Hello everyone,

First off: Zoey is in current care of a vet!

A few months back or so I posted about my suggie Zoey having trouble moving her left rear leg. She has existing neuro damage from a few years ago where she has a permanent head tilt to the left and will twitch in a circle if she gets too excited or stressed. She did recover from that leg issue thankfully, and she has happily lived with her minor deficiencies for a few years now with no problems. Wednesday July 3rd I went to play with the girls and Zoey was dragging on her left side. It appears she is losing muscle control of her left legs, both front and back. Her front leg is pretty useless for her at the moment except for loosely grabbing things and her rear leg looks like she can grab stuff, but has real difficulty getting her hand to leg go. She is still eating. She accidentally fell into my mealworm bucket when I was trying to give her some and she had nooooo problem chowing down. I've seen her take drinks of water and eat her HPW as well as some other veggies and melon. Touching her legs doesn't result in any noises of pain or motions to jerk away from me.

Because of everything I've seen, and her head tilt is to the left as it is, I have a real suspicion that its her existing neuro problems suddenly expanding.

The holiday messed up the best chance to get her to my vet of choice right away; however, she is in the care of my vet as of 8am EST this morning. I have not heard anything back yet unfortunately. She may stay overnight for observation depending on what they find.

It's terrible watching my little girl go through this, but she's not letting it stop her. She tries to move to get to me and to food. It really does look like she's trying her best to fight, and I give her a lot of credit.

She's about 4 years oop and has not had any major developments with her neuro issues until now. Her two other cage mates are completely normal, but I think they know something is up with Zoey. They've been kinda following her around the cage and occasionally grooming her.

I'm writing this in hopes that there may be someone with knowledge about neuro conditions or have experienced this before. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Here's hoping for the best, thank you

I am so very sorry that no one has responded yet. I imagine it is partly because of the holiday, but also because this is not something many of us have experienced (I do not remember any similar stories in my time here).

Do you know what caused the neurological condition to begin with? (trauma, sudden onset, etc?)

Could it be that she had a fall or something recently and it caused swelling or inflammation around the original nerve issue? (I am not a medical person, it's just conversations I remember from other animals, etc).

I hope your vet can give you some kind of ideas and options for treatment. She sounds like a fighter, as you said, I hope she can fight through this to stay with you.

Moving this to Health & Hygiene

Hi Sugarlope,

I'll admit the hardest thing to do is wait at this time. It's not your fault, or anyone else's really, that no one has gotten the chance to respond yet, i appreciate the thought though .

The original problem was believed to be caused from a melon that had possibly lysteria bacteria on it and wreaked havoc on her nervous system until antibiotics managed to stop it. This left her with the head tilt and sporadic twitching in a circle. Over time the circling did get better and I hadn't seen her do it much over the past year I've had her. Doctors were very unsure of the true onset (it was very sudden back then as well), but that's the closest, I was told, of an answer that was reached. Zoey and my other girls were adopted from a previous owner, and she gave me all the information and vet stuff she could. I've been in contact with her and she's looking into what she can as well.

The cage she and the girls live in is a 5 ft x 5ft x 2 ft cage with plenty of hammocks all around for them to climb on. A fall is certainly possible, but unfortunately I have no way to prove or disprove that at this time without xrays etc

I couldn't notice any swelling in her limbs or body really, I want to say she felt a little warm under her belly, but it's also been really warm outside as well. I live in Upstate New York in Rochester.

I'm confident Zoey will continue to fight, she's shy, but a real stubborn little suggie. It's sad she has to go through this so young, but I am hopeful I'll be able to be with her for a long and enjoy able life

*Update*

Here's a start at least. I went to the vet after leaving work a little early. The vet thankfully noticed the same things I did. I decided to have an xray done just to be sure there wasn't any underlying things she may have missed in her examination. The xray showed no broken bones or loss of musculature. There didn't appear to be any sort of swelling either....at least from the image. After Zoey was taken out of sedation from the xray process, I gave her some peas and she happily chomped on them...though very drowsily. Below is an image of her right after her xray....despite being so drowsy she's still my beautiful little girl...head tilt and all.

[img]http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/805/tfps.jpg/[/img]

Zoey has been given a prescription of Meloxicam (an anti-inflammatory) for the week to see if that may help. She was given this before with her first bought of neuro problems. We are also looking into calcium supplements we can give in case this may be related to a calcium deficiency. All three of my girls are on the HPW diet with veggies and fruit every night currently.

I'm hoping she will make a recovery from whatever is affecting her...to an extent of some sort. It's just one step at a time for now....let's just hope I can keep moving forward. If anyone has any input, or recommendations of someone else I can talk to I would appreciate any help I can get. Thank you everyone <3

Poor girl. I'm glad there were no broken bones, etc. but sorry they can't find a reason for the worsening of the symptoms.

