Help! My beardie's eye is swollen very badly

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Lthomas4302

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My beardie's right eye has been closed for most of her life. When I got her (about 2-3 years ago) I didn't notice it. Nor did I notice that almost all of her toes on her left back leg were gone. So after a heated confrontation with the pet store guy, I was convinced that she was born this way. I believed it until this morning, when I took her out of her tank and found her with the most painful looking eye ever. Im now convinced that there is something in her eye that's caused it to swell like this. Please help, I don't know what to do.
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Lthomas4302

New member
Original Poster
Reptilelady":1b3klloq said:
Awe poor thing :( That looks very painful.

Do you have an appointment with the vet? I would get in ASAP.

Not yet. This is the first time I've ever really had a problem with a pet that requires me to see a vet. It seems like that's what I'll have to do though.
 

kingofnobbys

BD.org Sicko
Oh my .... that looks very sore and she'll be feeling pretty crook too .... definitely get her to see an experienced reptile vet RIGHT AWAY .... this wont have blown up like that o/night , it's likely taken a few weeks or months to get so swollen , so , please don't delay getting her to the vet to be examined , get bloodwork, a swab cultured, small needle aspiration taken to examine what's in there.

At least she's not black bearding ( in your photos ). That's a positive sign .

Could be :
>> result of an aneurism = very serious and life threatening if left untreated (likely needs surgery and a blood transfer) .... if it is an aneurism the prognosis is bad , as is the potential of death through complications during surgery and recovery , VERY GOOD IDEA to arrange some blood taken from her which is cleaned (to remove any pathogens and stored) to ensure the vet has blood on hand to replace blood loss during surgery (which would be extreme in the case of such a large lump).
BUT : since you say she's had a swollen eye most her life, it's probably not an aneurism, she would have been dead from it a long time ago. A certain expert on bearded dragon aneurisms who teaches vets in the USA told me my Puff's lump was unlikely to be an aneurism as he'd had his for about 4 - 6 months (started small and slowly grew and then effected one of his eyes and that side of his mouth) and she told he would have been dead very soon after the aneurism occurred. (Even world experts get it wrong).

MORE LIKELY
>> an abscess , again serious and potentially life threatening and requires draining (surgery) and infected tissues removed and a long cause of antibiotic , the surgery is risky.
>> an cancerous growth , again serious and lifethreatening and requires surgery and continuing vet treatment to ensure no regrowth.
>> blocked tearduct , serious but not lifethreatening and will not clearup without a vets surgical intervention

The longer you hold off the worse this will become and the costs for surgery and treatment will snowball very fast.
I recently has a similar issue with one on my beardies (Puff) , who had a soft lump growing on the back of his head , and developed inflamed lips and a very swollen eye which he made worse when one day when I think he was shaking his head vigorously and wacked it very hard on the edge of his acrylic stone grotto giving himself a very serious eye injury and a very nasty shiner. In his case it was fluid buildup the tissues in the side of his face and eyesocket that originally caused his eye to become very swollen, this was due to an aneurism on his jugular vein which was misdiagnosed as a being an abscess (even when the vet surgeon took a small needle aspiration of the contents of the lump on his head.
I spent about $800 on major surgery to remove and treat what I was told was an abscess but suspected right along was an aneurism, and my much loved spoilt big boy never regained consciousness - dying in recovery from a heart attack (due to excess blood loss in surgery) :(
The vet was planning to deal with his inflamed , damaged eye surgically in a few months once he was strong enough to go through another major surgical procedure , and I was sent home without him (he was too frail to come home and was in intensive care (likely overnight was the expectation) and I had the antibiuotics injections and pain relief sent home with me in preparation for his return home .

THIS IS SERIOUS.

I hope your beardie's swollen eye is not one of the bad ones (above) , and really hope your vet can treat it successfully and save her life (this is most likely lifethreatening) , even if the eye is not salvageable.

Good luck.
 

EllenD

Gray-bearded Member
Well said above. Please get her to only a very experienced certified Reptile vet immediately! That has taken a long time to get to that point, and is no doubt very, very painful. If it's an aneurysm it could become fatal very quickly, if it's an abscess and it isn't drained and treated with serious antibiotics (probably a combo of injections and oral antibiotics) it will soon spread to her bloodstream and she will become septic, which will also be fatal. She may likely lose her eye, but she can live a very high quality of life without it, but only if you get her specialized medical care now! An Infection that close to her brain can also cause not only infection in her head but also severe fluid retention and pressure in her brain, which is not only fatal but painful.

The longer you wait to take her the more likely she may not survive, and the more money it will cost and the more complicated and long the treatment will be. I hope she makes it through, if you need help finding the correct type of Veterinarian right off the bat (saves a lot of time, money, and probably her life if you go to the certified Reptile vet first and not an "exotics" vet) please let us know where you live and we'll help you.
 

AHBD

BD.org Sicko
Poor baby, and this must be so hard for you to see her like this. :( I agree that she does need a reptile vet.

However, it my very well have had a slight infection and then became irritated by scratching or another foreign substance entered it and it developed to this degree overnight. I had a baby come out of the incubator where it had obviously been scratched in the hatching process by a clutchmate , the eye ballooned up right away to a huge size. I used raw honey diluted with a tiny bit of warm water [ not hot ] directly on it 2-3 X a day + the infection went down in 2-3 days. Whatever your vet prescribes, raw honey can also help. It's documented n many medical journals for it's antimicrobial properties that aid in all types of wound healing, and also for use directly in the eye.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwje6-n40dTUAhUDVyYKHcGODl8QFggoMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.benefits-of-honey.com%2Feye-infection.html&usg=AFQjCNFG-hcQhn6ipaW4QhFphMeEaa2aTA

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjBhdq91NTUAhXHy4MKHV8RB8YQFghOMAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fvetmed.illinois.edu%2Fpet_column%2Fhoney-wound-care%2F&usg=AFQjCNH07UZNhlwTiV2Gtz7zXJok54LnQw
 
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