Bearded dragon serious eye issue

I have a 7 year old female dragon who I discover Christmas Eve curled up in her cage and it looked as though she was trying to tuck her head under herself. When I looked at her head it looked as though her eyes had exploded. Both of her sockets were swollen and had been draining blood which and dropped down into her mouth. I immediately put her in warm water and gently washed her eyes. It was Christmas Eve night and I was unable to find a vet available and had to play the waiting game. On Christmas Day the swelling her her eyes had gone down significantly and I gave her another bath in which she had a bowel movent. I noticed she had movent behind her eyelid of her left eye but nothing in the right eye and the right eye was still slightly swollen. Now today the 26th she opened her left eye socket but unfortunately I didn’t see an eye but just a pink membrane. There is still no movement of her right eye but I am still cleaning both eyes. I was able to get a saline solution to help fight off infection and she is still moving around and drinking and eating from a syringe. I just want to know if this has happened to anyone else and what to do. Please help!

This is very serious .....can you post pics ? Here's how :

https://www.beardeddragon.org/useruploads/ Then use the XIMG to upload them

The only thing that might cause such obvious wounds to the eyes is if there were a good number of loose large crickets in the tank that went after her eyes, the crickets need to eat and they my go for the moist body parts. Can you check to see if they are hiding under the cage decor ? Your beardie needs a vet of course. Raw honey can be used as an antimicrobial but you'll need to get any crickets out of the tank right away. If shhe's housed with another dragon, that one should be removed ASAP.

These were from the day after. She had tried to open her left eye right after I cleaned her up again and it had bled a little as you can see. I do not have any of from the day it happened as I was distraught and more focused on helping her. She is housed separately and there were no crickets in her cage at the time. I had checked on her not 20 minutes before it happened and caught it while she was still bleeding. I thought it might have been an aneurysm but could that cause both eyes to do that and wouldn’t she have bled out? I’m still waiting to hear back from a vet. I will try to get a picture of her when she opens her left eye as she has been trying to do so more frequently.

This just happened out of nowhere? It just suddenly appeared like this, in both eyes, without any warning at all?

If that's the case, then it has to be something internal to her eyes/head, could be a horrible infection behind both eyes, a tumor or abscess that ruptured, etc. Either way it's odd that there wasn't even any swelling prior to this happening in both eyes.

You need to get her to a 24 hour animal hospital immediately, or call a certified reptile vet and get her in immediately, she needs imaging tests and blood work because if this is due to some type of infection or rupture inside of her head, or her intracranial pressure is high, etc. then she's going to get much, much worse. My guess is that both eyes are gone and unfortunately not salvageable, but you now need to worry about a septic infection, brain bleed, etc. that could kill her. We're way past raw honey here, the way you're describing this presents as a severe medical emergency...

Poor girl, but her still eating is a good sign. Along with what Ellen mentioned it could be similar to what causes this condition in dogs. Here's a link to possible causes, and it does say that depending on what's causing it the eyes can be salvageable.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwieo63x4KrYAhXE5yYKHbrsAb0QFggxMAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwagwalking.com%2Fcondition%2Fbleeding-retina-eye&usg=AOvVaw139biU8OHhJU2-8Qy12e6p

By the way, is she on loose substrate like calcium sand ? Just a long shot [ but you don't want to rule anything out ] but if both eyes were irritated she may have tried to scratch them. I had a dragon years ago [ not on sand ] that scratched his eye, there was blood everywhere from him shaking his head, it looked horrible. I knew about honey being used on wounds , even in the eye and used raw honey with gauze + tape over it. It healed within days, so if these were just scratches I would suggest honey but since this is an unknown cause you really do need a vet. They don't look as bad as you described [ I thought from your first post that one eye was gone ] but hopefully will be something that can be helped, but do so quickly.

Of course bringing her to a vet is my top priority. I love my beardie and do not want her suffering. I have gotten in contact with a reptile vet about an hour away and just waiting to see if I can bring her in. She has repticarpet in her cage so I know it’s not sand. The pictures are from after a day of treating her and the swelling had gone done siginifigantly. Overall she is still perky and has an appetite. As I said before, when she did open her left eye, I only saw a pink membrane. Whether or not there is an eye in there, I have no idea. Not knowing is the hardest part and that’s why I originally posted on here to see if anyone had anything like this happen before. I have owned beardies for the better majority of my life and had never heard or seen this happen before.

Please update when you find out what it is , hoping to hear that it's something treatable.

Hello,

OH my, that is very odd! Nothing like that has ever happened to us with any of our dragons
now or in the past.
I am also wondering, if it's from shed? The top of her head looks kind of whitish, has her head
been shedding any?
Is there anything sharp in her tank she could have scratched her eyes on, or outside of the tank
maybe, a Christmas decoration, etc?
That's good you got in contact with a vet, I hope you can get her in soon. That must have been
like a horror show to see like that! It still could be a medical emergency, an aneurysm possibly,
or an infection, but hopefully not.
Let us know how she is doing.

Tracie

Hi Amanda, just wondering how your dragon is doing ?

I was able to get her into a vet on Wednesday and she has another appointment tonight. They were trying to get a blood sample but unfortunately due to the blood she had lost they were unable to. They gave her multivitamin shot and sent me home with some eye medication and liquid food. As of today her eyes are significantly better and she had opened both of them. We believe the pink membrain I had originally seen was swelling of her inner eye. She still has both both of her eyes. The vet was unable to tell what had caused it but she said possible reasons were kidney disease, aneurysm or cancer. We are hoping to get a better answer from the blood work. The vet said that everything else with her is normal and her coloration and weight were good. As far as her cage set up goes, I do not keep anything sharper than a round end of a log. I did however remove her logs just so she didn’t keep bumping and fumbling over them. She did just go through a shed and the vet didn’t think that is was caused it. I will update as soon as I know more.

I'm glad to hear that she's doing " O.K. " at the moment. Hopefully it will not be one of the more serious things. I think aneurysms grow quickly in beardies and would be more apparent by now but I could be wrong.

Hello,

I am glad to hear her eyes are both much better!
I agree, I think an aneurysm would probably have shown more by now but hopefully it wont
be that, or anything else serious. Renal issues, that is a possibility. When will the blood work
be back, so they were able to get a small sample?
Definitely let us know how she is doing!

Tracie

Alright, here is my most recent update. The blood work came back pretty normal except she had A really high calcium count and a high cell count of something he said way too fast for me to understand but it is usually caused by allergies or parasites. She doesn’t have any external parasites so I have to get a stool sample brought in to look for interanal parasites. The vet thinks the high calcium is from her trying to produce eggs but she shows no signs of acctually being fertile. She has yet to eat anything solid but she is opening both eyes for longer periods of time. There is still something in one of her that looks to me like dried blood that got trapped in her eye. I will try to capture a picture of it for you guys so decipher. She is still enjoying her everyday baths and drinking water by herself. The vet did say that nothing changes quickly with beardies so this is going to be a long process but she’s doing great. I will post a pic ASAP.

Here is the pic of the blood like film in her eye.