So sorry to hear your little one is going through this. sounds like she is a fighter! Hoping for a recovery!

Thank you for your kind thoughts everyone

Just offer quick update, I think Zoey is beginning to make some progress. She's trying to reach with her left front leg some more, but is still struggling to move around the cage a whole lot. I've been hand feeding her a little to prevent a whole lot of movement on her part.

She's still very wobbly when trying to walk around normally, but I hope that she'll continue to get better.

Again, if anyone has any recommendations or help they can offer, please let me know!

I wish I could offer some recommendations for you, but it seems you are doing everything you possibly can for her. Thank you for that!

I hope that she continues to improve and regains use of her left side.

Hi Shelly,

I appreciate your kind words . I also really hopes she makes a recovery to the best extent she can.

Last night I was giving her the bi-daily dose of Meloxicam (which she always willingly takes...I swear this is the easiest time I've had with any animals and meds!), and I typically give her some mealies after as a treat. I had my bucket and Zoey willingly crawled onto my arm, hung upside down by her hind legs into the bucket, and was able to pull herself back up without *too* much difficulty. I think this is fantastic progress for a few days. She wobbled a bit trying to regain an equilibrium back on top of my arm, but she managed to steady herself and look up at me with her little head tilt and give a content squeak while munching on a huge mealie. Her front left hand is still pretty weak, but she's trying to grab and reach with it more. She also crawled out of her pouch and wobbled around the cage a little bit to get to the water bottle. It's by no means back to her previous state, but she's moving faster than she did last week. She's quickly adapting to not using her front paw as much, but I am hopeful that will change again over time.

I'm so happy that she's trying and fighting. I wish there were more things out there about neuro issues and gliders, I know there must be more people out there who experience the same I am with Zoey. Hmmmmm.......

Thank you everyone, I'll keep you all posted as I can

So sorry for little Zoey. I don't have any advice to offer but I wanted to send my well wishes to her

Thank you so much for your thoughts yiyo

Poor Baby.. is she going to regain full use of the paralyzed side?

Hi Dinah,

It's really hard to say at this point if she'll fully recover. I've noticed she's regaining strength in her hind leg more than her front leg at this point. I'd like to think that the anti inflammatory she's on is helping, but only time will tell really. I'll be following up with the vet towards the end of the week to see how much progress she's made. Personally I think she's getting a little better, or it could be that Zoey is just adapting to live with the new damage. All I can do is just love her all the same in the mean time

I keep following along, hoping to hear good news and considering where she started, I think this is all good. She will have a long recovery, I imagine, no matter how much she is able to improve. The fact that she is improving and learning to live with a little less mobility, just proves to me that her whole heart is in this fight...and so is yours. She wouldn't be able to fight this hard if she didn't have you to support her.

Hope things keep improving and that she is with you for years to come.

Thank you so much Sugarlope, it really means a lot to me.

At least to offer some fantastic news, Zoey for he first time since last week managed to crawl around my shoulders and down my arms without loosing balance too much this time around.

In the back of my mind I'm thinking maybe this was just a ploy to get massive amounts of mealies and loving multiple times a day I really have my doubts though...it helps to stay light heart-ed even in the toughest of times.

For the first time since I've adopted her about a year ago, Zoey just chilled and totally relaxed in the palm of my hand for a little while. This adventure has been a real bonding experience between she and I, and I'd like to think she's appreciating how much I'm trying to help her. This past week has really been trying for both of us, and her cage mates, but I am now really confident we'll pull through this with a better outcome than I had initially thought possible.

Most importantly, thank you everyone for your love and support, it has been a great help for me trying to work through this



More updates as they become available

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to offer a quick update. Zoey is doing fantastic! I am almost in awe that she has recovered as quickly as she has. I would say she's about 90% back to her old self. Her left hind leg has regained pretty much all of its strength, and I happily have the scratch marks on my arm to prove it! Yeah...I'm actually excited about being scratched by her lol. She was bouncing all over me tonight after I gave her her meds. I couldn't keep her in once place!

I do think however there may be lasting damage in her front leg. She's still iffy about using it too much when running around, but is able to grab food with both hands. She struggles to reach a little with that hand still. It's very shaky when she tries. Even if she does not gain full capacity in that leg back, I'm so happy she has made it this far.

This may be the last post I make on this topic. However, if I do end up going back to the vet for her evaluation, I'll be sure to post that final update.

Thank you all again for your love and support, you have helped me more than you can imagine!

That is really wonderful news! Knew she could do it!

That is the absolute best outlook to have. I'm a big believer - always try to find the happy and you really will find it everywhere.