Bearded dragon health help!

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We recently adopted a female beardie. Not sure how old she is but she isn't fully grown yet. When we got her she had a small chunk of her bottom lip missing as we were told she had been attacked by a male. On the journey home I noticed her making a coughing sound, the day after she seemed to puff air out of one side of her mouth and then gasp after every meal. We took he to the vet who said she was extremely under weight, had a URI and a lung infection. We were given baytril to give her which she is still taking every day at 0.06mg. I spoke to the person we adopted her from and he said he had given her amoxicillin for an infection in her lip, I also found out he was only feeding her kale and sprouts and live food once a week.
We feed her crickets every night and she always has a bowl of fresh rocket and yellow and red peppers which she loves and needs topping up twice a day so has a very good apatite.
Now she seems to only gasp after eating but her poo absolutely stinks! There's usually a decent amount and a lot of water that seems to come out with it. Could this be a side effect from the baytril or parasites. There's no worry of it infecting her cage though as she seems to wait until she's on my bed to do what she needs to each day :(
 

CooperDragon

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It's a good sign that she has a good appetite. Her mouth may be bothering her so you might try a topical cleanser like MaxiGuard to help in addition to the antibiotics. Did the vet run a test to see which bacteria was causing the infection? This would help target treatment and make it more efficient/effective. If the poop is runny and smelly it could be either upset stomach and excess dietary water passing through or it could be a parasite. I'd give it a few weeks and if it continues, a fecal test is a good idea. I wouldn't want to push too many treatments at once though and I'd consider the mouth infection higher priority.
 

Staceyb1985

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Thanks for your reply. No the vet didn't run any tests just said that her lungs were noisy. Her lip seems to be just a scab but I did mention it to the vet and she didn't seem to concerned as it looked like it was healing. The poo's that she's having are strange as they are runny with what seems like a lot of water but also solid. And it can easily clear the room leaving me to try and sort it out. Do you know roughly how long URI's last? She's got a few days left of baytril and were back at he vets on tuesday, just hoping she picks up. She seems active enough just worrying that she pants a lot and my other dragons have never done this.
Are the parasites harmful to her if I left her for a few weeks?
 

CooperDragon

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Hopefully the Baytril will keep the breathing issue in check. It might help to keep overnight temps a bit warmer as well. Maybe around 26C/80F. If the mouth wound is scabbed and appears to be healing, that's a good sign too. Parasites aren't usually immediately harmful but it depends on what the parasite is and how heavy the load is. They can often handle small loads on their own without interference given they are otherwise healthy. A couple of weeks shouldn't make a big difference in most cases.
 

Staceyb1985

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Thats great thank you. We changed her viv last night so she's got a bigger one and all the bulbs and temps are better than the smaller one we checked and we got 23 last night so will try increase it tonight.
Thank you
 

CooperDragon

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23 is normally just right. When they aren't feeling well it seems to help reduce stress on their system to give them a few more degrees overnight, that's all.
 

EllenD

Gray-bearded Member
Poor guy...Just an FYI, if she's not an adult and maybe even still under a year old, then the reason she's extremely underweight is because the prior owner wasn't feeding her live insect protein every single day. From the time they hatch up until they are a year, a year and a half old, they need a ton of live insect protein every single day, as they do most of their growing and developing during their first year of life. So while it's good that she's eating a lot of veggies and greens (the rocket and the bell peppers are both excellent choices), I'd be upping her live insects daily, maybe give her 2 separate live insect feedings every day, one in the morning (as long as her UVB tube and her Basking Bulb have been on for at least an hour or longer first), and then the second live insect feeding in the late afternoon or early evening (as long as her lights are on for at least an hour after she eats), and give her the greens/veggies in between the live insect meals. And you can Gut-Load the crickets or whatever live staple insect you feed her with the Rocket and the Peppers too. As far as fattening her up, you can try ordering some Phoenix Worms/BSFL, some dubia Roaches, or even start giving her a few occasional treat insects, like a couple of wax worms or a hornworm. Also, make sure that you are dusting the insects from one meal a day in calcium 5 times a week, and in a multivitamin 3 times a week.

