CurlyShark
Member
Please I need some advice for my boy. It's a long story of how we got to this point (which I will get to after) but the urgent point is he has septicemia and I have no way of getting him treated until Monday evening when his vet opens.
I have some antibiotics left over that are still within their dates that he has taken in the past for unrelated issues. One is Orbax (orbifloxican) solution. The other is a nebulizer solution mix of Gentamycin/Aminophylline. Can either (or both) of these be used to treat him until I can get him properly taken care of? I feel like I am racing against the clock and I can't bear to lose the little guy. He's getting a little worse every day. He's still taking his syringe feedings; I am giving him a slurry mix for sick dragons I found online which the vet said was fine.. Critical Care, butternut squash, and bee pollen. He is still pooping a couple times a day and the poop looks normal for what he is eating; urates are white and soft so I don't think he is dehydrated. (Had a BM this morning.)
His beard is constantly black, even when sleeping. He has bursts of activity, and he will still move to bask under the light, and move to a cooler area as he needs to. But aside from that, he is sleeping most of the time. He is alert and responsive even when sleeping, so I hope that is a good sign.
Sometimes he goes pale, but that seems to be only when stressed or when he's been basking and about to go cool off. Otherwise his color is normal. Pink tongue, faint stress marks, no red spots or other discoloration. No swelling, etc.
His info: He is a nearly 5 year old male; I got him at a year old as a serverely underweight Craigslist rescue. He has a history of digestive issues and allergic asthma, which I have managed to control both and he has had no symptoms of either for over a year.
Currently he is 18.5 inches and weighs 355g (Down from 405g at his last healthy weigh-in which was the beginning of March.)
Current situation:
He'd stopped eating around the 15th of March, but was otherwise acting normal and very active. I had an appointment for the evening of the 25th to get him checked out, but then my other dragon had an emergency we had to rush her to the hospital for. (Blood clot, she passed away.) My boy got worse and started blackbearding immediately after. (Even though they were housed separately, they were very close and bonded; I will even dare to say they were friends.) I got him to the vet who checked him out and said everything is fine with him.. No parasites, physcial looks great, she figured it was probably a mix between hormonal and grief. So I was to keep up with syringe-feeding baby foods (chicken, butternut squash, and pumpkin.) I'd managed to keep his weight steady; he he was still active, so no one was worried.
A couple weeks after he started losing more weight and blackbearding more. I brought him back in. She did an xray and said everything looks perfect. She offered a blood draw, but thought it was a trauma he didn't really need to endure, especially on a Friday cos the lab wouldn't process it until Monday anyway. That weekend he seemed to improve, so we decided against the blood work. But by Wednesday he started blackbearding constantly and became a lot less active and sleeping more. (Not quite lethargic, but definitely a major difference for him.) So we brought him in for the blood tests.
They got the results on Friday; it took until almost 9pm for the vet to phone us with them. She said he has septicemia, but the lab only sent half the results and she needs those before she can tell what treatment to give him. She said other than his WBC and RBC counts, everything looked normal on what she did have. She said the lab would be open in the morning (which was yesterday) so she'd call to get the other results, and then phone us with what the next steps would be.
We never heard from her yesterday at all and couldn't reach her. We tried every contact number and email. Her practice is not open on the weekends and her after-hours emergency line goes to a hospital that does not treat exotics or reptiles at all, and claimed to have no way to reach our vet.
The only other vet who treats reptiles within 50 miles of me is a hospital that has very bad reviews and I have also had quite bad experiences with a few times. I really do not trust them to treat my boy correctly, and you would not blame me if you knew my last experience with them. The only other places I could take him to are almost 100 miles away and not open on the weekends.
I would walk to the ends of the earth to help my boy, but sometimes the mountains aren't mine to move and I do not have unlimited funds or the ability to take him far away for treatment. I KNOW he needs a hospital, but my hands are tied until tomorrow evening when his vet opens and I have no way of getting him to a hospital nearly 100 miles away on Monday.
So please, I need advice. TIA
The obligatory info:
Housing: 24x48x18 wooden vivarium, housed alone
Substrate: Washable carpet
Lighting: 60w incandescent basking bulb, 36" T5 Reptisun 5.0 HO (2 months old), gets 1-2 hours unfiltered sun daily (We're in Florida)
Temps: 102f basking, 98f hot side, 83f cool side (temp gun)
Nighttime usual 74f (ambient house temp), but he is currently set to 80f using a CHE since learning he is ill.
