Injured Adult Squirrel: can barely walk/wobbles around

[tt3]

So I have a very friendly wild adult squirrel that I’ve been feeding the past month or so. Her name is fluffers and she was constantly being chased off by other squirrels but would always make her way back. Two weeks ago, to my horror, I realized that fluffer’s was all banged up. She could barely walk, would tumble over, run sideways, she could still climb trees but it was a struggle. My first thought was that a hawk attacked her since we have so many in my neighborhood and I’ve seen them go after squirrels before. But I thought more about it and figured it could have been that some squirrel was trying to chase her off and she was pushed off a tree landing on cement. I ordered a net online in the hopes of catching her. I was unsure of what to do at first, I kept an eye on her to see if she would heal on her own. But after watching her today laying on her back just to eat a nut I felt that I had to catch her. Especially since the first real snow happened and she was dragging herself through it just to move around. The temperature drop is pretty bad here in the Chicago area . There doesn’t seem to be an outward injury so I am unsure of what to do next. I just don’t know whether I should house her in the winter and give her time to rebuild her strength and heal herself, or if I should travel a couple hours to see a trustworthy vet.

Are there any tips anyone can give about what kind of vitamins, supplements, or antibiotics I can give? I already have Henry blocks.

[stepnstone]

So I have a very friendly wild adult squirrel that I’ve been feeding the past month or so. Her name is fluffers and she was constantly being chased off by other squirrels but would always make her way back. Two weeks ago, to my horror, I realized that fluffer’s was all banged up. She could barely walk, would tumble over, run sideways, she could still climb trees but it was a struggle. My first thought was that a hawk attacked her since we have so many in my neighborhood and I’ve seen them go after squirrels before. But I thought more about it and figured it could have been that some squirrel was trying to chase her off and she was pushed off a tree landing on cement. I ordered a net online in the hopes of catching her. I was unsure of what to do at first, I kept an eye on her to see if she would heal on her own. But after watching her today laying on her back just to eat a nut I felt that I had to catch her. Especially since the first real snow happened and she was dragging herself through it just to move around. The temperature drop is pretty bad here in the Chicago area . There doesn’t seem to be an outward injury so I am unsure of what to do next. I just don’t know whether I should house her in the winter and give her time to rebuild her strength and heal herself, or if I should travel a couple hours to see a trustworthy vet.
Are there any tips anyone can give about what kind of vitamins, supplements, or antibiotics I can give? I already have Henry blocks.
Have you managed to trap her yet? I definitely would and take her in.
Without knowing just what the injury is and considering your description of her
movements my first thoughts would be to treat her for inflammation, swelling, pain.
Can you get hold of any predisone by chance?

[tt3]

I trapped her about an hour ago. She is stressed out of course, still wrapped up in her blanket, but other than that she's been calm. I will try and get some predisone, but I will need the correct dose and i'm not sure if I will be able to get it in a liquid form.

[stepnstone]

I trapped her about an hour ago. She is stressed out of course, still wrapped up in her blanket, but other than that she's been calm. I will try and get some predisone, but I will need the correct dose and i'm not sure if I will be able to get it in a liquid form.

We can tell you how to breakdown a pill or tab for dosing, we will just need to know the milligrams of the pill.
We will also need a weight or at the least a picture of a decent body shot to get a guesstimate on her weight.

[cava]

Good job getting her!!

[LR]

How's she doing?

[tt3]

I was able to get her to a vet last week. This is a veterinarian that volunteers at a willdlife facility in the area here. He gave her an injection of an anesthetic with a thorough exam that included x-rays of her spine and back right leg. Her leg is showing weakness due to her falling to her side. The x-rays came back negative with no spine or leg injury so we can only assume that it is a possible brain injury. His prognoses is rest and hope she will get better enough for release. He explained that giving her prednisone could be bad since new studies have shown in human brain injuries that the patients that received prednisone after brain trauma were more likely to die then patients that did not receive it. He then explained this new study would most likely be due to very heavy BT but still did not feel comfortable to prescribe it. He did not prescribe any medications and said that only rest and time will tell, but she hasn’t seemed to have gotten any better. Is it possible that a outdoor squirrel can get MBD ? I ordered HB waiting for them to come in I also will be making booballs once my blocks come in. I started to research brain trauma in squirrels and came across possible inner ear infection any thoughts on this ? Is there anything else I can give her to potentially increase brain health or promote healing? I ordered vetri dmg liquid and am still waiting for that to come in as well. I plan to put a couple drops in the booballs. Are there any particular supplements to add to the booball recipe that will be beneficial for a brain recovery?

[Jen413]

I can’t really answer any of your questions but just wanted to say awesome job getting her and she is so lucky to have found someone with all of your dedication in trying to help her get well!

[Chickenlegs]

Would Meloxicam help?

[SophieSquirrel]

Would Meloxicam help?

