sunsetsandsmiles
Member
Hello. I'm new to this site however I have long come here for advice for my two bearded dragons. I bought my beardies together at Petsmart in New Jersey about two years ago. After I bought them a few months later I noticed their health wasn't as great as it should be.. they had runny stools and my male didn't bask as often as my female. I brought them both to the vet and found out they both had bad cases of coccidia. Ristoris(male) was +4 and Frankie(female) was +3. It took awhile to clear the parasites but eventually they both successfully cleared the parasites. HOWEVER while clearing the parasites I started noticing funny clicking noises from my male. I told the vet I think he was developing an RI.(it seems like around here I know more about my beardies than the herp vets do.) My male already had not been eating since I started the albon for the coccidia. I have been syringe feeding him since last summer and he seems to take the syringe just fine. The vet prescribed baytril orally for two weeks for my males RI. This did nothing. We then tried another oral medication. DID NOTHING. Finally, my vet decided to start Amakcin injections every few days. I noticed a HUGE improvement after the first injection in Ristoris he started gaining weight, eating again, colors were bright, started to bask again and just came back to life. After several vet visists I felt a huge relief in knowing my baby felt better. The amakcin injections continued for a month since the symptoms were not completely gone but almost. My vet stopped the amakcin and told me to let him live antibiotic free for awhile and see how he does. Just a few days later, his health started to decline once again. Stopped eating his veggies and fruits slowly, then stopped eating again all together. Back to the syringe I went and decided to find a NEW vet. This time I brought him to a very well known emergency animal hospital with a very well known herp vet. He ran bloodwork, and a stool sample. His bloodwork came out okay, slightly anemic but nothing too serious. His fecal exam came back with many flaggelates which my first vet did not discover so we started an antibiotic to rid them and also went back on the amakcin injections. His dosage of the amakcin was almost triple of the first vets. He did a culture and sensory test and once the results were back he never did explain exactly what infection he had but he did say his white blood cell count was very high and that he had an upper RI and the fungus would be hard to clear out since all the antibiotics he had been given. Nothing has worked, hes been on two different injections after the amakcin and they do not help even a little. I finally decided to order REPTAID since I heard it had success in clearing RI. I started this after a few weeks of letting him live on his own. STILL NOTHING. he constantly gapes, there is always mucus strings in his mouth and I still hear the clicking. He started eating crickets again recently and his colors have been very vibrant again. I think he likes the HOT weather and it seems like hes become a lot more active.
However, my female has always been healthy. She has never stopped eating once even when she was on antibiotics for the parasites. Sometimes she would slow down but never stop eating. Recently within the past two weeks I noticed she just started gaping a lot more, slight muscus strings and slight clicking noise from her. I started giving her the reptaid since its just the beginning hopefully this will knock it out of her. I literally want to scream. :x I am out of options and I feel like the vets do not care about my beardies as its been almost a year and now they both are suffering. I'm considering nebulization? Ive heard that works wonders... any suggestions? Please any advice would be greatly
appreciated.
Female Enclosure:
-60 gal glass tank with screen top
-80F cool side
-100F warm side
-110F basking spot
-40% humidity
-75W Reptisun UVA bulb
-NEW 12% Arcadia UVB flourescent tubes
(I used to have 10.0 UVB ReptiGlo compact bulb, could this be the problem?)
-Paper Towel substrate since parasites, before that reptile carpet.
-Crickets with d3 calcium
-Collard greens, squash, mango, dandellion greens, kale, mustard greens, strawberries, greenbeans
(only stuff they will eat)
This is my female, Frankie. She weighs 780g
Male Enclosure:
everything the same as my female just different enclosure.
-2ft by 4ft wood handmade cage
-wire mesh top
This is my male, Ristoris. He weighs 650g. Lowest=450g
However, my female has always been healthy. She has never stopped eating once even when she was on antibiotics for the parasites. Sometimes she would slow down but never stop eating. Recently within the past two weeks I noticed she just started gaping a lot more, slight muscus strings and slight clicking noise from her. I started giving her the reptaid since its just the beginning hopefully this will knock it out of her. I literally want to scream. :x I am out of options and I feel like the vets do not care about my beardies as its been almost a year and now they both are suffering. I'm considering nebulization? Ive heard that works wonders... any suggestions? Please any advice would be greatly
appreciated.
Female Enclosure:
-60 gal glass tank with screen top
-80F cool side
-100F warm side
-110F basking spot
-40% humidity
-75W Reptisun UVA bulb
-NEW 12% Arcadia UVB flourescent tubes
(I used to have 10.0 UVB ReptiGlo compact bulb, could this be the problem?)
-Paper Towel substrate since parasites, before that reptile carpet.
-Crickets with d3 calcium
-Collard greens, squash, mango, dandellion greens, kale, mustard greens, strawberries, greenbeans
(only stuff they will eat)
This is my female, Frankie. She weighs 780g
Male Enclosure:
everything the same as my female just different enclosure.
-2ft by 4ft wood handmade cage
-wire mesh top
This is my male, Ristoris. He weighs 650g. Lowest=450g