then she's back to normal. This happened once a couple weeks ago and then again today. Both times it happened my partner was with her, so I haven't seen it for myself. I've never heard of this sort of thing happening. I'm planning to call the vet tomorrow but I'm just wondering if this is a normal issue or a symptom of some kind of common ailment. Anyone know? She's otherwise in perfect health.

 

[noodles123]

How old is your bird...I wonder is it is sexual....3-4 years= sexual maturity.....Very smart to consult vet (BTW)!
Pet only on the head and do not allow access to dark or shadowy places (e.g, huts, tents, blankets, pillows, in shirts/clothing, paper piles, low furniture etc etc). Trust me, you do not want to deal with the fall-out of a hyper-hormonal bird...Aggression, screaming, egg-binding in females, self injury etc can all happen due to hormones!

 

[BargleBeast]

We don't know the bird's sex (just assume it's a "she") but she's about 16 years old. This doesn't seem to be sexual behavior, as she's exhibited that from time to time and the foot paralysis stands out. She's doing fine now, asleep, and hopefully the vet can shed some light on the situation.

 

[noodles123]

I see- I was thinking that she was 4. Good idea to get blood-work done! I hope you get some answers soon!

 

[ChristaNL]

Any chance the showerhead is getting a bit clogged with deposits -> larger droplets that may get into earcanals, eyes or nose?
(finer drops of water will just stay ON the feathers or seep through gently, not splash between)


Apart form the foot situation of course that is how my greys react when they get wet in unwanted places.
(Are you sure it really is the foot and not the bird being unbalanced because of water-in-the-ear issues?)


I do not want to 'play this down' -those are serious concerns of course, but I prefer to look at the easy-to-fix ones first before leaping to scary things like tumors or fatty-liver-disease etc. etc.

 

[BargleBeast]

We weren't sure about the foot the first time, but last night when it happened the one foot was clenched longwise for a minute or so after she came out of the shower. It looked like when someone has had a stroke and their hand remains paralyzed. She's doing fine today and we have an appointment in a couple hours.

 

[WakaWaka]

Is there any chance the water is too hot or too cold.
Possibly stressing to the point of some mild shock?

 

[BargleBeast]

The water was warm, not too hot, the same temperature my partner always uses with her in the shower. In any case, our bird gets in and out of the shower of her own accord, so if it were too hot or cold she could easily walk back out.

The vet confirmed that these aren't full-blown seizures, but are unusual behaviors that indicate some kind of underlying health concern, so we're waiting on blood test results and then will have x-rays taken from there. In the meantime, the bird is fine and crunching away happily on a wooden toy. I'll update when I get more information, since this might be useful to someone in the future dealing with a similar situation.

 

[ChristaNL]

Just wondering if there is any news?

 

[EllenD]

I'm glad you are getting full Blood-Work done, as this behavior is NEVER NORMAL!!!

Seizures, tremors, and other neurological behaviors like this are very often "triggered" by specific situations, sights, sounds, etc. So it's very possible that the shower is only the "trigger" to the event (or the change in ambient/body temperature while she's in the shower), and usually what happens if it's left undiagnosed is that the seizures/tremors will eventually start happening at other times, until they are all the time...At 16 years-old she's still a juvenile and very young, so it's best to get it figured out now before it causes any permanent issues such as permanent paralysis, brain damage/trauma, loss of vision, loss of hearing, etc.