Bloodwork, xrays, fecal oh my!

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GeckoGarden

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Ziva hasn’t been acting right this past month or so. She’s now refusing to come down to the floor to eat her salads, or even bugs(and she loves bugs). At first we thought it was a site issue, but her vet can’t find anything wrong with her site. She’s also having either very loose stools or straight up diarrhea, and if it’s loose it’s got mostly undigested food

Fecal came back negative for anything, but we are treating again just Incase. Blood work got back today but due to the COVID19 response work is doing, I don’t get to see her vet in person anymore and she works on the day I’m not there.

She’s got a brand new UV light Arcadia 12%, no screen between it and her basking spot. She can get anywhere from 19 inches away to 5 inches away

Her cage is 48" long, 26" tall, 19" deep. Her basking is 108 F° with the cool end being 80 F°

Just want to bounce ideas off others while I wait to hear back from her vet.

Xrays got sent out to a radiologist. There’s one spot on her right that concerns me in her lower abdomen, there’s a lump I’ve been feeling for a month now, feels like a small grape. At first we thought she was starting to produce follicles, but I can’t see any on the xrays.

I should note I have no clue how old she is. I picked her up as a rescue from petco where some guy dropped her off because he couldn’t care for her. Figured I hadn’t had a dragon in a while and I now work for an exotic vet so vet care is easy, so she came home with me. She’s 15 inches and 211.5 grams. I’ve been trying to get weight on her but it’s a slow process.

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Poop photos below. It was in the bath tub during a soak.
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Claudiusx

BD.org Sicko
Staff member
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Hi there,

That bloodwork looks great. I'm surprised by the Uric Acid level, but obviously so was the lab hence the notation about verifying it twice lol.

Loose stools can be caused by many things.

So you say she isn't really eating too much right now? That alone could cause some loose stools.
She is wanting to stay in one place all day? What is the temperature in the spot she is choosing to sit in?

That's a good UVB bulb. It looks like she can climb up quite high, how close is she able to get to it?

How old is she? She looks quite small for being at least a year old (assuming based off of having an x ray back in august.

-Brandon
 

GeckoGarden

Sub-Adult Member
Original Poster
Claudiusx":k77bama1 said:
Hi there,

That bloodwork looks great. I'm surprised by the Uric Acid level, but obviously so was the lab hence the notation about verifying it twice lol.

Loose stools can be caused by many things.

So you say she isn't really eating too much right now? That alone could cause some loose stools.
She is wanting to stay in one place all day? What is the temperature in the spot she is choosing to sit in?

That's a good UVB bulb. It looks like she can climb up quite high, how close is she able to get to it?

How old is she? She looks quite small for being at least a year old (assuming based off of having an x ray back in august.

-Brandon

Hey! Been a while. She can get anywhere from 19inches away up to 5 inches to her UV strip. As far as age, I’ve got no clue. She was 15 inches and like 180 grams when I got her back in August of 2018. She was a rescue so no history.

She won’t eat any greens unless I hand feed her, and even then I feel like she’s not eating enough for her size.

If I put some bugs(supers, Dubai’s, black solider fly grub, silks, ect) in the glass bowl up top she eat them, but not greens. She won’t eat anything in her bowl on the floor.

The spot she’s choosing to be in is either under her heat at 108°f or under her UV strip, 90°F

I’ve got to clock back in for work. Hopefully you can help bounce some ideas back and forth. I’ll check in as I can while I’m at work. I’m pulling 10hr shifts right now.
 

Drache613

BD.org Sicko
Staff member
Moderator
Hello,

I agree, the blood values are very good, surprisingly plus, no parasites either?
As far as the low uric acid levels, that usually indicates some dehydration or a vitamin or
mineral deficiency. Since she is underweight, it isn't surprising, but it shouldn't indicate any
gout at all luckily.
The T5 Arcadia tube is a great bulb so she should be happy about getting good UVB exposure
there. Is she very active right now?
Since she isn't eating much of any greens, you can make her greens slurries a few days per
week to help out.
Hopefully she will continue to grow & fill out now, with better care.

Tracie
 

GeckoGarden

Sub-Adult Member
Original Poster
Drache613":y3ny5b1q said:
Hello,

I agree, the blood values are very good, surprisingly plus, no parasites either?
As far as the low uric acid levels, that usually indicates some dehydration or a vitamin or
mineral deficiency. Since she is underweight, it isn't surprising, but it shouldn't indicate any
gout at all luckily.
The T5 Arcadia tube is a great bulb so she should be happy about getting good UVB exposure
there. Is she very active right now?
Since she isn't eating much of any greens, you can make her greens slurries a few days per
week to help out.
Hopefully she will continue to grow & fill out now, with better care.

Tracie

Hi Tracie! Been a long time!

She’s not very active at all; I’m not even sure she left her hammock while I was at work yesterday. A few weeks ago the she was going crazy, trying to dig her way out of her cage. This was right around the time COVID19 sprung up in the news. I could feel about 5 or 6 follicles, but about a week later the behavior stopped and I couldn’t feel anything anymore. Ever since then she’s been like this; won’t come down from her basking spot.

I’ve been dusting her salads with the repashy calcium plus so I would hope she’s not missing out on something.

I’m tempted to set up a zoom meeting and see what she does while I’m at work. It’s hard since she wakes up when I do for my shifts and by the time I get home she’s usually ready for bed.

I can totally make her sluarrys, I’ll pick up a curved tipped syringe from work. About how many cc/ml do you think she could take in one sitting? She’s very good at opening her mouth for me if I just tap the sides.
 

GeckoGarden

Sub-Adult Member
Original Poster
Just heard back from the radiologist. Xrays look normal to them, so we are going to continue her panacur for two weeks to see if that helps at all.

Hopefully we can figure something out. I miss my active girl who’d down a bowl of veggie.
 

DorgEndo

Sub-Adult Member
Photo Comp Winner
Beardie name(s)
Devlyn
If you were still looking for ideas to bounce off your vet I would be asking about the blood test results for lymphocytes and azurophils. While both levels are normal they are a higher normal percentage in comparison to the other types of white blood cells. Since there are symptoms of some possible illness (e.g. lump, behavior with eating, slow weight gain, loose stools) I would challenge the vet if they have any experience with using those blood test results and the clinical signs to come to a confident diagnosis.

Even if test results are in a normal range and the overall test results are in a normal to optimal range that shouldn't let the vets be complacent in a wait and see kind of tactic. I hope you get a turn around in her behavior so she shows she is feeling better. I'm no expert. Just wanted to share an idea of what to say, hey vet how do you explain this? What experience do have with something like this? What was the outcome of your past experience?
 

GeckoGarden

Sub-Adult Member
Original Poster
Well between her med and me syringe feeding her she’s totally perked up and acting more like her crazy self. She’s still having diarrhea for the most part sadly. I’m going to try some sweet potato to see if that helps. She’s even finally putting on weight!

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GeckoGarden

Sub-Adult Member
Original Poster
Well she’s not improving so we are back at the vet today. Her normal vets out sick, so I’m at our sister hospital with another trusted vet. Hopefully we can get something sorted out. That lump is growing, so we’ll see what he says. : /
 

GeckoGarden

Sub-Adult Member
Original Poster
Okay he thinks it’s stool that’s stuck and that’s what’s causing the constant diarrhea, so we are doing some antibiotics, and fluids and vitamin injection, along with a anti diarrhea med, if these don’t work, it’s Off to the other Hosptial.

Fingers crossed. I’m getting tired of cleaning up liquid diarrhea every morning and I’m sure Zivas tired of having it.
 

GeckoGarden

Sub-Adult Member
Original Poster
Good news and bad news.
Bad news she had a really bad reaction to her injections and had a seizure.

Good news is after spending all night next to me in bed (good by sleep) and adjusting her meds she was fine.

Even better news she’s eating again like the black hole she is.

And the best news. That growing mass in her abdomen, turns out it was a ever growing, hard as rock urate. She ended up passing it today, along with a lot of normal stool. She’s back to eating like normal, running around like normal, and being my normal baby girl. ?I was so worried there for a moment during the last two weeks that I may have to call it quits as she had several very bad days.

She’s even shedding now as well!
 
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