Parasite treatment

Hello all,

I took my girls' poo in for a fecal and it came back positive for a lot of stuff--
giardia, pinworms, trichamones, and maggots (microcopic--gross!).

They are mostly behaving well--the big one eats/ poops regularly; I was concerned because of the powerful smell.

The little one also eats, poops regularly, but has been very lazy of late.

The vet seems good, but doesn't have a ton of experience [only 5 years or so] with reptiles.
I wanted to know what the common treatments for these kinds of parasites are. Once I give them their meds for 2-3 weeks, (what the vet is suggesting), do I have to worry about them coming back?

Thanks in advance.

Make sure you clean their cages pretty well after they poop, otherwise they could re-infect themselves (if they step in poo/track it onto something else in their cage, then they spread the parasites around). If the parasites are still in their cage, the meds won't do any good because as soon as the meds stop killing the parasites, they'll just move right back into the dragons from their cages. Mine has coccidia and I'm keeping him on paper towels, the only thing in his cage other than him and the paper towels is a dish for his salad. After he poops, I take out ALL the paper towels and clean the bottom of his cage with boiling water (the vet said to use bleach but everything I've read said that bleach does not kill coccidia).

You might want to take out most of their decorations if you can and keep them on paper towels or shelf liner, something that can easily be removed and cleaned or thrown away. If you keep their environment clean, the medicine should work the first time (unless they're SO infested that it takes more than one round to clear out all the bugs).

Thanks for the advice on cleaning. The substrate is tile--which I clean meticulously. Feces are removed almost as soon as they're made, unless I'm at work when they are deposited, then I remove them when I come home. Each dragon is bathed/fed separately in her own tub/feeding enclosure. I've disinfected everything since the diagnosis.
I've never heard about parasites in the feeders. Is this common? Can crickets carry the parasites? Best wishes, Jan

Crickets can carry parasites. I'm not sure what kinds, though. For the most part I know that crickets kept in dirty conditions are most likely to have parasites. Where do you get your crickets? If you buy in bulk online, I recommend either Ghann's or Reptilefood. I've bought from both and the crickets always seem healthy and they live for quite a while after I buy them.

How are your babies doing now? Any changes in their behavior or appearance?

Thanks for your responses! My big girl (3 years) is pretty lazy and laid back in general and never really seemed sick; she has fewer parasites than the little one. My baby (7 months) is still not basking on her own in the morning, though she stays there if I put her there and she is active if i take her out, and she is eating pretty well both salads and crickets/worms. Her bowel movements got firmer after the first dose of meds, and they're both on a regimen for the next 3 weeks. I'm worried though about the crickets; I did buy them in bulk online from a local cricket farm reptilefood.com. I hope they're staying clean enough. I bought 1000, and keep them in a 10 gallon aquarium with paper towel substrate/ paper towel holder hides changed every 4-5 days. I 've been gutloading them with food similar to what the lizards eat--collards/mustards/endive, berries, squash. How do you care for your crickets once you receive them? I thought I was keeping them pretty clean, but maybe not clean enough? I would feel terrible if the crickets made my girls sick. They seemed so happy eating them.

I asked the vet about the crickets carrying parasites, and she said not to worry about it. She seemed to think the girls had been living with parasites for a while. I just adopted them a month ago and the previous owner never had them checked or dewormed.

I'm keeping them super clean and ordered some probiotics which I hope will arrive tomorrow, though fortunately they both have pretty good appetites.

If the crickets do have parasites, it wouldn't be your fault. They would most likely have them before you get them, and if you ordered from reptilefood.com then I highly doubt the crickets have parasites. I seem to recall reading somewhere that reptilefood actually tests their crickets for parasites every few months. Since you adopted your beardies only recently, it's likely they had parasites before you got them and the crickets had nothing to do with it. Your cricket setup sounds fine, though you don't need a substrate. Just plenty of things to hide under. I use paper towel rolls, egg crates, and those cardboard cup carriers you get from fast food places (Wendy's particularly since that's where I work for now, lol).

As long as your babies have good appetites, they should be fine. My guy has had worms and high coccidia, but through all of it he's always had a voracious appetite. Just make sure they get the probiotic in addition to their meds (there's an article on this website about dealing with coccidia, it'll tell you all about probiotics and when to give them and how much).

Thanks again for your response. I got pretty worried today as the little one seemed to take a turn for the worse after I gave her the SBZ last night. She layed about the bottom of her cage all day, mostly hanging out by or in her hide. She didn't poop and hardly ate anything--only 7-8 crickets and a bit of greens (down from nearly 50 last week!). I got worried and called the vet who thinks it might be too many meds all at once. The probiotics arrived today and I gave her (and the big girl) some, and I hope she'll perk up tomorrow. I also bathed her, because she seemed a little thin and I don't want her to get dehydrated. I'm just really worried and want her to return to her chipper, active self.

