PoisonedPaint
Member
Hello, its been a while since I've visited here; but I've run into a health issue with my beardie Bellamy and I'd like some help trying to identify the problem, if someone here has had a similar illness incident.
For a bit of background: NORMALLY Bellamy is a healthy weight, pretty active (still is, believe it or not despite whats going on), as well as has had very minimal health issues for almost 3-4 years since I remember getting him and has the following:
- 75 watt basking bulb above heat spot (a zoo med brand)
- 50 watt ceramic heat emitter above the lower basking spot
(both basking and emitter are resting on the wire mesh)
- Reptisun 10.0 UVB along the back of the tank held by a strip
- elevated basking locations (I have a large cinderblock in the left back corner that he sometimes pancakes on or partially rests upright along the edge, and a halfed-log hide south of the cinderblock that he rests in and uses as a lower basking area)
- 120 gallon wide exo terra tank
- ceramic tile substrate
- cool side of the tank is around 80-85 degrees, hot is around 100-110 (however been considering getting a mercury bulb 100 watt for the basking bulb and taking the emitter out except for winter)
- regular baths (2-3 a week, which he often drinks while getting these)
- poops seem healthy with solid white urate and brown stool, no blood
Diet:
- Calcium w/ D3 dusted Superworms with breeder recommended multivitamin powder
- Repashy Veggie Burger mix once in a while
- ocassional mustard greens/other beardie-safe produce
-- I want to note that Bellamy is a *very* picky eater when it comes to veggies/fruits of any kind, and when I fed him repashy's, thats the only way I could get him to eat the stuff, but he's been snubbing that too as of late. The food always offered in a variety of ways; short of force feeding him (I dont really feel 100% comfortable doing that either) a liquid mixture of this stuff, him eating non-live prey is seldom.
I do realize that it might not be the greatest for him, but believe me that I am doing my best to tease an apetite out of him for these things. I have tried different combinations of varities too.
Current Situation
- I've noticed about two weeks back from now that hes been doing a 'light wheezing' with his mouth agape--initially I figured it was just a thing he was doing while yawning/stretching his beard in the mornings. Over time, I noticed it started to get a little worse. I kept a close eye on it, since beyond that, he seemed fairly healthy-- active, head up high, basking, beyond the ocassional wheeze, havent seen anything abnormal.
- However I did start to notice his appetite decrease a bit over all. It wasn't too substantial at the start, but it was like 5-7 worms (he is an adult beardie) down to 3, and now we're lucky if he takes one after he goes poo. He is offered food once every other day, as he generally wouldnt eat (even when healthy) the next day if he had food the day before.
- I began to notice that in his hind quarters, he started looking thin, so I started to try offering food every day regardless, to no avail. Its slowly gotten worse. We had a vet check up made for this Saturday, HOWEVER, things took a worse turn when I woke up to him yesterday:
- He began to wheeze a with heavier breaths than usual, and kind of gasping/open-closing his mouth and violently thrashing his head around in unison with his tongue out bit, his beard very black and very pale overall, like bone-white.
Emergency Vet Visit
- Deciding that this was FAR from normal now, and honestly scared me half to death, we booked an emergency visit to the ER yesterday night to the only exotic one in our area.
- We had him in a beardie sling to try keeping him as comfortable as we could, and it was like as soon as he got into the car, all the behavior stopped, like he never even had these issues. His scales were fairly normal shade, ocassional black bearding (but he may have just been stressed from the ride)--otherwise he slept all the way there with no issues.
- We're waiting for the vet to see us, and its like nothing was going on at all. He just sat there with his head poking out and being inquisitive to stuff.
The Vet Check
- So they look him over, they tell us it could e signs of stomatitis? But if it is, there doesn't appear to be any redness or anything along the gums, however perhaps we caught it early enough?
- Going by that, they gave him antibiotic, fluids and some pain med injections. They gave us some pain med for us to give orally at home once every 24 hours.
- After administering this, they left im under a ceramic heat emitter for a short time to metabolize the stuff.
Today
- I woke up today with him, and it seems so far that hes not as bad as yesterday when I woke up to the thrashing/etc, but he is still ocassionally wheezing to a much lesser degree while leaning along his basking cinderblock with his head up as normal. Havent tried feeding yet.
But, has anyone had this situation with their beardies? Does it sound like stomatitis? Could it be something else? Im mostly trying to see if it can be identified as ANYTHING else so I might have some suggestions to check for in a follow up vet check up. I will try uploading a video asap.
