Metabolic Bone Disease?

I was reading up some symptoms of MBD on the internet earlier today, and something struck me. One of the symptoms were "flexible joints" My beardie Ricky is always pulling his legs behind his head, like in the picture below. Though, he just started putting both legs behind his head today. I was wondering if this was a sign of my beardie developing MBD. He has a Repti-Sun 10.0 UVB tube bulb, and a 60w basking bulb which keeps his temps at about 100-110 degrees. He's about 5-7 months old (I believe he's 6 months.) Heres a pic of him:

Also, his missing toes and foot are because of his brothers and sister's picking at his legs when he was a baby. Poor little dude.

Other than that, he's very healthy. He's a little picky with veggies, but he still eats plenty. He also eats enough crickets (maybe 7-10 a day, depending on size) He's eat more crickets, but i stopped him from eating too many because he was starting to get bloated. I dust his crickets with a ReptoCal Vitamin D3 enriched powder every day.

Though, he's had some issues before: When we first got him, our pet store manager told us that he didnt need a UVB bulb, which later led to a few problems. He had begun trembling, but we soon got him the UVB bulb online, and it came pretty quick. He's had the bulb for a exactly a week (It came last Friday.) I'm really worried about him

Please help, I'd really appreciate it!
Thanks so much,

Them putting their legs behind them like that is just a sign of them relaxing. They do it when they're super comfortable.

As long as he can get within 6-8inches of the UVB bulb, he'll be fine. It sounds like you've done your homework and are an excellent mom!

Thanks a lot Colleen. I was just really concerned, being that he's already had quite an issue with his trembling. I really appreciate it

Does his legs seem floppy or do he just do that when relaxing? Are you using calcium supplement. To me that doesn't look like MBD but a laid back dragon.
7-10 crickets isn't near enough for him, how long is he? At his age he should get all he can eat at least once a day plus a nice sized salad.

Not a pb. They tend to worry us a lot.

The recommended calcium and vitamin powder is calcium 5x a week for one feeding a day and vitamin powder 2x a week for one feeding a day. And don't worry about stopping him from eating too many. Two of my dragons, who are about the same age as yours, eat 30-some crickets twice a day. So as many as he will eat in a 10-15 min period twice a day. Awesome that he's eating his salad, though!!

Oh, cool I'll feed him some more crickets tomorrow when it's time for him to be fed. Thanks

Lol, you'll be wondering how he fits that many crix inside

LilahFaye":389a9 said:

Thanks a lot Colleen. I was just really concerned, being that he's already had quite an issue with his trembling. I really appreciate it

Click to expand...

what kind of "trembling" or is that something that has been sorted in the past?

UVB radiation for a week is not long enough to reverse MBD, if your beardie has it. It took nearly six months for my Budo to really come around. Since the pet store didn't recommend a UVB bulb, he probably didn't have any UVB when he was there either. If he does have MBD, it sounds very mild, which is likely to be completely reversable.

Resting like that isn't necessarily a sign of MBD. The walking on the backs of his hands is what you really want to look out for.

Something like this.


Plus general weakness of the legs... it's sort of hard to explain. Beardies with MBD have difficultly holding themselves up high... let's see, I've got to have some pics...

Here's Budo when I first adopted him (he had MBD). His legs are sort of folded under him


...versus him now, more able to support himself.



As long as he has proper supplements and UVB radiation now, any bone problems that he may have developed will clear up on their own.






The trembling is definitely worrisome. If it is a result of weak bones, it points to severe MBD. However, if is not accompanied by other MBD symptoms, you may want to look into a problem in the central nervous system.

Well, about a month ago, his fingertips and one of his back legs had been trembling. I took him to the vet and when we got there, he stopped...We got him a blood test taken, but sadly, they lost his sample (since it was such a little bit, he was smaller then.) so we never found out what his calcium levels were. He hasn't trembled since then, though. Also, referring back to herpfreak: When he was younger, maybe when we'd first gotten him, (4 months old, or so) He had been walking on his ankle stumps similar to the picture of your beardie. But, he's stopped doing that too (which I hope is a good sign ) If he used to do it, but isn't doing it now, should I really look into with his vet?

Blood calcium levels aren't actually a great way to diagnose mbd. What their bodies do is pull calcium from their bones in order to keep blood levels normal for as long as possible, so an xray is good, it shows how dense the bones are. I agree with herpfreak, as long as he has proper lighting and nutrition now, things will slowly fix themselves. Everything happens slowly with reptiles. It was 7 weeks before Remi's stitches could come out ($1100 exploratory surgery that told me that actually, everything's ok :| ) So just keep spoiling and loving him! If the trembling has stopped and he's acting otherwise normal and alert, responsive, eating/pooping normally, I think everything's going to be fine. And we wouldn't hate you for posting more pics :wink:

Also, here's a picture of his normal standing position:


(He has stress marks cause he just woke up in that pic) To me, he always seems to stand pretty tall, but give me your opinion
Thanks,

I think I now know what had been causing his twitches: When veggies are frozen, the vitamin B1 will leak out and if this is occuring for a long period of time, a disease called hypothiaminosis would occur. Hypothiaminosis can also cause twitching, just like MBD. I found out that the supermarket I had been purchasing the veggies from frequently froze the vegetables in order to keep them lasting longer.
I found out about hypothiaminosis from this link: http://www.beautifuldragons.503xtreme.com/Hypothiaminisis.html

Good thing I stopped purchasing from that supermarket about a month ago! (Which would explain why he stopped twitching )

He looks fine to me. Maybe he had just a touch of MBD previously, but if so it looks cleared up now.

Hypothiaminosis would explain the trembling. Nice work! I wouldn't have thought of that.

Ha ha, just doing my research Hopefully everything will be just fine in the future. Thanks