Good news! Our big girl has cleared her parasites. The fecal came back clean--hooray. Our little girl didn't take too well to the medicine, so we had to cut the dosage in half and go for longer, so we're still treating her for the giardia, but she is much more active. She has even developed a bit of a dominance issue--she thinks she is bigger and badder than the big girl who is 3X her size.

That's good to hear! Hopefully your little one clears up soon. Just make sure to wash your hands in between holding them so you don't recontaminate your big one.

I'm pretty worried. Our little one has been on meds since mid-September for a variety of parasites, and though she cleared two of the parasites (yay!) , she still hasn't cleared the coccidia. She has 4 more doses of medicine left (0.16cc of SMZ every other day). I'm worried about her though because her appetite has been pretty small, and she's only been pooping about once a week. Three weeks ago, she had to go to the vet to get an enema to go (and pooped out 10% of her body weight--she was eating better then), then it was another 12 days later before we got her to go on her own with many baths and some olive oil; yesterday (a week since the last poo) she went on her own with a little olive oil, some outside sunshine (it was warm here in KY), belly massage and bath, but today she didn't eat much. She's been getting meds so long, she doesn't like to take the food from a syringe. And is quite fiesty these days when it comes time to take meds or acidophiliz which she used to enjoy slurping up.

Have others had similarly difficult times treating coccidia? She's a juvenile, about 8 months old and 256 grams last time she was at the vet (3 weeks ago). Assuming these last doses of medicine zap the parasites, how long will it take for her normal appetite to return? If the vet thinks it a good idea, I'll probably bring her back tomorrow, but I'm a worried momma. I would greatly appreciate other insights into the coccidia fight.

We've been extremely meticulous with care/cleaning. Though she is normally on tile, right now she is on paper towels in the unlikely event that she poos on her own.

Any advice or insight at all would be greatly appreciated.

I hope some other people will chime in on this. My dragon didn't really suffer a loss of appetite when he was treated for coccidia. I did notice that he wasn't eating as ravenously as usual, but that only lasted a couple days.

I have seen people suggest soaking a dragon in pedialyte or trying to syringe feed her some if possible. It's very important to keep her hydrated. She might not like the acidophiliz, but she needs to take it. It will help. Give her as much as she'll take. You can't overdose her on it.

Maybe try giving her an interesting new food--waxworms or reptiworms, if those aren't things she has on a regular basis. Maybe it'll intrigue her to eat.

I hope some other people will have some input, I'm not really sure what to tell you... I hope your baby gets better soon after the last doses of the meds are over.

Thanks for the feedback Sapphire. I've supplemented her lack of eating with some syringe feedings. Two weeks ago it was boiled sweet potato and apple +olive oil and water blended into a lizard soup/smoothie. Today I gave her a mix of pureed spaghetti squash and apple baby food, while the extra lizard soup I froze defrosts. I know she needs the fluids, but I can't seem to get any in her, she is fighting me really bad on the syringe. My trick tonight was to gently wake her after she feel asleep. She was less inclined to fight me in her stupor, and I got nearly two droppers of acidophiliz in her. Poor little one. I hope she feels better soon. i really would like to know what others' experience have been. I've been reading this site as if it were the beardie bible in hopes of getting some more info.

Maybe you should try making a post in Health or ER and linking it back to this discussion, just sum it up and tell everyone what's been going on and then put a link to this thread so they can read more details.

Thanks for the advice Sapphire. I think I might have figured out the problem--Salsa's eyes were looking kind of sunken, so I think she was really dehydrated. We bought some supportive smoothie mix called "carnivore care" and "critical care" from them vet, mixed them up and I syringe fed them to her. We weighed her at the vet, and despite looking really skinny, she hadn't lost that much weight in the last3 weeks- only 3 g (down to 253 from 256). I also gave her some of my defrosted lizard soup, which she liked better, but mainly I tried to get liquid in her anyway I could. She perked up quite a bit; her eyes look MUCH better, and when offered crickets she chased them like mad--I didn't let her eat too many b/c I didn't want her to shock her system, but I feel like she's doing much better. We'll see how she is tomorrow. Meanwhile the pacs of critical care and carnivore care are huge, my girlz will never eat all of it, so if anyone needs some they should PM me. I can mail it to them.

That's really good to hear! I'm glad she's doing better.