Pooping blood clots

My bearded dragon has had a black beard for a few days and refused to eat any kind of bug (unusual). It's even black while he sleeps.

Today I noticed blood in his stool and took him to the vet. They weren't letting any pet owners into the clinic because of coronavirus concerns, I actually had to wait in the parking lot while the doctor examined Rufus. Doctor told me during the exam that Rufus pooped a blood clot. On the way home he did it again, I would have thought it was a bloody poop, but maybe it's a blood clot. He hasn't eaten enough food for him to poop this much today.

Anyway, the vet thought this is very unusual and didn't really have a solid idea of why something like this would occur. We are doing a fecal test and will get the results in the next day or two. In the meantime he gave me metronidazole to administer for seven days until we see the results. He felt it best to take some preventative measures and start it right away than wait up to 48 more hours for lab results.

Does this sound like something anyone has experienced or heard of before? I have a pit in my stomach because it just seems really serious, and I have no idea if he's in discomfort, I assume he is if his beard is constantly black.

Hi there, sorry to hear about this scary situation. Sometimes a heavy parasite load can cause bleeding but there are other possibilities, even an cyst or tumor. There was a person here a couple of years ago who's dragon passed a lot of blood but no cause was found. [ I don't know how competent their vet was ] But it didn't continue and the dragon was fine even after a while, showing no ill effects. Maybe a cyst burst and that was the end of it. Hopefully your boy will be O.K

Got the fecal test results, he has pinworms but the doctor said that isn't the problem.

I gave the oral antibiotic to him today and he vomited about four hours later. But it wasn't just the antibiotic, quite a bit of bile as well.

Doctor doesn't really know what the problem is. He said it looks like a serious GI issue since he is pooping blood and vomiting. But if there are no parasites it's usually from swallowing a foreign object and there is 0.0% chance that he ingested a foreign object. Since he vomited, the doctor recommended switching to an injectable antibiotic so he can't vomit it. I'm going to give him the oral antibiotic again today and then again tomorrow and if he keeps it down I'll stick with this rather than switch to the injectable.

On the bright side, he doesn't seem weakened by this. He was walking around today and climbed up a step. He has no problem climbing up to his basking spot from the floor of his enclosure. I think that is good, but the 24/7 black beard, pooping blood and vomiting are not good.

Regarding the bloody poop, it never happened before yesterday and it hasn't happened today. Maybe that is a good sign too.

If anyone has any thoughts on this please let me know. Keeping my fingers crossed and hoping he isn't in too much discomfort.

Aw, that's too bad he vomited. What type of meds. was it and what type of injectable is the vet recommending ?

The oral antibiotic is metronidazole. I don't know what the injectable is, he told me the name on the phone but it may as well have been in Greek. IIRC it is something that starts with a C.

The only change I can think of is I put one of these little 2" balls in his cage about three weeks ago - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...02a16f710ff522841735b4a2a46a3b&language=en_US

I'm positive this doesn't have anything to do with his GI issues. I saw a video of a bearded dragon that has one and plays with it so thought I'd give it a try but Rufus ignores the ball.

I am struggling to type these words out. I did not think I would have to for many more years. But Rufus passed away Sunday night.

On Sunday we took him to a second vet who also didn't see anything abnormal with him, other than the black beard. I observed that his eyes looked sunk in compared to normal but figured he was dehydrated because he hasn't eaten or drunk much lately, but he gets at least one bath a week and he had one on Sunday.

The horrible thing about his passing is that I think he suffered. I found him laying in a pool of blood that came out of his mouth. It was a substantial amount. Does anyone have any idea what in the world can cause this to happen? Organ failure? Cancer? Some kind of disease?

He was less than two months shy of his 5th birthday and was so well taken care of. I was a hypochondriac on his behalf. I took him to the vet twice before because I saw something that concerned me and the vet thought I was crazy, he said Rufus is one of the healthiest bearded dragons he's seen.

I honestly don't know what more I could have done to provide better care for him. He appeared to be so healthy and it seemed like in the span of a few days he went from the picture of health to passing away. Even in his last days when he must have been feeling pretty rotten, he was still active and alert, if you saw him you'd think he was very healthy (except for the black beard that wouldn't go away). Since he wasn't weak and hadn't lost significant weight I was certain he was going to pull out of this with the antibiotic. But the manner in which he died is both shocking and perplexing.

Would appreciate it if anyone could offer some plausible explanations of what caused him to pass away in the manner he did. It would give me some comfort to know his cause of death.

Oh no, that's so terrible and devastating for you !! I'm soooo sorry. There's no way to tell why this happened unless a necropsy is done but there may have been some type of growth on one of his organs or cancer . You did all you could for Rufus, my heart truly goes out to you.

Hi there,

I'm so sorry for your loss. I know how hard it is, especially when you have put so much effort into their care.

uscpsycho":jv75ubcz said:

Would appreciate it if anyone could offer some plausible explanations of what caused him to pass away in the manner he did. It would give me some comfort to know his cause of death.

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I agree, without a necropsy, you likely won't get any definites, but the chances of it being something you did, or something wrong with your care, is extremely miniscule.
It does sound like some type of cancer to me though.
They are notorious for being able to hide illness until it's too late. You couldn't have known.

uscpsycho":jv75ubcz said:

he gets at least one bath a week and he had one on Sunday.

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I do want to mention this only because it's a very common misconception, but dragon's don't actually get any hydration from baths unless they physically drink from the bath. Unless he was severely dehydrated to the point of organ failure, this wouldn't have caused it at all, as typically signs of dehydration do present themselves sooner than what happened in your case.
However, if he did drink in the bath, well then you can disregard all that.

Once again, I'm so sorry for your loss. We all know how hard it is. We are here for you though.

-Brandon