35-38% humidity
I have some antibiotics left over that are still within their dates that he has taken in the past for unrelated issues. One is Orbax (orbifloxican) solution. The other is a nebulizer solution mix of Gentamycin/Aminophylline. Can either (or both) of these be used to treat him until I can get him properly taken care of? I feel like I am racing against the clock and I can't bear to lose the little guy. He's getting a little worse every day. He's still taking his syringe feedings; I am giving him a slurry mix for sick dragons I found online which the vet said was fine.. Critical Care, butternut squash, and bee pollen. He is still pooping a couple times a day and the poop looks normal for what he is eating; urates are white and soft so I don't think he is dehydrated. (Had a BM this morning.)
His beard is constantly black, even when sleeping. He has bursts of activity, and he will still move to bask under the light, and move to a cooler area as he needs to. But aside from that, he is sleeping most of the time. He is alert and responsive even when sleeping, so I hope that is a good sign.
Sometimes he goes pale, but that seems to be only when stressed or when he's been basking and about to go cool off. Otherwise his color is normal. Pink tongue, faint stress marks, no red spots or other discoloration. No swelling, etc.
His info: He is a nearly 5 year old male; I got him at a year old as a serverely underweight Craigslist rescue. He has a history of digestive issues and allergic asthma, which I have managed to control both and he has had no symptoms of either for over a year.
Currently he is 18.5 inches and weighs 355g (Down from 405g at his last healthy weigh-in which was the beginning of March.)
Current situation:
He'd stopped eating around the 15th of March, but was otherwise acting normal and very active. I had an appointment for the evening of the 25th to get him checked out, but then my other dragon had an emergency we had to rush her to the hospital for. (Blood clot, she passed away.) My boy got worse and started blackbearding immediately after. (Even though they were housed separately, they were very close and bonded; I will even dare to say they were friends.) I got him to the vet who checked him out and said everything is fine with him.. No parasites, physcial looks great, she figured it was probably a mix between hormonal and grief. So I was to keep up with syringe-feeding baby foods (chicken, butternut squash, and pumpkin.) I'd managed to keep his weight steady; he he was still active, so no one was worried.
A couple weeks after he started losing more weight and blackbearding more. I brought him back in. She did an xray and said everything looks perfect. She offered a blood draw, but thought it was a trauma he didn't really need to endure, especially on a Friday cos the lab wouldn't process it until Monday anyway. That weekend he seemed to improve, so we decided against the blood work. But by Wednesday he started blackbearding constantly and became a lot less active and sleeping more. (Not quite lethargic, but definitely a major difference for him.) So we brought him in for the blood tests.
They got the results on Friday; it took until almost 9pm for the vet to phone us with them. She said he has septicemia, but the lab only sent half the results and she needs those before she can tell what treatment to give him. She said other than his WBC and RBC counts, everything looked normal on what she did have. She said the lab would be open in the morning (which was yesterday) so she'd call to get the other results, and then phone us with what the next steps would be.
We never heard from her yesterday at all and couldn't reach her. We tried every contact number and email. Her practice is not open on the weekends and her after-hours emergency line goes to a hospital that does not treat exotics or reptiles at all, and claimed to have no way to reach our vet.
The only other vet who treats reptiles within 50 miles of me is a hospital that has very bad reviews and I have also had quite bad experiences with a few times. I really do not trust them to treat my boy correctly, and you would not blame me if you knew my last experience with them. The only other places I could take him to are almost 100 miles away and not open on the weekends.
I would walk to the ends of the earth to help my boy, but sometimes the mountains aren't mine to move and I do not have unlimited funds or the ability to take him far away for treatment. I KNOW he needs a hospital, but my hands are tied until tomorrow evening when his vet opens and I have no way of getting him to a hospital nearly 100 miles away on Monday.
So please, I need advice. TIA
The obligatory info:
Housing: 24x48x18 wooden vivarium, housed alone
Substrate: Washable carpet
Lighting: 60w incandescent basking bulb, 36" T5 Reptisun 5.0 HO (2 months old), gets 1-2 hours unfiltered sun daily (We're in Florida)
Temps: 102f basking, 98f hot side, 83f cool side (temp gun)
Nighttime usual 74f (ambient house temp), but he is currently set to 80f using a CHE since learning he is ill.
35-38% humidity
