CountofCasualty
Gray-bearded Member
Please read this whole thing before plastering a list of questions.
Thresh is acting off. Most days she poos before I get up, so when I got up yesterday and she hadn't done it yet, I quickly whisked her off to the sink and gave her a bath-deep enough she could swim but not deep enough she couldn't touch the bottom with all feet. She pooped just fine, I changed the water, she swam/jumped a bit and then I took her out, dried her off well and that was her bath. If she's pooped already she just gets something deep enough to soak the vent and that is that.
But ever since then she has been acting erratic. Mind you, I was home for 2 hours after her bath and she was fine, but hadn't eaten when I left at 11:30. I thought nothing of it, went to work and when I got home after 5(I have been feeling fluish for days so I left early), she was off balance, head low always and nose diving off of high things. Since I had experienced this before with her and with Baron, and partially with Cho, I thought 'okay, give it a day and heat and she'll be better by tomorrow'. I related the weird behavior to the bath, and since I know water in the ears can throw balance, I knew all I had to do before was give it heat and time as that is what I did with my two dragons before that went through similar things.
So we didn't open our window last night, turn the fan on low and kept her warm and flat. This morning she seemed to have perked up, was moving around okay, but still not eating.
And she's still moving erratic. While she will hold her head up now when sitting still, she will still try and nose dive or 'burrow' when she moves
This and she opened her mouth 2-3 times this morning and looked like she was 'heaving'. But no sound with it. After she would lick her lips all happy and go back to sitting still. And it so far has stopped since 8:30 in the morning.(It's 11 now) Her breathing is totally normal, and she looks as alert as she can be with this weird balance thing.
But naturally, I'm worried to death because I don't think I can handle the stress of another dragon getting sick, or dying.
I can try and her a Herp Vet app. tomorrow or Saturday if she hasn't improved and just call into work/switch shifts around if it falls in between the shift. My manager would understand.
I know there are 4 for sure things that could cause this behaviour: Inadequate UVB. Which my light is only 4 months old(reptisun 10.0 tube)(not 6 like I thought). Since I bought it at the end of April, so that doesn't make sense unless the light is defective.
Lack of proper Calcium. Which might make sense with the not dusting with calcium since I've been feeding so many horns(2-3 that are 2-3 inches long per day, with a side of dubai until the end of last week(half of those were always dusted though) and small supers since then, and have no problems with her eating those) but could she be showing these symptoms of MBD even if I haven't been dusting for a little under a week? That's terrifying, if that's the case and I feel so guilty at the thought of it. And if the breeder hadn't been doing it, she should have shown these symptoms much sooner, right?
Neuro problems. But she hasn't had anything happen to her while in my care(falling from a high place, being bonked on the head), to onset this. If it was neuro, wouldn't it have shown sooner?
Or a middle ear infection. I checked both ears and they seem normal. They don't seem inflamed or off colour, not from what I can compare as 'normal' in pictures on google anyways.
But why would this have all started after the bath? I know if water sits on the ear to long it can cause an infection. The same thing can happen with retained shed. But she has no retained shed there, and I didn't think there was enough water to do that, let alone survive the heat.
I'm just lying in bed watching her like a hawk. Which is hard because the more I watch her the more I worry, but I worry if I don't watch her and watch TV or something aside from read, I'll be paranoid that when I check on her she'll be dead or something.
So I'm kind of at a standstill, I want to bring her to the vet, but it'll be tomorrow at the earliest. If we bring her to the vet as well and need a bunch of tests run, I have to give up all the money I've saved for buying Repti's to feed her. Which is fine, but it does put us in a tough spot since when she does eat, she eats a lot.
That and I don't want to go booking vet app. only to have her be totally chipper and eating by tonight/tomorrow am, which might be possible but I'm not keeping my hopes up at this rate? I mean she has improved since yesterday, and is at least holding herself up and looking more alert, but when she moves it's still erratic.
She has never been housed on sand, only on tile. Her temps are 105-110 basking, and 80ish on the cool. She's 5 months old in 2 days, and I've had her for 2 weeks on Saturday. She eats lots of greens, between dandelion and collards, and eats lots of bugs. When she was eating Dubai she was eating 35 a day with 2-3 horns on top of that. She is now on 2 horns per day with 5-6 supers and butters. But she hasn't eaten any of her worms since Tuesday, since she hasn't eaten yesterday and today. Obviously no poop since yesterday morning, but it was a good formed poo with nothing abnormal about it.
She WILL show some interest in the feeders, but she doesn't seem to want them, I'm guessing this is because of the balance issues she's dealing with.
