Tail Rot or...? Please Help!!!!

Ok so I adopted her for free from Petsmart, They originally had her for sale for $120 becuz of her morph (shes a pastel) but there was something wrong with her tail so they were told by their corporate office to adopt her out, she was unsellable. So i took her, They had been putting mineral oil on her tail. I think what happend is one of the employees caught her tail in the cage door but wouldnt admit it. They say it was a bad shed. I have put pictures below can someone tell me what to do? Im looking really to get advice from the person with the beardie that has no legs. I read your beardies story. I dont have money for amputation at a vet but i dont want infection to set in or spread or turn into tail rot due to injury. What should I do? Im thinking the same proceedure the person used for their legless beardie would work right?
If you look at the pictures part of the tail is withered away and then near the base of the withered part, that part of the tail is grey, im wondering if it will be ok? it hasnt withered or shown sign of withering, its just grey. Its been like that for 2 weeks.

She is only about 2 months old, very tiny, Do you think the nerves in the end of the tail are dead yet? While she was sleeping i tested the theory by bending the withered part a little, she did not wake up so i assume she cant feel anything in it anymore but up to what point in the tail im not sure.

Hello,

Ok, it looks like there is a bit of infection there traveling upwards & it does need to be taken care of to salvage what will be left of the tail of viable tissue after the partial amputation. Unfortunately, once there is infection that has started spreading it usually cannot be stopped just with oral antibiotics.
I don't condone self treating but I understand not having money for a vet at the moment. You don't want an infection killing her. How long has it been like this?
So you are certain that she has no feeling up to what point on her tail?
The lower portion is necrotic so it is dead & dying off now, so she wont have any feeling in there since there is no longer any blood supply. It could just dry up & fall off, but it looks like it could have infection, it is hard to tell.
Is she eating?

Tracie

Yes she def eats, but she likes to sleep all day under her basking spot nd doesnt come to to eat by herself i have to pick her up and set her down off her spot to eat. I really wouldnt want to amputate where she can feel it, what can i do about that?

Oh her tail has looked the same for a little over a week besides the lower part dying off.

Hello,

Well, it is fairly easy to determine viable tissue with necrotic tissue. Can you feel the difference? The tissue that is viable should be soft, & supple feeling while the necrotic tissue should be darker & hard & not soft at all.
Give it a bit more time & let me know how it is looking. It is possible that it will fall off on its' own but there is the chance of infection traveling. What I want for you to do is to get a non toxic permanent magic marker & mark the underneath side of her tail where it is discolored. That way if it travels past that line you will know it is spreading. Then action will absolutely have to be taken.
I don't condone doing procedures at home due to risk of injury, infection, etc. If you can clearly feel where the good & bad tissue separate & the end is already breaking away, you can safely snip the end as there will not be any blood involved, just make sure you do not get soft tissue as she will feel that. You will just need to put betadine on it daily to keep it clean & then put antibiotic ointment on it.
Remember, there is no substitute at home for proper treatment if it is really needed. Infections can get quite serious so please keep me posted on her.

Tracie

hi, im sorry to hear about your dragon.

i'll have to agree with Tracie...

with LG, i did remove the damaged area myself, but only after the entire damaged limb had dried and turned to a scab . even then, i cut far away from the live looking part, leaving a large dead piece remaining at the end of the limb. on retrospect i was lucky; he was my first rescued reptile and at the time i had no idea how idea how easily desease can overtake them. if i had to do it all over again, i would try to take him to a vet.

i know money is tight for you right now, but i would honestly take him to a vet for the "snipping" off of that segment of his tail. they might not charge you for cutting the tail at all, just the antibiotics(though that probably wont happen in this economy :roll: ).

ironically, im in a similar situation right now; im about to lose my(minimum wage)job this coming tuesday and i have no foreseeable income...

the scary part is, my dragon Trouble seems to be developing a respiritory infection... i need to buy injectable antibiotics or board him at the vets so they can treat him. either way its going to cost some big bucks.

im going to ask family to pay for it as my christmas present this year. if theyre down for it, that should cover his vet bills.

im actually about to leave somewhere but ill be back on in a couple hours(im up untill like 2am).

This is Matt, Jessy's boyfriend.

I guess ones thing Jess didn't mention was that while money IS tight, we don't really have the option to take the poor little bugger anywhere as we are kinda snowed in at the moment .

With that said, we took our first action last night and removed what we were certain was dead tissue. We took great care to disinfect everything thoroughly and drew no blood whatsoever. We put some neosporin on the end and bandaged it up. She didnt feel a thing and was sleeping through the whole process. We are now monitoring the last little area that is either dying or healing and will be replacing her bandages routinely.

Jess took some pics and will probably post them later today or I'll post them when I get home from work. We hope it doesn't spread anymore because from what I hear more snow is coming and we still haven't been able to go to the store let alone go to a vet..

-M@

I guess M@ said it all =]
She did sleep through the entire process and i snipped away most of the dead tissue of her tail and bandaged it. I think she will be fine, or at least i hope she will be. It would break my heart to loose such a tiny little thing, especially since its the damn petsmart employees fault her tail got like that to begin with. And their vet should have taken care of it the moment he saw it might be at risk. In the darkish grey area above all the dead stuff on her live tissue, it looks like its starting to turn normal color again.

I'm glad things are looking better Poor lil beardie..hope everything goes back to normal soon

I really hope so too =[ i cant help wondering if we did the right thing, if i hadnt removed it infection would spread and kill her, if i didnt take off enough it can still spread, if i had taken off too much it would hurt her, but i took off the most of it right up to where the tissue was soft and not hard or dying, or so i think anyway, this morning i re-cleaned and bandaged it. I hope things turn for the better. shes so little and pathetic its cute =] the other day she tried to jump up the side of her basking bridge thing and totally flipped over, landed on her back and did the turtle wobble, all her little legs flailing about, it was so sad i could have cried but cute at the same time hahaha.