Mannitol is used for human Cerebral Edema but not sure if it would work with a squirrel. Without a positive diagnosis of a brain injury I would just give her time and optimal diet and see how things progress. You may wind up with a non-releasable. With the frigid cold at least she won't freeze to death this winter. Great call and job catching her!

Did the vet include dental in the X-ray?

I don't think Meloxicam in low dose would hurt along with a course of SMZ-TMP to knock down anything bacterial - check with your vet.

[Diggie's Friend]

Weakness on one side, possible Ataxia. Causes of ataxia are discussed on this vet page:
http://www.afrma.org/med_misc.htm

Since the cause may be viral, I would urge you to considering adding Pycnogenol to the diet. It has been found to anti viral properties that may be useful in supporting this squirrel back to health if the cause is viral. This source has been studied over 40 year and found to not have issues with toxicity in rats and mice. The amounts used are noted in the monograph for Pycnogenol, the link to I posted in Specific Ailments under SqrlPox, and also in the 'Other' subform. Pycnogenol from (Healthy Origins) available on Amazon.com , is the source used in my tree squirrel diet using a 1/64 Tsp. measure of the capsule contents is included every other day with the meal.

[Diggie's Friend]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7976640

I saw this study, yet a number of other studies were done finding negative effects of mannitol on the brain.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1ce7/b07e5ab5c737401d14aa27be4c3b1e83ed07.pdf

In this study in mice the Mannitol was an injection directly into the brain, not given orally. Orally Mannitol crosses the bloodbrain barrier is notably a neurotoxin , aka: "excitotoxin", also: "Mannitol can accumulate in damaged brain tissue after multiple doses and exacerbate vasogenic edema. Mannitol can also cause acute renal failure, hyperkalemia, hypotension and rebound increases in intracranial pressure."


]Berger et al. (4) compared hypertonic DS with hypertonic mannitol and their ability to reduce intracranial hypertension from a focal cerebral lesion and intracranial mass, and they reported that DS solution afforded a higher cerebral perfusion pressure than mannitol. The disadvantages of mannitol include decreases in blood pressure and in arterial pO2, increases in pCO2, and systemic acidosis (32). Decreases in blood pH after the administration of DS solution were considered less serious than the acidosis that occurred after mannitol injection. Although DS solution affects intracranial pressure in almost the same manner as mannitol under experimental conditions, the difference in tissue dehydration suggests that different mechanisms mediate their effects on intracranial pressure. Mannitol increases water content in brain tissue in the injured hemisphere, whereas DS increases water content in the tissue in the contralateral hemisphere. In addition, experimental studies showed that hypertonic saline improved cerebral perfusion pressure better than mannitol (32) because hypertonic saline has a higher potential for increasing mean arterial blood pressure (MAP). Mannitol can accumulate in damaged brain tissue after multiple doses and exacerbate vasogenic edema. Mannitol can also cause acute renal failure, hyperkalemia, hypotension and rebound increases in intracranial pressure. Berger et al. (4) reported that DS decreased the syndrome of increased intracranial pressure as effectively as mannitol in an experimental model. Bouma et al. (6) compared DS solution and mannitol based on brain edema and increased intracranial pressure. They reported that DS solution showed a greater decrease in brain edema in the traumatized hemisphere and better controlled intracranial pressure than mannitol injection.

[cava]

I agree, we only used mannitol on animals who were hospitalized with crushed/open skull injuries who were receiving IV fluids and getting labs done daily and once the brain swelling was down they were changed promptly to corticosteriods like Pred.

[Mel1959]

I was able to get her to a vet last week. This is a veterinarian that volunteers at a willdlife facility in the area here. He gave her an injection of an anesthetic with a thorough exam that included x-rays of her spine and back right leg. Her leg is showing weakness due to her falling to her side. The x-rays came back negative with no spine or leg injury so we can only assume that it is a possible brain injury. His prognoses is rest and hope she will get better enough for release. He explained that giving her prednisone could be bad since new studies have shown in human brain injuries that the patients that received prednisone after brain trauma were more likely to die then patients that did not receive it. He then explained this new study would most likely be due to very heavy BT but still did not feel comfortable to prescribe it. He did not prescribe any medications and said that only rest and time will tell, but she hasn’t seemed to have gotten any better. Is it possible that a outdoor squirrel can get MBD ? I ordered HB waiting for them to come in I also will be making booballs once my blocks come in. I started to research brain trauma in squirrels and came across possible inner ear infection any thoughts on this ? Is there anything else I can give her to potentially increase brain health or promote healing? I ordered vetri dmg liquid and am still waiting for that to come in as well. I plan to put a couple drops in the booballs. Are there any particular supplements to add to the booball recipe that will be beneficial for a brain recovery?

I’m not sure a study about brain trauma and prednisone and death done on people can be applied to squirrels. But I could be wrong. What I do know is that my squirrel that had head trauma received hypertonic saline and dexamethasone (steroid) at the vets office and then took prednisolone daily for about a month. She has completely recovered.