EmilyHannah
Member
Hello there, my female 1yr 9mth old Beardie has been diagnosed with Gout.
She has recently laid her first ever infertile clutch of eggs and recovered very well from that, the day she laid the eggs was the day I found out that she was actually a girl as I had previously taken her to the exotic pet place where I got her from to find out her sex and they had told me she was a boy. She is also just starting to shed in a few places too. So here's the main story:
On Sunday (at the time of posting it is Wednesday in England.) I got home and one of her front feet was slightly swollen. However she was walking on it ok so I went round to my neighbour's house who own's reptiles and had once told me about a very good vet clinic with a good reptile specialist to get his vet's number. As it was now fairly late in the evening and Shasta (my beardie) was looking fairly tired, I left it until the morning. When I woke up the next day two more feet were swollen and the original swollen foot was a little bit worse than the day before. So immediately I called the vets and booked their next available appointment which was on Tuesday the day after. She was finding it harder to walk, but still moving about ok and very lively and interested in everything around her, pooped a nice but small poop, etc. The next day we took her to the vets and she got checked out all over and was very well behaved, we also discussed husbandry which they told us ours was perfectly fine. We were told we had to leave her there so that they could X-Ray her, take some blood samples and some fluids from the swollen legs to test. Later that day when we came to pick her up the vet was very upbeat and told us that the X-Rays came back fine, and nothing bad came back in the bloods or anthing too unusual in the fluid from one of her legs. She said she thought it was very unlikely that it was Gout although it was a possibility (she said no more about Gout at this point) and that she suspected some sort of infection and gave us some antibiotics (Baytril) which should help. She said to just give her those, wait until we get the results back and go from there. Well, this morning I got a call from a different vet, although from the same practice etc who informed me that Shasta did infact have Gout and that the best option was to put her down. Obviously, as any pet owner would be; I was completely distraught and asked him if there was definately nothing they could do to which he replied 'There is no treatment' (?!). Note: Shasta's legs were no worse than before and she was still moving around in her viv quite a bit. We agreed that we would take her in and have her put to sleep if they thought that was the best option. On our way their we stopped off at a small pet food store to get her some Mealworms as a goodbye treat, but we ended up having a very long conversation with a gentleman who worked there that had owned Bearded Dragons all his life and had had, in the past, a few Beardies who had been ill with various things and the vets had said they should be put down as soon as. But he had looked all over for different options and found various 'cures' online reccomended by other owners and that his Beardies recovered and went on to live healthily for many more years. I am not easily swayed by anyone's opinions, or advice but we did decide to go to the vets, talk to them but not have Shasta put to sleep today. The 'different' vet who had called me this morning spoke to us and again said that the only option was to have her put down, as 'they are so small and delicate that there is nothing else we can do'. Although he said he understood we were obviously not ready (I have never cried so hard and so constantly in all my life.) and that she would be fine if we wanted to come back tomorrow.
She is still very perky, active although with some difficulty, I have got her to drink some small amounts of water through a syringe without much hassle at all and she's eaten some Rocket although I do have to help her by gently opening her mouth and then she'll do the rest. She still seems very healthy in all other respects other than she is finding it much harder to walk properly although she can move everything just fine. Very lively and perky as I previously said. I've been reading all over different forums and found a lot of people reccomending Black Cherry Extract or juice, and cranberry juice to help break up the uric acid although I'm not sure how to go about obtaining Allopurinol or Colchicine (spelling?) specifically for animals, unless the type given to humans is ok for Beardies as I do already have some of that for my dad's gout. I'm most likely going to call another reptile vet that was reccomended to me if I can find out the number for second opinion. I really do not want to lose my baby, my world and my everything. I'm not trying to just keep her hanging on as long as I can for myself, I just don't believe that although she is so obviously healthy other than her legs being impaired, that she has to be put down. I have looked all over the internet and haven't seen anyone else who's vet's immediately insisted on putting down their beardie without trying any meds or anything else etc. Has anyone else had any similar experiences with gout in their own beardies? Or known anyone elses to survive this?
I'm planning on calling another reptile vet that has previously been reccomended to me to try and get a second opinion. In advance; Thank you very much.
