Hey all I just need to vent I have called every vet in town to see if I can get my ariel seen she is not acting normal at all yesterday she was out during the day which she never does and when I picked her up she peed all over herself completely soaking her back end. I cleaned her up and dried her off but she has not bounced back at all she doesnt want to climb on me or be in my shirt her favorite place. I know something is going on but I do not get paid until tuesday and I cannot get a single vet to see her without pmt up front. I am about ready to scream. There is no one around here that I can barrow money from as they are in the same situation I am they dont get paid until next week what do I do.

I hate to suggest it but worst case scenario, can you go to one of those check advances to get the moeny for now to get her looked at & treated?

ok guys when my daughter gets off I am taking her in even if they refuse to see her at least i tried. The vet will not be happy about it but I dont care she needs to be seen. Hubby also said that if I give him an hour he will see what he can do which means he may take out of his fuel money for the truck to pay for it. I just hope that if he does that he can make it to California without running out of fuel.

Good Luck and keep us posted please. Senging prayers your way that your little girl will be alright.

I will I just spoke to the vet and he said they dont have any appointments available until saturday but I could do a drop off and he would see her inbetween appointments so that is what I will do but I hate just leaving her there she will be so scared without mommy there.

Awwww, at least you finally found someone to work with you! Is it little Luna who is sick? I would bring a shirt or something with your scent on it to leave with her.

NO it is ariel that is not feeling well. Luna is spunky as ever lol. One thing I am wondering tho is I noticed a change in our water recently it tastes like they added chlorine could that have something to do with Ariel getting sick trying to give all suggestions to the vet that I can.

I would definitely let the vet know that about your water! It could be but i'm not an expert on that. I only give my suggies spring water, we have a water cooler and go to meijers to refill cheap with Culligan spring water.

did you drop her off?

Ugh - I'd hate that! I'd probably end up just sitting in the waiting room ... waiting. I couldn't drop one of mine off, because I'm such a worry wart.

Hugs!

Well guys Ariel goes back to the vet in the morning. She would not cooperate for either a fecal sample or a urine sample. The vet says that he doesn't see anything visible but she is acting sluggish. I have never seen an animal more stubborn about a urine sample than she is its like the minute we hit the vet doors she refuses to go period. Then if I bring her home she will immediately climb out and go everywhere. But the vet promised that we would get a sample even if he had to wait all day tomarrow for one hopefully we can figure out what is going on with her. She did eat tonight with me hand feeding her dinner. I am also going to have the vet check her teeth as I noticed she was chewing her mealies more on one side than usual so maybe she has a tooth that hurts.

Awww poor baby. I hope you have some luck at the vets' and you can find out what is wrong.

Well guys she is back at the vet this morning he will call me when he is ready to see her and I will go down there. My quiet loving ariel realized that I had taken her back to the vet and she looked up at me a crabbed I felt so bad she never crabbs She is the one I even take to show and tell for my kids because she is so friendly and loves people. I don't think she is to happy about this. I will update as soon as I have what the vet says.

sent your way!!

Lots of hugs and prayers your way for your and Ariel!!!

Ok all I heard back from the vet and I have mixed feelings about it. First off he said that she does have a bacterial infection so he is putting her on baytril. But he has some other concerns as well. First I might add that tho my vet sees them he is not extremely experienced in Gliders themselves. But here are his concerns.

1) He is concerned because her urine seems really diluted. he is not sure if this is normal for a glider or not.

2) In the last year and a half she has lost drastic amounts of weight. A year and a half ago she weighed 141grams. She had a period where she lost alot of weight and I took her to a specialist in Salt Lake City he could not find anything wrong and she stablized at about 84grams. The vet just weighed her and according to his scale she is 80grams. This concerns him and he thinks something may be going on that we are not seeing. I personally have been concerned about this as to me she looks skinny but I do check regularly and she seems to be stable that way. He suggested that I increase her protein she is already on Pracilla's diet which I feed to all my cages and she is the only one that is skinny by any means everyone else is fat. So I need suggestions on how to increase her protein without increasing it for everyone else.

