There seem to have been several health effects from the move, although I can’t definitively pin down cause & effect. 1) The frog got mysteriously sick, stopped eating, & for a while there I was afraid we were going to lose him. 2) Freddiecat started having severe digestive issues, diarrhea & vomiting multiple times a day, & I was terrified we were going to lose him. 3) I have been having multiple skin rashes for months here, with my doctor trying various treatments & finally sending me to a dermatologist.
1) At the old house the tap water was fine to use in the aquarium as long as I treated it. I’ve been doing this for +10 years, and got the baby frog in 2009, & kept him healthy ever since. Weekly water changes, regular maintenance, & every once in a while I test the aquarium water for basic chemical levels. Nitrates, nitrites, alkalinity, pH, etc. After the move the nitrates went through the roof. The plants withered. Froggy got skinnier. I thought it might’ve been the stress of the physical move itself, & increased the water changes. But things just got worse. Now things finally seem on the mend, after much effort. The PetSmart lady said cleaning *too much* might’ve been making things worse! So I started using distilled bottled water, & no treated tap water. & first skipped cleaning for 2 weeks. Counterintuitive, like a Chinese finger trap. Star Trek fans will appreciate the reference. I started froggy off on some bug stick food, that’s supposed to have an appetizing smell. They’re messy & they sink instead of float, like his usual food, so I don’t feed him that much anymore, but he did start eating again. & now the water levels are steadily improving. & froggy is regaining his healthy muscle. So – no tap water from here. Not even treated.
2) Freddiecat at first had diarrhea. It grew more liquidy & messy. Then the diarrhea was replaced by vomiting. Over this time I tried him on various types of gentle foods, sensitive systems foods, supplements, & took him to the vet a few times. We tried a Feliway defuser for anxiety. (We thought his problem might be a psychological reaction to the move and grief over missing the 3 cats I had to rehome.) Anti-emetics weren’t particularly effective at first. We took that also as evidence that maybe his problem wasn’t physical. The vet put him on amitriptyline. That seemed to work, and then it didn’t. That was pretty much how most of the treatment attempts were for him: a slight improvement at first, and then back to *barf barf barf*. He was losing weight, and cleaning the mess was becoming quite depressing. Then after the vet ran a lot of bloodwork, and we found out a lot of things that *weren’t * the problem (his thyroid is fine, his kidneys are fine, his liver is fine, his blood count is normal). But he was still vomiting and losing weight. So the vet tried Freddiecat on steroids. That finally seemed to have a very positive effect. The vomiting stopped. The diarrhea stopped. He’s eating. He even feels good and happy enough to hump his cat beds. He brings me sparkle puffs, he begs for pets and cuddles, he allows himself to be brushed. He even feels to my hand like he’s regained some of his fleshy covering over his bony prominences. Freddiecat isn’t too difficult to medicate, & he gets one prednisone pill a day. He’s on his second month. After this maybe the vet will want him to taper off & see how he does. Is it irritable bowel syndrome? We really don’t know for sure. But the other 2 cats here, Pickleson & Caprica, have not had any of these problems. Freddiecat is the oldest, a senior cat at 15 years old. & frogs are a delicate species that show problems earlier than other hardier species. Sort of a “canary in the coal mine” kind of thing.
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3) & then we get to me. Ever since we moved here I’ve been getting these skin rashes. Kind of itchy pimply-looking red and angry. So I’ve tried acne soaps and treatments. I’ve tried soothing soaps and lotions and calamine & Aveeno oatmeal stuff. Nothing I’ve tried has worked. My doctor 1st advised Dove moisturizing bath wash, then tried courses of antibiotics, then steroids, but nothing had a lasting improvement. Not long after any medical treatment ended, the rashes came right back. So my doctor sent me to a dermatologist. He put me on a regimen of doxycycline, acne treatment, AND steroid creams. The rashes did improve. But I ran out of the steroid skin creams this weekend, & my insurance won’t refill it until the 19th of April. & my period is right now, as well, which always makes everything much worse. Besides the cramps, passing out, diarrhea, & occasional vomiting, my eyes & skin dry out, I’m more prone to seizures AND asthma attacks…. my period is just an autoimmune clusterfuck when my whole body screams how much it hates me. So, of course I would run out of the steroid cream Now. Needless to say, the rashes are back with a vengeance, doxycycline & acne treatments be damned.
So the obvious common factor is the water here. With the least hardy of us being effected.