Blood lab help, and help with my this rescue rehab please!

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Current situation:
1yr old female, 22" long
40 gallon, contact paper with no slip cupboard liner.
150w basking bulb, ZooMed, Reptisun 24" terrerium hood with Arcadia 22" 24w 12%+d3 tube.
All items brand new.

She is able to be 10" from both lights.
Basking temp 95-105 depending how far she wants to go. She likes 85-95 typically. Humidity 22%

Cool side is 76. Humidity 48% with Eva Dry and rice sock (I live in Texas and it has been raining and warm this week. We have to go the extra mile to keep Humidity down and it's still high.)

3 different thermometer/hygrometer types/brands. 2 digital types and one dial type one type has probes the other does not. A total of 7 at various levels in her enclosure. We also use a temp gun.
Her body level and her stones she basks on are both tempted to make sure that nothing is too hot.
We do not use heating pads or heating rocks.
She is offered collard greens, mustard greens, parsley, cilantro, mango, butternut squash, strawberry, blueberry, apple, bok choy daily in various combinations. She will NOT eat any of it.
Bugs, she will eat. Silk worms, butter worms, dubia, black fly leaf larva, hornworms (one a week). Bugs are all gut loaded, aside from horn worms.
We tried holding off on all bugs, as per the vet for 5 days, she still ate no salad.
We made a slurry. She would not eat that from her nose and now has to have it put on her tongue and will eat it that way. Same veggies, adding 100% black cherry juice. Giving 3-4ml daily with bugs added.

She is getting calcium glubionate 50mg/ml .2 orally twice daily and herptivite once a week.
Princess doesn't share am enclosure nor a room with any other reptiles. The other reptiles are all upstairs.

She bathes for 15 minutes daily. Water temp 95-100° she is misted in the tub and drinks when we run the tap. We use reptisafe in the tub water and a soft toothbrush for a light brush each day.

She has had a bowel movement every day at the end of the bath, until today when she went 3 times in her enclosure, like diarrhea.

Now that we have gotten through all of the logistics in the announcement...

I have had this girly for almost 2 weeks. We took her to the vet on the day we got her and had her blood drawn. She got her xray done yesterday, as the vet was out of town after that, and her fecal as well. We are waiting for those results, but her urate is white, she has water in her poo sack and it is soft poo, but she has been on slurry...

The lady we got her from had her in a larger enclosure with a 150w basking bulb she was 7" from and 10" from her Arcadia. She gave me the run around and it took weeks to pull information from her. At first she told me her son had given the beardy 4ml of water, forced because they don't see her drink, and then she stopped moving and they left her on the bottom of her cage collaped for 2 weeks hoping she'd get over it on her own.
Since they couldn't afford a vet they looked to Craigslist and someone shared that to a reptile group I'm in on Facebook. I reached out and picked her up the next day because the woman wanted to have an extra day to say goodbye... smh...

Anyhow, the doc sees the beardy and assumed she clearly has MBD because she can't walk and her arms shake. Prescribed the calcium and sent us on our way to wait for the blood work.
She assumed she was older and was ovulating due to the high calcium and phosphorus, she said that is common even with MBD.
However, ladylike that owned her emailed me back with more information and provided her adoption papers. She is only a year old, barely. April 26th 2021 is adoption date with pics, she was so tiny then! Needless to say, she was giving her 15 dubia, 15 crickets, and 15 meal worms PER DAY. She fed her greens only, but she didn't eat them. She sent a video with the bugs in a TON of calcium powder. She was using calcium WITH D3. She gave it to her 7 days a week the same way.

She is super chunky. She was so swollen when I got her also. Her joints were just massive in her arms and legs!

The woman said she couldn't have MBD because she gave her calcium and had the lights. She said she had done this twice before and they left her and stopped calcium and she came back and was normal. So she figured it was too much calcium. Yet, she didn't bother to take her to a vet or to reduce the calcium or to check with anyone else or to stop D3.... none of the things....

Now, I have this girly and I'm $850 deep and willing to give her the world to save her sweet face. However, I need help and am impatient. The xrays were done, but the vet isn't back until Monday. I'm impatient and not able to understand why the vet told me these labs were fine and that she had high calcium and her phosphorus was just a touch high... but didn't mention that anything stated TOXIC LEVELS on the labs. I had to ask for the fecal and the xray. She was good with calling it MBD and leaving it at that.

Now I'm thinking it may not be and could be hypercalcemia and maybe something to do with that heterophils thingy??
 

PrincessButtercup

Member
Original Poster
Much thinner legs and body, she isn't water logged. No, I don't have a scale and don't know what she weighs. Due to covid I can't go inside the vets office I have to sit in my car and ask for everything. I will get a scale. I feel she may be dropping too much weight too fast???
I dont want to do her wrong.
Any advice I am willing to hear out.
111063-487439814.jpg
 

KarrieRee

BD.org Sicko
Beardie name(s)
Hiccup he is 6 and Blaze is 4
Tracie needs to look at your post --- she is the vet tech mod shes on late at nite flagging your post
 

Drache613

BD.org Sicko
Staff member
Moderator
Hello,

Sorry your girl is having trouble!
There may be a few things going on. While her uric acid levels are not high yet, I feel that
they are higher than what I like to see them. She could be developing gout, & also might
be developing eggs also. Was she housed alone or with another dragon or do you know?
Your lighting is fine, so she should be getting adequate UVB right now. Do you know her
weight or an estimated weight?
Alot of well intentioned owners get a bit overzealous on supplementation but too much can
be as harmful as too little. She may have developed gout or pseudogout which is secondary
gout that should be able to be reversed by some adjustments. I feel that the calcium glubionate
amount, twice daily may be too much so you could consider cutting all calcium sources right now
for a couple of weeks to let her system normalize some. When levels become imbalanced a
lot of times other readings will become out of range too & it can take awhile for them to get
back within balance.
Definitely post the pictures of the x-rays when you get them just so we can see the brightness
of her bone & the density too.

