As some of you may know, since I’m sure that many of you read my post a couple of months ago, warning about the damage that can be caused by retained shed, Ming had to have about a inch and a half of his tail amputated back in April, due to the end of his tail becoming necrotic because of lack of circulation, which was caused by retained shed on the end of his tail. His tailed healed beautifully, and he has been doing fine. In fact, he actually shed about the last 4 inches of his tail about 2 weeks ago, including the end of it, where it was amputated, and it all came off in one solid piece. I was very pleased to see that he had made a full recovery, and was doing so well.
He's been very active, has been eating like a little pig, and seemed to have made a complete recovery. However, I did notice that some of the new scales on the top of the end of his tail, on one side were completely black, in an area which was about half the size of a dime. Although he did have a few discolored scales, they didn’t seem to bother him at all, and the other new, surrounding scales had normal coloration, so I assumed that these scales might have been from scarring, due to the amputation. Since he's been growing, shedding, and gaining weight, I assumed that all was well.
About 3 weeks ago, I had gone out for the evening, and came home to have my husband tell me that Ming had been mouthing at his tail. Each time my husband saw him do it, he would knock on the glass on the front of his tank, and scold him for it, and he would stop. He did it 3 times in total. When my husband told me, I took him out of his tank and checked out his tail to see if I could see anything that may have been making him uncomfortable, but everything was fine, and although I did find one small red mark on the underside of his tail, he hadn't broken the skin anywhere. I assumed that he probably just had an itch or something that was annoying him. Since then, there have been no more episodes, up until this past Thursday night.
My husband and I were watching a movie, and about 10:00 , I glanced over at his tank, to see whether or not he was sleeping, and saw that both he and his tank were covered with spatters of blood, and he was bleeding very badly from his tail. I immediately removed him from his tank, and took him into the kitchen, where the lighting was better, so I could see exactly what he’d done to himself. I was horrified to find that he had badly mutilated about the last inch of his tail again, and he was bleeding very badly. The end of his tail had been ripped open in several places, and he had nearly bitten it off! I immediately got some sterile gauze, and put pressure on the end of his tail to slow the bleeding, and once the bleeding had almost completely stopped, I dipped the entire end of his tail in Betadyne, applied a large amount of Neosporin to it, and, covered the entire end of his tail with a thick bandage, so that he couldn’t harm himself anymore, or start it bleeding gain. I then tried to contact his vet, but he has no emergency service after hours, so I spent most of the night in a chair, or on the couch next to his tank, awake, and checking on him frequently, to make sure that the bleeding hadn't started up again.
I called Dr. Horn first thing Friday morning, and was told to bring him right over, so that he could check him out. Upon removing the bandage, the wounds were still seeping blood, and you could see that he'd nearly torn the end of his tail completely off. Dr. Horn had no choice but to amputate another 2-1/2 inches of his tail, since the end of it was mangled and torn up far too badly to be stitched. He had the surgery on Friday afternoon, to the tune of another $268.00, on top of the nearly $400 that I spent the last time....
He was released from the hospital around suppertime, and was sent home with both an antibiotic to prevent infection, and medication for pain. He's been sleeping and quiet since coming home but both Dr. Horn and myself are completely in the dark about what is going on. During the surgery, Dr. Horn could find no abnormalities with the end of his tail.... no sign of any internal infection, no mites, no fungous infection on the end of his tail....nothing whatever to indicate why he did this.
Have any of you ever had this happen? Especially any of you who have had to deal with having their beardie’s tail either partly or fully amputated?
His vet seems to think that he may be having some sort of a neurological problem, which is causing him pain or discomfort in his tail, which may be why he did this, but we have no way of knowing for sure. Dr. Horn plans to contact some of his colleagues, who specialize in reptiles, at the University of Pennsylvania's Veterinary Hospital over the weekend, to see if any of them can shed any light as to what may have caused him to do this.
I spoke to Tracie and Vicky, two of our forum’s other moderators, concerning what happened, and they suggested that possibly he may have a pinched nerve, or some sort of a circulatory problem which is causing either pain or another type of strange sensation in his tail. I plan to bring both of these things up with his vet on Monday, but whether or not one of these things will be the case is anybody’s guess.
While it is possible that something physical caused him to do this, it is also possible, according to his vet, that it may be something psychological, in which case there’s no way to tell whether or not it will happen again.
I didn’t get Ming until he was 13 months old, and he had been given up by his other family, due to the fact that they had bought both him and his brother, and were keeping them in the same tank, and, when they reached sexual maturity, they began to fight, as most sexually mature male beardies housed together will. His first family elected to only keep one of them, and Ming was returned to Pet Shop where he was originally purchased, to be rehomed. Because of this, there is no way to know if he has ever suffered some sort of psychological trauma that may be causing this to happen now, when he is nearly 6 years old. So, for now, even once the end of his tail heals, it will remain bandaged to ensure that he never does this again, unless we do eventually find some sort of physical reason for his having mutilated himself the way that he did.