As far as the URI goes, the problem is exactly what Cooper already alluded to, the vet didn't take a culture to identify what bug is causing the infection or what medication will treat it effectively, they just prescribed a broad-spectrum Antibiotic, Baytril, which doesn't treat everything that might cause a URI in a dragon. In fact, a lot of the time URI's are caused by a bacteria, a fungi, or both, and the only way to find out is by taking a culture. This is why they end up taking multiple rounds of medications, each one being more and more harsh on them. If this URI is being caused by a fungal infection, the Baytril isn't doing a thing to treat it, in fact an Antibiotic can actually make a fungal infection much worse.

I highly suggest talking to the vet about doing Nebulizer treatments instead of oral meds for the URI. I'm kind of surprised that the vet diagnosed a "Lung Infection" without doing a culture or even an x-ray, but either way if it's not getting better by the time she's done with the Baytril, then I'd definitely not do another round of Baytril (they may very likely just give her another round of it without wanting to do a culture this time either, and this is not a good treatment plan at all, and you need to put your foot down at that point if it happens). A ton of beardie owners, myself included, have had excellent luck skipping the oral meds and doing daily Nebulizer treatments with either the medication that is effective against the bug causing the URI (you'd have to have a culture done to know this information), or by just doing Nebulizer treatments with F10sc Disinfectant. I highly suggest you Google "F10 Nebulizer Treatment Bearded Dragon" and read up on it, maybe even print it out and take it in with you to the vet. It works very effectively and quickly because it gets the medication right to the source of the URI, in the lung tissue, plus it won't make his stomach upset or kill his appetite like the oral meds do.

As far as the smelly bowel movements, it might be a parasite, it might not, but either way you absolutely do not even want to consider putting her on another medication for parasites until after the URI is completely gone. He can deal with the parasites, he can't deal with the URI, and if you put him on more than one medication at a time, or one medication right after the other, the end result is usually a downward spiral where they stop eating, become very lethargic, start losing weight, etc. and it takes months and months for them to get better. The medications that they must take for moderate to high levels of common parasites (you don't want to treat low loads/counts of Coccidia or Pinworms anyway, they will resolve themselves) are all pretty harsh, and right after a full round of Baytril and then on top of whatever he'll need to take to finally get rid of the URI completely, it's just a bad, bad, bad idea...The bowel movement being normal except passing with excess fluid doesn't at all sound like parasite, it simply sounds like he's very well hydrated. The only thing that sounds like possible parasites is the smell, but it may very likely resolve itself in a week or two anyway, I always second-guess putting them on meds for parasites, as their bodies may very well take care of the parasites without any meds if given time. So since the URI is much more pressing and needs to be taken care of ASAP, I highly suggest just letting the possible parasites go for the length of time it takes to get rid of the URI, and when that's completely gone then I'd reassess the possible parasite situation. I'd also put him on a daily dose of Probiotics while he's going through both issues, they will keep his stomach settled and keep his appetite up, they will prevent a possible secondary fungal infection in his GI Tract from the Baytril, and they may help to flush out potential parasites like pinworms, as the meds that they give for pinworms and many other parasites don't actually kill the parasites, they simply kill the eggs and make the female parasite infertile, and flush them out of their GI Tracts, and the Probiotics can also help with that process.
 

Staceyb1985

Member
Original Poster
Thats great thank you. I will get her some probiotics asap.
I did try to feed her on a morning but she doesn't really seem.interested until later in the afternoon so we just let her have as many crickets as she likes. Luckily she seems to want to eat a lot which I think, like you said, is down to only been fed once a week on live which shocked us as the person we got her from was an adoption centre. Hopefully now we have her she will perk up and get rid of this uri. She doesn't puff up as much as she did and isn't puffing air from her mouth. She only seems to gasp and pant a little while eating so I'm hoping she is getting better.
Thank you for all of your advice I will get the probiotics and start her on those
 
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