# Dr. Suess may have Mycobacteria



## Lady Courage (Oct 2, 2012)

He has all the symptoms, as I detailed out in this post here- http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?p=1558338#post1558338

So why am I starting a new thread? Well...

My Mom is a trained homeopath. I've seen it work miracles, but let's face it- it isn't magic. So I didn't really have any hope in it. While I researched how to put Dr. Seuss down humanely, Mom dropped some of the remedies into the water.

He responded.

Dr. Seuss wasn't hardly moving, unless I nudged him with the net. But after a few minutes with the remedies in his water, he perked back up. He's moving of his own accord, he looks less bloated, he has a little more color in his fins.

Now... I know that IF it's mycobacteria, this could mean nothing. He could still relapse and this will happen all over again. But... He's my only fish right now. I don't have anyone else that could get infected. I don't have any way of knowing for sure it's mycobacteria. So... Why not see if we can ride this out and hope that it _isn't_ mycobacteria?

I'm going to use this thread as a sickness journal, of sorts. It could end in a few hours if he passes, or it could go on for days.

I'm ready to put him down if I have to. But I just don't know if I _have_ to right now...

We'll see what happens... I'm setting up a hospital tank right now. We'll treat him homeopathically there while I clean his old tank. Not sure what to do about the shrimp... The hospital tank isn't big enough to house everyone, I don't think... Technically it's not big enough for Dr. Seuss, but it's all I have. Maybe I should just see what happens after a few days. If Doc passes even with treatment, I'll know the shrimp have to go too.

Sorry this is so rambling! I'm still processing all this. Such a bad time to have all this fishy stuff happen. Life is so not kind.


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## jadaBlu (Feb 14, 2013)

I hope it helps him live longer without feeling bad. I wouldn't keep your plants though if at a later date you get another fish. Why risk infecting another fish?


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## Lady Courage (Oct 2, 2012)

jadaBlu said:


> I hope it helps him live longer without feeling bad. I wouldn't keep your plants though if at a later date you get another fish. Why risk infecting another fish?


I hope so too. And you're probably right... I just hate to throw away my healthy plants... Ugh, maybe I could try disinfecting them and if it kills them oh well and if it doesn't, well, I saved them?



Today, Doc is looking a little less bloated and is still swimming around a bit. He rallied enough to eat, so that's a good sign.

What I'm currently worried about is that, although he's less bloated, his scales are starting to pinecone a bit. His eyes are also looking buggier than usual.
The grayness on his body that I can only assume are lesions actually look _smaller_ today. His fins, however, are disappearing fast. I guess if the "fin rot" spreads up into his body and his flesh also rots, I'll know it's mycobacteria. I don't want it to get to that point though... Poor little fishy.


At what point does "not giving up on you" turn into "cruelty"? I don't want to be selfish, but I don't want to give up on him if he can still live happily. I'm not a quitter, nor, I think, is he.

If I can determine beyond a doubt that it is myco... That might change things. But on the other hand, _could_ a fish live with myco and still be comfortable and happy? Since I have no other fish to infect, I think it's worth a try, as long as he doesn't suffer unduly.

Ugh, this is so stressful... My poor little fishy.


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## siara (Mar 9, 2013)

That's awesome that he ate! It sounds like the Homeopathy is helping!

Is there anyway you could take a picture of your little fishie?

I had a fish that I lost to myco. (I was able convince a professor at my school to test him in one of his ichthyology labs)

His fins turned grey and then soon started to deteriorate. And the next day he was gone :-(

Here is the thread I posted about it.(its on a different account which I lost control of ) Does the gray-ness on my fish's fins look similar to the gray-ness on your fish?


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## jadaBlu (Feb 14, 2013)

How is Dr. Suess?


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## Lady Courage (Oct 2, 2012)

*Update on Dr. Suess!*

Sorry for the absence!! Sooo much has happened since the 28th! I didn't note this in the thread because I thought nothing of it, however in light of further developments I need to tell you this: On the morning of the 28th, Doc's water was cloudy. Now, this tank had been dry for about 3 months. I washed it out with boiling water before I set it aside back then and rinsed it with hot water again before I put him in it. It was a sparklin' clean tank. But the .5 gallons of water in his tank was _cloudy_, despite my having just put Doc in there the day before. I kinda thought it was weird, but not of particular note at the time.

