Please I could use suggestions, encouragement, success stories anything here feeling very helpless.

My sugar glider McKenzie is about 3 1/2, the breeder we bought him from lied about us age so at his first check up a month after we got him the vet said first that ‘she’ was a he and that he was at least 5 months older than we were told.
First we noticed that he was drinking very much water so I started making sure there were little bowls of water and juice ground level (not from the bottle) and that helped—then we noticed over the last week he was only sitting in his wheel not running in it, then Wednesday night we noticed he was favoring his right leg, Thursday started the vet calls, Gus vet us out if town until the 5th, they have no one else that covers her and really no help finding anyone to see him. I have made hundreds of calls finally found one about an hour and half away we saw her Friday. By Friday he is walking kind of splayed out rear end flat lower back sure, VET agrees that it seems like HLP. She said he wasn’t bad enough to do blood tests or get calcium injection. She did give him a good check up, said his bones are fine, eyes, no tumors, great teeth good heart and respiratory sent us home with “Carnivor Critical Care” told us to feed him that and in the meantime switch foods to Critter Love. I have it on order should receive at least the pellets tomorrow.
I really don’t t feel like she did enough so I called around a lot more and found another exotic vet a little farther away and we have an appointment Friday—they agree that is too long to wait but I can’t find anyone else —every urgent care hospitals don’t have sugar glider vets.
He seems happy. No pain, clicking, still loves his rubs etc. just not eating very much—drinking fine. Is pooping and peeing.
I need to know what is the best way to get him past this? I am giving him extra calcium extra protein. I have learned so much I thought I was feeding him the perfect diet not realizing that the calcium items we used were so high in phosphorus. And it seems most of the ‘complete” glider foods don’t have much calcium.

Have you ever dealt with the same issue? What did you feed them to give them that boost? Did they get better? I think I expected a miracle from the vet — how long does it take to recover?

Any ideas, suggestions are much appreciated!

we have been to two vet offices in our city, one has a father and son vets
that seem to have a lot of sugar glider experience. We were told the they could
tell you if the glider is a child or an adult, but other then that they have NO
way to tell the true age once the glider matures.

I have read several theories on HLP. what it is and what it isn't. In the
end if you go with critterlove WITH the salads on the side EVERY night, you
should be feeding your glider right. Also glider get MOST of their water from
their food, so drinking water from bottle, dish, silo is not often or much.
I use some bottles, and also bird silos, I like the silos, but you have to do a
good cleaning on them (but bottles need a good cleaning also.) dishes are less
preferred as gliders tend to dirty them up every night.

being a small animal gliders should eat small amounts thoughout the night.
little now and little later.

we had one glider that would run in the wheel for a little while then sit in
the bottom of the wheel looking around, just used it as a lookout, she was a single
glider all alone at the time.

calcium - The critterlove diet has all the calcium your glider needs. Also
if using honey, use raw honey, NOT pasteurized.

None of our gliders have had HLP, but they are small animals and can get sick. I have read they are good at hiding illness, in the wild you don't want to be seen as
the easy prey for predators, so sometimes you don't see your glider is sick till
it is late.

but if your glider looks healthy and the vet says it seems healthy I would
relax a little.

Thank you - we were able to get an appt Friday with the specialist, the vet he saw this past Friday called and said she was thinking about it over the weekend and she put him on pain meds small dose until he gets in with the other vet Friday. She was thinking if he is in pain it will be harder to heal. He still seems happy, clicking and “purring” but he could be hiding it just like you mentioned-/I hear they are good at that. I think we are catching it early so that should help.
.
This weekend I was really researching everything I could find and we tried a couple different things- I gave him a little bit of orange juice concentrate with blueberry=ry and some vitamins, he drank lots of water had some meal worms with a little repcal on them and we just took him out tonight and he is walking much better—a little faster but he can only climb a little bit.

I was introduced to a rescuer today and she gave me some great tips and a couple recipes. He is such a picky eater — one thing that we did was boil a chicken leg -he has never had chicken other than the baby food mixed in with the BLM and he is actually eating on it right now! She also gave me a recipe that she uses it is coconut water, goats milk, ensure (vanilla) with rep-cal then serve it with fruits and veggies, he does not seemed interested yet but he is pretty busy with the chicken

Feeling a bit more encouraged right now and we did decide as soon as he is 100% we are going to get him a friend slowly introduce them and see how it goes—he has been an only glider since Dec 2016 but thinking about it now, life is too shirt not to have a real partner, kind of wish we would have done that sooner. While he is our little buddy he would probably want someone to cuddle up with too!

Thank you for responding it has been a really stressful 5 days, I will send an update with the next improvement!