Thresh is acting off. Most days she poos before I get up, so when I got up yesterday and she hadn't done it yet, I quickly whisked her off to the sink and gave her a bath-deep enough she could swim but not deep enough she couldn't touch the bottom with all feet. She pooped just fine, I changed the water, she swam/jumped a bit and then I took her out, dried her off well and that was her bath. If she's pooped already she just gets something deep enough to soak the vent and that is that.
But ever since then she has been acting erratic. Mind you, I was home for 2 hours after her bath and she was fine, but hadn't eaten when I left at 11:30. I thought nothing of it, went to work and when I got home after 5(I have been feeling fluish for days so I left early), she was off balance, head low always and nose diving off of high things. Since I had experienced this before with her and with Baron, and partially with Cho, I thought 'okay, give it a day and heat and she'll be better by tomorrow'. I related the weird behavior to the bath, and since I know water in the ears can throw balance, I knew all I had to do before was give it heat and time as that is what I did with my two dragons before that went through similar things.
So we didn't open our window last night, turn the fan on low and kept her warm and flat. This morning she seemed to have perked up, was moving around okay, but still not eating.
And she's still moving erratic. While she will hold her head up now when sitting still, she will still try and nose dive or 'burrow' when she moves
This and she opened her mouth 2-3 times this morning and looked like she was 'heaving'. But no sound with it. After she would lick her lips all happy and go back to sitting still. And it so far has stopped since 8:30 in the morning.(It's 11 now) Her breathing is totally normal, and she looks as alert as she can be with this weird balance thing.
But naturally, I'm worried to death because I don't think I can handle the stress of another dragon getting sick, or dying.
I can try and her a Herp Vet app. tomorrow or Saturday if she hasn't improved and just call into work/switch shifts around if it falls in between the shift. My manager would understand.
I know there are 4 for sure things that could cause this behaviour: Inadequate UVB. Which my light is only 4 months old(reptisun 10.0 tube)(not 6 like I thought). Since I bought it at the end of April, so that doesn't make sense unless the light is defective.
Lack of proper Calcium. Which might make sense with the not dusting with calcium since I've been feeding so many horns(2-3 that are 2-3 inches long per day, with a side of dubai until the end of last week(half of those were always dusted though) and small supers since then, and have no problems with her eating those) but could she be showing these symptoms of MBD even if I haven't been dusting for a little under a week? That's terrifying, if that's the case and I feel so guilty at the thought of it. And if the breeder hadn't been doing it, she should have shown these symptoms much sooner, right?
Neuro problems. But she hasn't had anything happen to her while in my care(falling from a high place, being bonked on the head), to onset this. If it was neuro, wouldn't it have shown sooner?
Or a middle ear infection. I checked both ears and they seem normal. They don't seem inflamed or off colour, not from what I can compare as 'normal' in pictures on google anyways.
But why would this have all started after the bath? I know if water sits on the ear to long it can cause an infection. The same thing can happen with retained shed. But she has no retained shed there, and I didn't think there was enough water to do that, let alone survive the heat.
I'm just lying in bed watching her like a hawk. Which is hard because the more I watch her the more I worry, but I worry if I don't watch her and watch TV or something aside from read, I'll be paranoid that when I check on her she'll be dead or something.
So I'm kind of at a standstill, I want to bring her to the vet, but it'll be tomorrow at the earliest. If we bring her to the vet as well and need a bunch of tests run, I have to give up all the money I've saved for buying Repti's to feed her. Which is fine, but it does put us in a tough spot since when she does eat, she eats a lot.
That and I don't want to go booking vet app. only to have her be totally chipper and eating by tonight/tomorrow am, which might be possible but I'm not keeping my hopes up at this rate? I mean she has improved since yesterday, and is at least holding herself up and looking more alert, but when she moves it's still erratic.
She has never been housed on sand, only on tile. Her temps are 105-110 basking, and 80ish on the cool. She's 5 months old in 2 days, and I've had her for 2 weeks on Saturday. She eats lots of greens, between dandelion and collards, and eats lots of bugs. When she was eating Dubai she was eating 35 a day with 2-3 horns on top of that. She is now on 2 horns per day with 5-6 supers and butters. But she hasn't eaten any of her worms since Tuesday, since she hasn't eaten yesterday and today. Obviously no poop since yesterday morning, but it was a good formed poo with nothing abnormal about it.
She WILL show some interest in the feeders, but she doesn't seem to want them, I'm guessing this is because of the balance issues she's dealing with.
. 
YAY! 
