(Excerpt from the Essentialbird yahoo group)

I am cautiously excited to have finally discovered what appears to be an effective treatment for sinus and respiratory infections in birds! It has taken me about twenty years!

I had a male Princess of Wales parakeet, Chester, who died from pneumonia about six months ago. The vet thinks he got a piece of food lodged in his lung which caused a walled-off abscess. Nothing that I tried worked for Chester including weeks of Baytril in a nebulizer, diffused essential oils, diffused herbal teas, etc. Chester was living with his mate, Celeste, during the time when he was sick, so I kept Celeste on neem leaf tea throughout Chester’s infection period which was about four months. For much of that time, Chester was in a hospital cage receiving treatments, but Celeste was in the same room.

After Chester died, I kept Celeste on the neem leaf tea for about three more months. She never got sick in that time, but after I stopped the tea, she developed symptoms of respiratory infection. I tried numerous treatments for Celeste to no avail.

Finally, I remembered a treatment I had read about after Chester’s death that involved using Nutribiotic grapefruit seed extract (GSE)  in a nebulizer. I placed six drops of GSE in 8 ounces of water and ran the nebulizer with this solution inside a hospital cage to which I loosely attached plastic around the outside. For about two weeks I used the nebulizer three times daily until the little cup ran dry. So maybe three hours daily. All her symptoms went away to the point where she looked perfectly normal to me and John. But, two days after stopping treatments I could see her symptoms returning, so obviously I hadn’t treated aggressively enough.

Now I am treating her with ten drops GSE in 8 ounces of water and running the nebulizer for two to three hours in a row two to three times daily. I have been doing this for about five days and her symptoms are cleared up again, but I know I have to keep up the treatment for longer.

UPDATE:

I did a second round of grapefruit seed extract in the nebulizer for Celeste who had bacterial pneumonia. The first round  was about two weeks and the second round was about three weeks. In both cases the symptoms cleared up within a few days of starting each treatment, but after the first treatment the symptoms returned and now after the second treatment it has been about three weeks and there has been no return of the symptoms.

FINAL UPDATE:

It has been three years since the above post and Celeste seems normal. However, her symptoms returned in a very mild form after the nebulizer treatments, so I decided to simply use GSE in her drinking water (with no other water source) six days per week, long term. I used this treatment for a total of two years, and after a year with no treatments, I can finally say, Celeste is no longer sick!

If I have to deal with respiratory infection again, I plan to use GSE in both the nebulizer and the drinking water simultaneously, and to run  treat for a very long time with both.

Since I consider avian respiratory infections to be incurable, I am very happy with this treatment plan and the apparent cure for Celeste.

Lainey Alexander

Disclaimer: These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, or by any veterinarian. All information, including any product or technique mentioned, is for educational purposes only. None of the information is intended to diagnose or treat any disease.