*Our Treatment Plan- Stage 1:* 

1 Pellet of Baptisia Tinctoria in his water every time I changed it out, which was 100% every other day. 

_I know that I should have changed it out every day, but taking Doc out to sanitize the tank stressed him out sooooo badly, I didn't know which was the greater evil. Letting him have too much ammonia for a day or stressing him out while he was on the brink of death. I opted for too much ammonia. Not saying it was right, it's just what I felt was the right thing to do for him._ 

The interesting thing about Baptisia is that this is the remedy homeopaths turned to when raging epidemics exploded and people were dying so fast they didn't have time to diagnose their symptoms properly.
​

On the morning of the 29th, I peeked into Doc's tank with trepidation. I had no idea if he would be alive or dead. He was alive and still had get-go to eat, but seemed to be exhausted by that effort and spent most of his time resting on the floor. He didn't look any worse nor any better. His fins did not seem to have disintegrated any further. 

The weird thing was... The water in his tank. It was not only cloudy, like on the 27th, but it had tiny *strings of black floating in the water*. The walls were covered with the goo that seemed to cling to the strings. The strings themselves were so thin and frail, they looked more gray than black. However I may not have been able to see them so well if they were gray. 

I WISH I had taken pictures!! It was so strange. But no, I changed out his water 100% and took pictures of Doc afterwards. Those pictures are below: 











This was the only one I could get of him NOT on the floor. I moved him outside to change his water (no myco in my sink thankyouverymuch!!) and take pics, he glanced around, then sank back to the floor. You can see his rotting fins and kinda see how swollen his little belly is. 










This is the best one I got to show you how swollen he really is. It looked painful, poor fishy. 










You can kinda see the pineconing on his left scales. Only the scales on the left side of his belly pineconed. And he stayed in that position for a long long time. I had three pictures of him where not even his fins moved. Oh and the little white ball beside him- that's the homeopathic remedy pellet. 

-------------------​
Two more days passed and still Doc clung to life. He got no worse, but he got no better either. I was becoming frustrated. Was it time to just let him go? He was clearly in pain and his condition wasn't improving. So I discussed it with my Mom the Homeopath and she went back to the books. As it turns out, she found a remedy that is often used to "follow up and finish" the work of Baptisia. 

Pyrogenium. 

Thus stage 2 of our experimental treatment began. 

*Our Treatment Plan- Stage 2:* 

1 dose of Pyrogenium in his water every time I changed it out. _I stuck with the every other day because he seemed calmer and more relaxed this way. _

The interesting thing about Pyrogenium is that one of it's "key symptoms", meaning the symptoms that it's used to address, is *rotting flesh*. Well... That's what myco does, doesn't it? 

On this treatment, Doc's condition leaped forward overnight. The swelling went down, the rotting part of his fins finally fell away and almost all the signs of it vanished. Left behind were living, though ragged and rather thin looking fins. His eyes, which were looking a bit popeyed, also went down. ​ 
--------​
On the 2nd, we noticed him starting to take part in the goings on of the room again. He watched us as we walked by, swam slowly up to say hello if we came up to his tank and spent far less time on the floor. He still rested frequently, but his curious and friendly little spirit was coming back. ​ 
--------​
On the 3rd, we changed his treatment plan again to "finish him off".​ 
*Our Treatment Plan- Stage 3:*

No more remedies into the water at all, but using the diluted dosage from tiny amounts of his old water. The way homeopathy works, it can be used in microscopic amounts. Lowering the dosage is a way of finishing off the workings of the remedy. ​ 
On the 5th, I took some final-ish pictures (only one of which turned out) and a video, which shows his recovery best: 















Since these photos and videos, the slight leftover pineconing on his left side is completely gone and the color has returned to the scales. I don't know if they fell off and regrew? I never noticed them actually missing and I can't imagine it would only take a few days to regrow... 

I know that some people have had their later-confirmed-to-be-myco fish get better then relapse, so this thread is far from done. I'll keep y'all updated.


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## White Mage (Jan 31, 2013)

Wow, that's amazing! Such a beautiful fish too... If he stays better, you might've just found a cure for this nasty thing!


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## Jexx (Feb 2, 2013)

This is incredible. Where can one buy these treatments? also, what is considered to be a dose for pyrogenium?


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## Corsica (Apr 1, 2013)

He looks great! I hope he fully recovers and stays that way!


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## Lady Courage (Oct 2, 2012)

So far so good on Doc's progress! His fins are still sloughing dead cells, it looks like, because the frail edges are falling away and leaving healthy fin behind. He's back to being all perky, but he's bored *STIFF* in that teeny tiny tank. It's the only other one I have, Doc! I'm sorry!