For a bit of background: NORMALLY Bellamy is a healthy weight, pretty active (still is, believe it or not despite whats going on), as well as has had very minimal health issues for almost 3-4 years since I remember getting him and has the following:
- 75 watt basking bulb above heat spot (a zoo med brand)
- 50 watt ceramic heat emitter above the lower basking spot
(both basking and emitter are resting on the wire mesh)
- Reptisun 10.0 UVB along the back of the tank held by a strip
- elevated basking locations (I have a large cinderblock in the left back corner that he sometimes pancakes on or partially rests upright along the edge, and a halfed-log hide south of the cinderblock that he rests in and uses as a lower basking area)
- 120 gallon wide exo terra tank
- ceramic tile substrate
- cool side of the tank is around 80-85 degrees, hot is around 100-110 (however been considering getting a mercury bulb 100 watt for the basking bulb and taking the emitter out except for winter)
- regular baths (2-3 a week, which he often drinks while getting these)
- poops seem healthy with solid white urate and brown stool, no blood
Diet:
- Calcium w/ D3 dusted Superworms with breeder recommended multivitamin powder
- Repashy Veggie Burger mix once in a while
- ocassional mustard greens/other beardie-safe produce
-- I want to note that Bellamy is a *very* picky eater when it comes to veggies/fruits of any kind, and when I fed him repashy's, thats the only way I could get him to eat the stuff, but he's been snubbing that too as of late. The food always offered in a variety of ways; short of force feeding him (I dont really feel 100% comfortable doing that either) a liquid mixture of this stuff, him eating non-live prey is seldom.
I do realize that it might not be the greatest for him, but believe me that I am doing my best to tease an apetite out of him for these things. I have tried different combinations of varities too.
Current Situation
- I've noticed about two weeks back from now that hes been doing a 'light wheezing' with his mouth agape--initially I figured it was just a thing he was doing while yawning/stretching his beard in the mornings. Over time, I noticed it started to get a little worse. I kept a close eye on it, since beyond that, he seemed fairly healthy-- active, head up high, basking, beyond the ocassional wheeze, havent seen anything abnormal.
- However I did start to notice his appetite decrease a bit over all. It wasn't too substantial at the start, but it was like 5-7 worms (he is an adult beardie) down to 3, and now we're lucky if he takes one after he goes poo. He is offered food once every other day, as he generally wouldnt eat (even when healthy) the next day if he had food the day before.
- I began to notice that in his hind quarters, he started looking thin, so I started to try offering food every day regardless, to no avail. Its slowly gotten worse. We had a vet check up made for this Saturday, HOWEVER, things took a worse turn when I woke up to him yesterday:
- He began to wheeze a with heavier breaths than usual, and kind of gasping/open-closing his mouth and violently thrashing his head around in unison with his tongue out bit, his beard very black and very pale overall, like bone-white.
Emergency Vet Visit
- Deciding that this was FAR from normal now, and honestly scared me half to death, we booked an emergency visit to the ER yesterday night to the only exotic one in our area.
- We had him in a beardie sling to try keeping him as comfortable as we could, and it was like as soon as he got into the car, all the behavior stopped, like he never even had these issues. His scales were fairly normal shade, ocassional black bearding (but he may have just been stressed from the ride)--otherwise he slept all the way there with no issues.
- We're waiting for the vet to see us, and its like nothing was going on at all. He just sat there with his head poking out and being inquisitive to stuff.
The Vet Check
- So they look him over, they tell us it could e signs of stomatitis? But if it is, there doesn't appear to be any redness or anything along the gums, however perhaps we caught it early enough?
- Going by that, they gave him antibiotic, fluids and some pain med injections. They gave us some pain med for us to give orally at home once every 24 hours.
- After administering this, they left im under a ceramic heat emitter for a short time to metabolize the stuff.
Today
- I woke up today with him, and it seems so far that hes not as bad as yesterday when I woke up to the thrashing/etc, but he is still ocassionally wheezing to a much lesser degree while leaning along his basking cinderblock with his head up as normal. Havent tried feeding yet.
But, has anyone had this situation with their beardies? Does it sound like stomatitis? Could it be something else? Im mostly trying to see if it can be identified as ANYTHING else so I might have some suggestions to check for in a follow up vet check up. I will try uploading a video asap.
Your vet does not know much about reptiles, this is not stomatitis [ aka mouth rot ] If this was mouth rot you'd see red inflamed gums [ no sign of that ] and a cheeesy/pus like appearance . So with an incorrect diagnosis it would be good to seek out a specialist reptile vet.
