Possible dislocation or worst case broken arm

Good afternoon everyone,
yesterday my 7 month old bearded dragon female appeared normal and fine yesterday all the way until she slept, (sometimes during the night she gets up to hunt for the single cricket possibly roaming her cage). I have a 40 gallon breeder tank and my 7 month old female is approximately 10 inches long and she sometimes jumps down from her basking tree to either roam or get the last bits of energy out. This morning i found her sleeping in her water bowl! the sun was coming up it was around 715am her lights come on around 735am..once she awoke she took herself out from the water bowl to attempt crossing along the cage towards her basking tree. at this point i noticed she was limping and dragging her right arm. i observed for a moment as she could not climb up her rock onto her basking tree. i took her from her cage and slightly manipulated her arm to see if it was broken or dislocated. i am assuming it is a dislocation as the arm will not move forward just lays limp to her side but when she moves she has it tucked holding it slightly up. i noticed a shake to her arm when she desperately tried to move it, but other than that it remained very loose and floppy. she continues to drag it when moving across the bottom of her cage. i removed all things climable and stopped moving the arm. i also gave her a warm soak. she hasnt eaten today but usually does not get an appetite until the mid afternoon. there is also no swelling. i checked a couple hours later and noticed just a tad of swelling but very very very minimal. at this moment i do not have the money for a vet visit and my truck is in the shop until wednesday, what should i do? has anyone else had this problem and has it gone back to normal with just some rest? thank you...picture below

Hi there, sorry that your little one is having trouble. Is her flooring tile ? She may have jumped + landed wrong and the hard tile floor could have sprained or bruised her leg. Can you post a pic of the set up now, along with the light placement ? Please list your exact type + watt lights you have as well. Take the water bowl out, some beardies sleep in them when they;re not feeling well and they can become very chilled and it's not good for their scales to be wet for hours.

It may be something that heals on it's own in a week or two, see how it goes,but if she seems very painful and swells up you should get her to an experienced reptile vet. It may just be a sprain though.

40 gallon breeder tank
Matted substrate with pebbly texture but otherWise made of a foamy type mat except for the top which is rough and pebbly.
Took out all climable things and set up a basking area made of soft towels
She has an arcadia 22inch 12% uva/b tube fixture
100 watt regular heat bulb
Not too much swelling, just little bit from obvious strain/injury
Really seems dislocated. She can't move it at all and fingers appear limp and light as well as with the rest of her arm.

No harm teeing up an appointment with a good reptile vet so she can be checked out , and Xrays taken (only way to know for sure).

George my BTS male did something similar at about the same age , he actually broke the upper bone in his right arm and the vet inserted a pin and put a cast on the arm to immobilise his damaged arm and allow it heal. The whole procedure took about 3hrs (under general and recovery) and it wasn't cheap.

(didn't slow him down at all but got in the way when he was trying to places (arm was kept pointing straight out in the cast for about 3 months .... looked really odd but did the job and healed up nicely).

Chances are your beardie might have fallen or somehow got the foot or leg stuck and injured himself trying to extract himself. We never worked out how George broke his arm but he was very boisterous as a baby and a juvenile and was a real climber.

Was there a lot of swelling when your injury occurred? She didn't eat today....I'm worried. I will have her examined as soon as possible.

kerib86":2bk81taq said:

Was there a lot of swelling when your injury occurred? She didn't eat today....I'm worried. I will have her examined as soon as possible.

Click to expand...

My memory is a bit vague as he was about 8 mths old when he had his accident , he's now getting on towards 5 - 6 yrs old.

He didn't like putting any weight on it, so it will have hurt , and there was some swelling. The vet originally told us it was a sprain (didn't pick up the fracture in xrays originally, a week later we were back and more xrays and he told us it was broken and needed surgery to pin it and then we had give him antibiotic and anti-inflammatory and pain relief IM injections for the next 2 or 3 weeks (I think it was every other day) as well oral doses of Calcivet by syringe daily.

Leg injuries seem pretty common. We also had a scare with Puff our boy beardie when he was about 12 - 14 months old. He suddenly started limping (not using one of his front legs) , so I made an appointment with the vet for the next day, was still limping when I put him into the 15L travel tub, but his gate was perfect for the vet and we were sent home free of charge since the vet only spent a few minutes checking him over before putting him on floor and coaxing him to walk.
Might have had a sprain but after the vet visit Puff never limped again.

How much did that run you? 78$ for the appointment and then I'll need an x-ray and hopefully it's not as bad as it seems...but roughly what should I consider paying for possible broken arm?

If it gets grossly swollen a vet visit could be an emergency. Compartment syndrome can cause nerve and vascular damage. But without knowing the extent of the injury it's hard to guess how much a vet might charge. Depends on what needs to be done. If it requires surgical repair it could get expensive.
Since funds are a bit low right now I would remove all cage decorations to limit climbing. You may need to lower the basking light to maintain temps.
How often were you providing calcium? Might not be a bad idea to increase dosage right now. Depends on how often you were giving it.
Hopefully this is just a soft tissue injury or a sprain and it will resolve without vet treatment. Warm soaks might be helpful for the swelling, obviously if it causes struggling it wouldn't be a good idea. Also if you do soaks do not leave the dragon alone at anytime.
Hope this resolves on its own and it doesn't take long.

Thank you rankins , I have removed all climable objects, set up a basking area/ramp made of towels the lighting is approximately 10" away as of right now. She has had two warm soaks today and seemed to enjoy them, I held her in my hand the whole time. Will be consulting a vet within the next 48 hours, the only thing that worries me as she did not have an appetite today..

Sounds like your doing all the right things
The loss of appetite isn't too big of a deal right now. It's expected...
If the loss of appetite is prolonged (maybe a week or more) then syringe feedings might be needed. But for now its not unusual for the appetite to diminish.

You should weigh her now so you know if she starts losing weight

Another good idea I didn't think of Skipper
Good thing there are so many people here for back-up.

kerib86":2su08hxm said:

How much did that run you? 78$ for the appointment and then I'll need an x-ray and hopefully it's not as bad as it seems...but roughly what should I consider paying for possible broken arm?

Click to expand...

The xrays , general , surgery , pin , postop and meds set me back something in the order of $400, can't remember exactly how much. Vets are pricey here in Australia, and there is no thing as pet insurance for anything but cats, dogs and horses here either.

Wow, $400!! Let's hope it doesn't cost nearly that much.