Unknown illness in Joey - Mystery's story

I am copying and pasting Tianna's original post from LGG here and will then make any comments or observations that I have afterwards. Please feel free to move or edit this post if needed.

obsolescenttears wrote:

Here is our story:
Mystery was OOP 11/7/11 roughly. She was a bit pouch stained, healthy and gaining weight. Around 11/13 her foster mom Brenda noticed increased staining and crusting on the head. By 11/17 or so I suggested she try a damp cloth to clean the top of her head to get the crusting off. On 11/25/11 the symptoms were still progressing. Brenda brought Mystery and her parents (Freya & Poe) to her vet in Lake Elmo. They are a very good clinic who is very knowledgeable with gliders. They are Brenda’s normal clinic who have handled SM and illnesses for her before.
On that date CBC/Chem was done on Freya, which came up normal, her pouch checked out healthy and all three gliders (Freya, Poe and Mystery) got a clean bill of health. The vet assumed the ‘crusting’ was from milk and the parents not grooming Mystery. At that time her staining was still minor that I was not alarmed. I accepted these results gratefully.
On 11/26 her symptoms were so advanced that Brenda voiced continued concern. On 11/27 I drove up in the morning to get proper photographs.
Mystery looked absolutely horrible. Her fur was missing around her neck, her skin was very dry in that area. Her fur was coarse and kinked. There is a spot about 1/4inch around the base of her tail that is normal other than that her whole body is now covered with staining and some patchy missing fur. Pictures below will show better what her condition is.
On 11/28 (tomorrow) I will be taking her back to Lake Elmo vet to run the following tests
Fecal
Yeast in house and send out
And will be starting preemptive treatment for yeast due to risk of progression.

At this point with several vet consults and consulting with community members the honest assessment is most likely Yeast. I am keeping an open mind to other possibilities but do not want people to start panicking (again). Gliders are more susceptible to complications by yeast simply because they are a ‘stressy’ animal. So far it seems those with these symptoms had their gliders in a stressful situation. Recently due to unforeseen circumstances I had to send my remaining babies (5 gliders total two breeding pairs) to Brenda’s for fostering while dealing with moving etc. Freya (mommy) was already a week overdue and was very bonded to me. It is a easy and accurate assumption that she was very stressed by this change (Auntie Brenda doesn’t hand out treats 300x a day like mommy). She (Freya) hoarded her joey another two weeks before she let Mystery out. Another sign she was stressed.
Honestly, as crazy as this sounds (even to my own ears) This truly seems like a coincidental situation resulting from stressful situations. Why now? I have no idea why, perhaps because people are not ‘hiding it’ and are truly seeking answers. What I do know is that Brenda and I will be doing everything possible to get a diagnosis, share the progress of Mystery, any and all test results and get to the bottom of this situation that has fallen into our laps.
Please keep Mystery and Brenda in your prayers as they both have a extremely long road to go through.












Parents

The vet visit today did not go as well as we had hoped. Mystery was named that shortly after coming oop because we weren't sure what 'color' she was and her name has now taken on a whole new meaning. The in-house yeast test came back negative. There are more tests being run that have been sent out and either Tianna or myself will keep this thread updated. We know that there are other joeys out there who are experiencing similar symptoms, but don't believe the diagnoses have been the same in all cases. Our vet will be working with other vets and running tests to try to determine the source of the illness and to recommend a course of treatment. For now, Mystery is on a broad-spectrum antibiotic and will be hand fed as she was not receiving what she needed from mom. She has not gained any weight in the last 5 days and her health has deteriorated rapidly. She was active and alert while at the vet on Friday and was not at all today. The vet noticed a marked decrease in her health in the last 3 days. We are unsure at this time of the cause of the illness, but I know many of us are determined to get answers. I fell in love with Mystery in the 3 weeks I have known her and I am just hoping and praying that we can get to the bottom of this and get her well.

Latest from Tianna on LGG:

obsolescenttears wrote:

Ok so long day.

Kinue has all the results that are in being faxed to her since I have no way of uploading scanning etc. At this point the only result we have is inhouse testing (as follows)

Today we did a in house impression smear that came back NSF (No sufficient findings) There was no sign of yeast or bacteria. Several samples from her whole body were taken.

We sent out a fungal/bacterial culture that will hopefully show something. It will test for Staph as well. Hopefully we will have results in a few days.

We sent out a fecal. Results should be in in a couple days.

She also had some SQ fluids

At this point we have no answers. We decided to go with clavamox for treatment to see if it might help. Metro is just too strong, too dangerous, and the lasting effects are at this point too risky. I separated her from her parents and will be hand raising her. We are not treating for yeast at this point due to the lack of yeast.

I will update as I have more information, and will get new pictures up ASAP.

She was 29g at the vet today.

I moved this to the mysteries and undiagnosed section. Hopefully some day we will have answers to all these joey issues. I had hoped that Sherri's diagnosis and success would be the answers that others needed to save their babies.

It is strange that this is popping up all over and in so many different households. It really does APPEAR to be a contagious issue with the way it is spreading and popping up all over the U.S.

Thank you for sharing your story, Brenda.
We are all thinking and watching and praying. Answers will eventually come. There has to be a common denominator and a cure.

Tianna's pictures of Mystery after 24 hours of treatment:

When the vet gets additional reports in, they will be posted

Freya:




Joey Mystery:

The most recent information and results we have is that Mystery's parents tested positive for 2 different kinds of staph - one is antibiotic resistant. Mystery is active and lively and very sweet, but she still looks very bad. She is now on Clavamox and Baytril and has some open sores on her body that I put Quikderm on yesterday while Tianna was over retrieving Mystery's parents as well as Tianna's other gliders who had been staying here. Mystery's parents, Poe and Freya, are being treated with Baytril, as well. Mystery is not out of the woods, but we're hoping and praying she improves now that she is on Baytril. I know that staph is very common and can be found pretty much everywhere and Poe and Freya are not showing any signs of infection, so my absolutely uneducated guess is that Mystery being a joey meant she had a lower immunity and became infected. We will keep this thread updated with any new findings or any changes in the situation.

How is Mystery doing?

Mystery is doing well. She ended up losing all of her fur and it is starting to grow back in now. She is fully weaned and is now living with another female glider. All test results were negative aside from the 2 antibiotic resistant staph bacterias and we still do not know for sure what exactly went on there.

Thats the thing I hate the most about this mystery illness, that it remains a mystery.

Well besides mystery being a suprise...her name really suits her huh? I'm so glad that she is doing so much better!

Glad she is doing better and can I ask what age does this yucky mess start to show itself?
Thank you

Most of the joeys come out looking pretty stained, but they are a good weight etc and then start to fail to thrive and get really "icky" somewhere between the age of 2 to 4 weeks OOP on average

There is at least one case where this did not show up until after 8 weeks of age. So, it can happen to older gliders.

I'm so happy to hear that Mystery is doing better!

Here are a few recent pictures of Mystery: