Bearded Dragon acting weird lately

Hello,

Thanks for posting your blood tests here, they don't look terrible. The normal uric acid levels
are best when under 3.5mg/dl so it is a bit high. How is the swelling doing, has it gotten any
worse?
A lot of times uric acid crystals aren't always seen very well if at all on x-rays or in cultures.
Symptoms usually are a good indicator of gout as well as the higher uric acid readings. The
only other thing that it could be would be septic arthritis infection type of issue but I doubt it
is based on the appearance.
The flukers gut load, is that a dry feed? What are the ingredients in that, can you look that up
on the label for me?
The black or tart cherry for human use is perfectly fine for reptile use so you can use it full
strength, daily. Just .5ml to 1ml daily is fine. You can dilute it with some water also for her.
That is good she takes water from a dropper pretty well also! Is she still shedding some now?
What else did the vet suggest?

Tracie

Thank you again for replying. The swelling in the one arm seems about the same maybe a tiny bit worse, her other one seems to be swelling a tiny bit. As for if its a dry feed it doesn't really say. Ingredients are water, carrageenan, soy protein, dried brewers yeast, dried kelp, calcium carbonate, potassium sorbate, ascorbic acid, citric acid, and yellow #6 food color. I will definitely be grabbing some of that cherry juice tomorrow. As for the vet, really not much. She gave us some kind of reptile food with chicken that she said we can mix with water to dilute and add kale to it. She had a little of that. Past that she just has us waiting 5 to 7 days. Im trying to wait it out patiently but im definitely starting to worry a bit because she doesnt seem to know. Im hoping the sample of the fluid reveals what it is. She seems to be losing a good amount of weight which i would presume is from not eating. Also the past few nights I've noticed her waking up with her head in a more raised position (may be nothing). However ever morning after I wake her up she still has that crusting in the corners of her mouth. When I open the sides to try to brush some of it out for her, you can see what appears to be some saliva from the roof of her mouth to the bottom (also may be normal). However, the one morning I woke her up, the outside of her mouth was a little damp with some evident liquid of some sort that was clear, which i haven't seen before. I keep swearing respiratory infection but both times she looked in her mouth she said she didn't see any signs of any. But it's just weird because the symptoms match pretty well outside the swelling of course. The problem is, im not a vet and dont know at what point I should trust this vet or that I should seek now a 3rd opinion. Part of me wants to trust the vet at least until samples come back but part of me is concerned that if we wait too long this will get worse whatever it is. I also don't want to throw too many vets in the mix because I'm sure each will have their own course they want to go and at this point I feel like that could delay any kind of treatment any more. As far as shedding, not even a little bit. It almost has looked for months like she should shed any day but it never comes.

https://streamable.com/6l80vu

I finally got a pretty good video of her acting weird with her mouth and beard/throat. She is on her basking rock in this video but has done this outside her tank and random places that don't have enough heat for her to need to regulate her temperature.

Okay I was able to get her full blood work and xray from the vet.

This xray was a month or so ago, the swelling has increased since this xray but you can see some of the swelling in the front right limb in the xray.

This is her complete bloodwork taken about 1.5-2 weeks ago.

So the lab that looked at the tap said that they did see crystals so it does appear to be gout. Im waiting on a call back from the vet to discuss how to move forward. We discussed the allopurinol and she said the general concensus on that is 50/50 where some swear by it that it works and some say it does nothing at all. I do see it suggested in many posts on here, does anyone have any experience with it that they can confirm whether or not it does work? The worry is since it's a medicine it is filtered primarily by the kidneys and if there's already kidney damage im worried about it making her worse, so I just want to make sure we are doing the right thing.

I do see the swelling around the wrists. That is similar to what the x-rays showed for my guy when he had gout. In that case gout was a secondary symptom, but he was given allopurinol. I'd say it's worth a shot and when used in long term in conjunction with a low protein diet, plenty of water/hydrating foods (like squash for example) and possibly some tart cherry extract now and then it may help keep everything under control. My vet published a paper about Cooper and his gout. You can view it here and show it to your vet if you think it may be helpful. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1557506313002231