So we've been trying to figure out what to do next. Obviously, no matter what, the old tank needs to be sterilized. However... I don't have the money to entirely replace his plants, decorations and certainly not the shrimp.

Homeopathy works to get the body moving and healing itself. Unlike traditional drugs, it does nothing on it's own. It simply gives the living body a shove in the right direction. Therefore, whatever illness Doc had, whether it be myco or a myco lookalike, it's _possible_ he has built up an immunity to it. Also, from what I'm understanding, myco is in the system already?

There is bacteria around us, in us, on us, all the time. It's when for some reason or another our bodies are weak that we become sick. Strep throat in humans, for instance. Strep is part of the bacteria in our throats all the time, it just sometimes becomes horribly unbalanced and we get super sick.

Soooo... I'm thinking that, maybe, it would be worth trying to save my plants and shrimp. The shrimp aren't sick, the plants are huge and gorgeous and both cost me a great deal of money (the kind where my stomach flips when I think of just throwing it all away).

No matter what, the gravel is going out and the tank is going to be intensely sanitized (sun route, because $30 for Barbicide Plus is asdalfawefal expensive) I won't use the shrimp for breeding (in case they are carriers) and I won't put any other fish in the tank with Doc (well, I wouldn't anyway it's way too small) and I won't trim the plants to put in any other tanks (  ).

If in a month's time, when all this is done, and Doc isn't sick again, I suspect that he will have built up immunity. Yes I'm keeping his Hospital Tank sparkling clean, but he has the bacteria all over him right now. There's nothing I can do to sanitize him. If he can stay healthy in a sterile environment with nothing but him, fresh water that doesn't have time to build healthy bacteria before it's dumped out, and whatever made him sick still lurking on his scales, then the homeopathy must have helped his body build it's natural defenses against this bacteria.

Therefore, I think it will be OK to put the plants and shrimp back in with him.


For now... I've been wanting to get a 20 long anyway to start breeding shrimp (I lurve shrimpies!!) and Petco had a 50% sale on the 20's the other day. That's every bit as good as a $1 a gallon for a 20, so I went ahead and snagged that and a glass lid. The lid cost more than the tank... But I can't have dog hair floating around in it, can I? lol
I'm going to put the shrimp and the plants in there while the other tank is sanitized. 
In case it is myco, I'm going to treat everything as if it is. The 20 long will be sanitized thoroughly when the shrimp and plants are done in there and I won't be using any other equipment with it, on purpose.


Whatever happens from this point on, once any other fish get involved, I'm going to assume myco is in everything Doc ever had anything to do with. He himself may be a carrier now! I guess his little Fluval View will truly be his alone, plants and all. King of the mountain Dr. Seuss who never shares an item with anyone else.
Ehehehe, he'd probably be pleased with that if he knew. 

_*At least*_ I can save the tank though, even if Doc gets sick again and passes. Thank. God. $80 saved just... Oh man, I can't describe how relieved I am about that. Can't even. Plus I like the tank. Don't love it, but like it.


And I have no idea if that made ANY sense. lol But if it did and anyone has any thoughts on my disjointed and iffy plans, I'd love to hear them! I don't know anything about this for sure. All I can do is observe Doc, read up, sanitize things like mad and apply all the knowledge I can get my little hands on.



White Mage said:


> Wow, that's amazing! Such a beautiful fish too... If he stays better, you might've just found a cure for this nasty thing!


I'm kinda amazed too. Homeopathy isn't magic, so I honestly didn't know what to expect. lol And thank you! 



Jexx said:


> This is incredible. Where can one buy these treatments? also, what is considered to be a dose for pyrogenium?


Whole Foods and other health food stores often have a homeopathy section, but otherwise you can find them online: 

Baptisia Tinctoria
Pyrogenium

30c potency is top choice for this application and acute illness, so those links above the correct potency.

As for dosage, actually, *how many* pellets you use is less important than *how often* you do it. The pyrogenium I had on hand was teeny tiny pellets, so I just tried to do one or two pellets. They were so tiny sometimes more one fell in, but it never combined to the size of the baptisia pellet.



Corsica said:


> He looks great! I hope he fully recovers and stays that way!


Thank you! Me too!!


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## VJM (Feb 7, 2013)

I am so glad he is better! 

I am not going to get all critical and scientific on such a happy thread, but for those of you interested in trying homeopathic products, do your research. It is well worth a Google search before you spend money and expose your fish to something. 

It is fantastic that he is better, and you must be so relieved.


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