She has recently laid her first ever infertile clutch of eggs and recovered very well from that, the day she laid the eggs was the day I found out that she was actually a girl as I had previously taken her to the exotic pet place where I got her from to find out her sex and they had told me she was a boy. She is also just starting to shed in a few places too. So here's the main story:
On Sunday (at the time of posting it is Wednesday in England.) I got home and one of her front feet was slightly swollen. However she was walking on it ok so I went round to my neighbour's house who own's reptiles and had once told me about a very good vet clinic with a good reptile specialist to get his vet's number. As it was now fairly late in the evening and Shasta (my beardie) was looking fairly tired, I left it until the morning. When I woke up the next day two more feet were swollen and the original swollen foot was a little bit worse than the day before. So immediately I called the vets and booked their next available appointment which was on Tuesday the day after. She was finding it harder to walk, but still moving about ok and very lively and interested in everything around her, pooped a nice but small poop, etc. The next day we took her to the vets and she got checked out all over and was very well behaved, we also discussed husbandry which they told us ours was perfectly fine. We were told we had to leave her there so that they could X-Ray her, take some blood samples and some fluids from the swollen legs to test. Later that day when we came to pick her up the vet was very upbeat and told us that the X-Rays came back fine, and nothing bad came back in the bloods or anthing too unusual in the fluid from one of her legs. She said she thought it was very unlikely that it was Gout although it was a possibility (she said no more about Gout at this point) and that she suspected some sort of infection and gave us some antibiotics (Baytril) which should help. She said to just give her those, wait until we get the results back and go from there. Well, this morning I got a call from a different vet, although from the same practice etc who informed me that Shasta did infact have Gout and that the best option was to put her down. Obviously, as any pet owner would be; I was completely distraught and asked him if there was definately nothing they could do to which he replied 'There is no treatment' (?!). Note: Shasta's legs were no worse than before and she was still moving around in her viv quite a bit. We agreed that we would take her in and have her put to sleep if they thought that was the best option. On our way their we stopped off at a small pet food store to get her some Mealworms as a goodbye treat, but we ended up having a very long conversation with a gentleman who worked there that had owned Bearded Dragons all his life and had had, in the past, a few Beardies who had been ill with various things and the vets had said they should be put down as soon as. But he had looked all over for different options and found various 'cures' online reccomended by other owners and that his Beardies recovered and went on to live healthily for many more years. I am not easily swayed by anyone's opinions, or advice but we did decide to go to the vets, talk to them but not have Shasta put to sleep today. The 'different' vet who had called me this morning spoke to us and again said that the only option was to have her put down, as 'they are so small and delicate that there is nothing else we can do'. Although he said he understood we were obviously not ready (I have never cried so hard and so constantly in all my life.) and that she would be fine if we wanted to come back tomorrow.
She is still very perky, active although with some difficulty, I have got her to drink some small amounts of water through a syringe without much hassle at all and she's eaten some Rocket although I do have to help her by gently opening her mouth and then she'll do the rest. She still seems very healthy in all other respects other than she is finding it much harder to walk properly although she can move everything just fine. Very lively and perky as I previously said. I've been reading all over different forums and found a lot of people reccomending Black Cherry Extract or juice, and cranberry juice to help break up the uric acid although I'm not sure how to go about obtaining Allopurinol or Colchicine (spelling?) specifically for animals, unless the type given to humans is ok for Beardies as I do already have some of that for my dad's gout. I'm most likely going to call another reptile vet that was reccomended to me if I can find out the number for second opinion. I really do not want to lose my baby, my world and my everything. I'm not trying to just keep her hanging on as long as I can for myself, I just don't believe that although she is so obviously healthy other than her legs being impaired, that she has to be put down. I have looked all over the internet and haven't seen anyone else who's vet's immediately insisted on putting down their beardie without trying any meds or anything else etc. Has anyone else had any similar experiences with gout in their own beardies? Or known anyone elses to survive this?
I'm planning on calling another reptile vet that has previously been reccomended to me to try and get a second opinion. In advance; Thank you very much.