3) He is thinking that maybe she has an underlying issue that may be causing these symptoms. He says he sees no noticable sign of HLP but thinks maybe we should check for it to be safe. He will not do the blood draw for this tho and I will have to go to Salt Lake for it. He stated something about when they do blood draws on gliders they take it from a vein in their chest and it can be really dangerous to do so he won't even attempt it. My question is was he correct that is how they do a blood draw on a glider? I know this is long but could really use some help here.

i am sorry i dont have any advice to offer you. but sending prayers and hugs your way.

thanks for the hugs and prayers anyway they are always appreciated. Is there anyone on that has experience with sick gliders?

Did the vet do a direct fecal smear and float? Did he look at the urine under a microscope?

You stated your glider lost a lot of weight... is her cagemate heavy by chance? Sometimes a partner will consume more than their share of food leaving a much smaller amount for the other glider.

For now... I would start the Baytril. If she does not respond to treatment within five days or so... I would take her back to the vet for another exam.

Sometimes a combination of meds are given at the same time... such as Baytril and Flagyl when uncertain as to what the problem is.

He did do a fecal smear and float and said that there is no signs at all of any parasites. He also did a urine under the microscope that is where he found the bacterial infection. He is about 100grams so not huge but not thin either. She rules the cage and she always eats first in fact I was watching them eat last night and he could sneak up to the food bowl and she would look at him and he would run away and go to his wheel. She never lets him eat until she is done. I am just really concerned with her and don't know what to do. I tried switching them to hpw back when she was losing alot of weight and I couldnt get anyone to eat it at all I have also tried bml and they wont eat that either.

I guess my biggest worry is she might start losing weight again and then it will become critical.

Praying for you!

Kidney infections can cause one to loose weight if one has had it for sometime.

You have a base weight now so monitor her weight at least weekly for awhile. You can purchase a good digital scale from Osco or Wal-Mart for around $30.

What diet are you feeding if not the BML and HPW?

May want to keep a dry feed in the cage 24/7 along with their food. Should help add more calories... mealies fed on the side would help also.

Thanks for the info guys. Judie you asked what diet I use I use pracilla price's diet. They seem to like that the best. They do have the glider cereal that comes with her diet in the cage 24/7 the only thing I do not use from pracillas diet is the monkey buscuits as I cannot get mine to eat them period. I also have a digital scale and have kept track of her weight which seems stable at the moment but if she does not get better that is where my worry comes in is for her to start losing again like the last time. Well I guess that I will see what saturday appointments are available with the vet in Salt Lake because that is the only time I would have a car available for the 2 hour trip down there. Thanks for the help guys don't know what I would do without this board I would have lost a couple of suggies if it wasnt for you guys

Hi all I am writing this so that others may know what types of things can happen with out little ones. I got a call today from the lab that did Ariel's Necropsy. They said that what they found was that she had a tumor in her liver. This tumor was large enough that it was both inside and outside her liver. They ran bacterial tests as well as slides to look for other problems. All tests came back clear. This was not caused by an infection or anything I could have done. They felt she was actually in really good condition considering the size of the tumor. In the end she was developing phenomia but that was from not being able to expand her lungs properly and not an infection. So this gives me some relief to know it was not something I did that caused it but still was really hard to know there is nothing I could change that would have changed the outcome for her. I will still get her daughter tested but they don't believe that this is something passable. She did mention that in what research has been done that gliders even in the wild are more prone to developing these types of tumors. So just for the gliders community's knowledge this is something that can happen with our beloved little guys. Now if we could just find a way to combat the possability of it happening I and many others would be happy.

I'm sorry, cancer is so awful. But it is good to have closure and know you did all you could. I have heard of other gliders having liver issues (does seem to be a big issue with them, be it liver disease or cancer). I hope you can somehow gain some peace in your heart. Thank you for sharing this info with us.

Thank you for going through this for the benefit of other sugar gliders.