Let us know how she is doing.
Tracie
 

PrincessButtercup

Member
Original Poster
Drache613 said:
Hello,

Sorry your girl is having trouble!

She was not housed with any others.
I'm waiting on the email for xrays, I was actually shuffling through emails when I seen your reply!

I had been reading these forums for a long time without joining following advice like the black cherry juice and such since day one thinking it was gout. She has no oddities with her body that MBD typically produces and her previous lighting was great, and now we know for sure her calcium was overly robust to say the least.
I will ask the vets office her weight on Monday for April 15th and I will weigh her later today. Amazon is to have the packages here today with the scale.
 

PrincessButtercup

Member
Original Poster
Drache613":1ja6qshv said:
Hello,

Sorry your girl is having trouble!
There may be a few things going on. While her uric acid levels are not high yet, I feel that
they are higher than what I like to see them. She could be developing gout, & also might
be developing eggs also. Was she housed alone or with another dragon or do you know?
Your lighting is fine, so she should be getting adequate UVB right now. Do you know her
weight or an estimated weight?
Alot of well intentioned owners get a bit overzealous on supplementation but too much can
be as harmful as too little. She may have developed gout or pseudogout which is secondary
gout that should be able to be reversed by some adjustments. I feel that the calcium glubionate
amount, twice daily may be too much so you could consider cutting all calcium sources right now
for a couple of weeks to let her system normalize some. When levels become imbalanced a
lot of times other readings will become out of range too & it can take awhile for them to get
back within balance.
Definitely post the pictures of the x-rays when you get them just so we can see the brightness
of her bone & the density too.

Let us know how she is doing.
Tracie

484 grams is what she weighs.
 

PrincessButtercup

Member
Original Poster
111063-9265183773.jpg
Drache613":bni1am8f said:
Hello,

Sorry your girl is having trouble!
There may be a few things going on. While her uric acid levels are not high yet, I feel that
they are higher than what I like to see them. She could be developing gout, & also might
be developing eggs also. Was she housed alone or with another dragon or do you know?
Your lighting is fine, so she should be getting adequate UVB right now. Do you know her
weight or an estimated weight?
Alot of well intentioned owners get a bit overzealous on supplementation but too much can
be as harmful as too little. She may have developed gout or pseudogout which is secondary
gout that should be able to be reversed by some adjustments. I feel that the calcium glubionate
amount, twice daily may be too much so you could consider cutting all calcium sources right now
for a couple of weeks to let her system normalize some. When levels become imbalanced a
lot of times other readings will become out of range too & it can take awhile for them to get
back within balance.
Definitely post the pictures of the x-rays when you get them just so we can see the brightness
of her bone & the density too.

Let us know how she is doing.
Tracie
She is 484 grams. I quoted you up higher incorrectly and answered your questions inside your quote. No she wasn't ever housed since her baby days with any other beardies. Never had any others in the home either. Here is the xray.
 

Drache613

BD.org Sicko
Staff member
Moderator
Hello,

I do believe I see some eggs, if my resonance & lighting on my computer is showing the
x-ray clearly. Did the vets mention eggs at all?
There is no telling how long she has had this issue since you just brought her home. Has
she exhibited any egg laying type of behavior at all?
They often develop renal issues when egg problems arise so the calcium to phosphorus
ratios get imbalanced. Did the vet call you back today?
Let us know how she is doing.

Tracie
 

PrincessButtercup

Member
Original Poster
Drache613":802rhcbg said:
Hello,

I do believe I see some eggs, if my resonance & lighting on my computer is showing the
x-ray clearly. Did the vets mention eggs at all?
There is no telling how long she has had this issue since you just brought her home. Has
she exhibited any egg laying type of behavior at all?
They often develop renal issues when egg problems arise so the calcium to phosphorus
ratios get imbalanced. Did the vet call you back today?
Let us know how she is doing.

Tracie

The vet also said she seen eggs on the left side top, 7 or so. Only in one side. She is only a year so they aren't dropped down yet but definitely beginning and ovulating.

She can't walk. She army crawls. I can prop her up like a dragon and she will stay. However, she walks with her face and all arms with her belly on the ground and can't pick herself up from a pancake like army crawl on her own.

I'm not sure how she will dig!!!

I will make her a dig box for her basking side that she can slither into. I want to avoid sand, what would be a good substrate that would be easy for her to move do you think? ?

We work with her daily to help her strengthen.
 

CooperDragon

BD.org Sicko
Staff member
Moderator
If you don't want to use sand and soil, try something like fleece blankets or scraps piled up a bit. They are soft and allow them to burrow a bit. A much cleaner option.
 

PrincessButtercup

Member
Original Poster
CooperDragon":2l0omd74 said:
If you don't want to use sand and soil, try something like fleece blankets or scraps piled up a bit. They are soft and allow them to burrow a bit. A much cleaner option.
The issue with sand is the humidity. I'm in Texas! The sand needs to be moisture to hold and the humidity is already high. I keep the Evo dry in her enclosure and a rice bag and still fight to keep it below 50% humidity with our AC'S running. Lol
The heat lamp dries, even the CHE, I tried that too, the sand right out.

I'm still experimenting with the sand in the tote too... I just don't want it to keep falling and drying or being insufferable humid.
 
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