If any of you have any ideas concerning any other sort of physical abnormality or condition which may have caused him to do this, please let me know.....and please keep him in your prayers. At this point we need all the help that we can get! I will keep all of you posed on his progress......
He's been very active, has been eating like a little pig, and seemed to have made a complete recovery. However, I did notice that some of the new scales on the top of the end of his tail, on one side were completely black, in an area which was about half the size of a dime. Although he did have a few discolored scales, they didn’t seem to bother him at all, and the other new, surrounding scales had normal coloration, so I assumed that these scales might have been from scarring, due to the amputation. Since he's been growing, shedding, and gaining weight, I assumed that all was well.
About 3 weeks ago, I had gone out for the evening, and came home to have my husband tell me that Ming had been mouthing at his tail. Each time my husband saw him do it, he would knock on the glass on the front of his tank, and scold him for it, and he would stop. He did it 3 times in total. When my husband told me, I took him out of his tank and checked out his tail to see if I could see anything that may have been making him uncomfortable, but everything was fine, and although I did find one small red mark on the underside of his tail, he hadn't broken the skin anywhere. I assumed that he probably just had an itch or something that was annoying him. Since then, there have been no more episodes, up until this past Thursday night.
My husband and I were watching a movie, and about 10:00 , I glanced over at his tank, to see whether or not he was sleeping, and saw that both he and his tank were covered with spatters of blood, and he was bleeding very badly from his tail. I immediately removed him from his tank, and took him into the kitchen, where the lighting was better, so I could see exactly what he’d done to himself. I was horrified to find that he had badly mutilated about the last inch of his tail again, and he was bleeding very badly. The end of his tail had been ripped open in several places, and he had nearly bitten it off! I immediately got some sterile gauze, and put pressure on the end of his tail to slow the bleeding, and once the bleeding had almost completely stopped, I dipped the entire end of his tail in Betadyne, applied a large amount of Neosporin to it, and, covered the entire end of his tail with a thick bandage, so that he couldn’t harm himself anymore, or start it bleeding gain. I then tried to contact his vet, but he has no emergency service after hours, so I spent most of the night in a chair, or on the couch next to his tank, awake, and checking on him frequently, to make sure that the bleeding hadn't started up again.
I called Dr. Horn first thing Friday morning, and was told to bring him right over, so that he could check him out. Upon removing the bandage, the wounds were still seeping blood, and you could see that he'd nearly torn the end of his tail completely off. Dr. Horn had no choice but to amputate another 2-1/2 inches of his tail, since the end of it was mangled and torn up far too badly to be stitched. He had the surgery on Friday afternoon, to the tune of another $268.00, on top of the nearly $400 that I spent the last time....
He was released from the hospital around suppertime, and was sent home with both an antibiotic to prevent infection, and medication for pain. He's been sleeping and quiet since coming home but both Dr. Horn and myself are completely in the dark about what is going on. During the surgery, Dr. Horn could find no abnormalities with the end of his tail.... no sign of any internal infection, no mites, no fungous infection on the end of his tail....nothing whatever to indicate why he did this.
Have any of you ever had this happen? Especially any of you who have had to deal with having their beardie’s tail either partly or fully amputated?
His vet seems to think that he may be having some sort of a neurological problem, which is causing him pain or discomfort in his tail, which may be why he did this, but we have no way of knowing for sure. Dr. Horn plans to contact some of his colleagues, who specialize in reptiles, at the University of Pennsylvania's Veterinary Hospital over the weekend, to see if any of them can shed any light as to what may have caused him to do this.
I spoke to Tracie and Vicky, two of our forum’s other moderators, concerning what happened, and they suggested that possibly he may have a pinched nerve, or some sort of a circulatory problem which is causing either pain or another type of strange sensation in his tail. I plan to bring both of these things up with his vet on Monday, but whether or not one of these things will be the case is anybody’s guess.
While it is possible that something physical caused him to do this, it is also possible, according to his vet, that it may be something psychological, in which case there’s no way to tell whether or not it will happen again.
I didn’t get Ming until he was 13 months old, and he had been given up by his other family, due to the fact that they had bought both him and his brother, and were keeping them in the same tank, and, when they reached sexual maturity, they began to fight, as most sexually mature male beardies housed together will. His first family elected to only keep one of them, and Ming was returned to Pet Shop where he was originally purchased, to be rehomed. Because of this, there is no way to know if he has ever suffered some sort of psychological trauma that may be causing this to happen now, when he is nearly 6 years old. So, for now, even once the end of his tail heals, it will remain bandaged to ensure that he never does this again, unless we do eventually find some sort of physical reason for his having mutilated himself the way that he did.
If any of you have any ideas concerning any other sort of physical abnormality or condition which may have caused him to do this, please let me know.....and please keep him in your prayers. At this point we need all the help that we can get! I will keep all of you posed on his progress......
