Gout, MBD, Nurrological, Injury?

[DanielleGia920]

Thank you guys for your responses. I'll talk to the vet. Yes Ellen she was eating the dubais everyday for weeks and had 5 the night before she had bloodwork done. I just saw a scientific study that shows the rise of uric acid in roaches depending on the percentage of protein they consume.

my roaches were on a 20 percent protein diet. There's defiantly a significant rise in uric acid. She was eatinf 10-20 roaches a day, or should I call them moving balls of uric acid.

As for the oral hydration AHBD, i gave her pedialyte with baby arugula slurry this morning, 3mls. Then she had another 4 mls of water and the dr said to do 2, 20 minutes soaks a day. She's also getting the cherry juice. I try to push a few mls of water every couple hours. She is still eating thank god. She ate 5 crickets yesterday and another 5 today. She won't eat any greens but i do the slurrys and she seems to take it without much of a problem.

Her knee seems to be getting worse, it looks big and bally

 

[AHBD]

It's good that shes eating but poor thing does look very uncomfortable/painful. It's also REALLY great that she's drinking, keep that up 3-4X a day if she'l take it. The oral hydration will give her all the hydration she needs, the baths only help if she drinks.


And I can't remember, had she developed eggs in the past, or follicles + then reabsorbed them ? Is she ADV positive ?

 

[DanielleGia920]

Not that I know of AHBD. I'm thinking she's only 4-6 months old. Would she be making eggs yet? How is ADV tested is that blood or fecal? We only had enough blood to check uric acid levels, they couldn't get a lot of blood from her because she is so small. All that showed up in the fecal was coccidia and pinworms.

 

[EllenD]

No, she's too young for eggs at this point, AHBD is thinking of another poster who's poor dragon keeps reabsorbing eggs which is causing gout.

I believe you test for Adenovirus by a swab, not blood. It's always worth testing for in any dragon, no matter where they come from, especially in the United States. I don't think she is positive for Adenovirus, but as I said, it's a good idea in all dragons in this country.

She looks good as far as her weight and color, she's just in a whole lot of pain, and that knee looks very, very sore, which is why waiting to get on the Allopurinol is ridiculous. But seriously, she needs pain medication, poor girl.

 

[Drache613]

Hello Danielle,

Actually, I have been hearing a lot about over loading roaches & there have been many dragons
which have protein or gout issues. Roaches are great, but the feeding sources need to be changed
to make it more kidney friendly to reptiles.
I have never personally used any Repashy products. So is that the only thing that you were feeding
the dubias?
So just how long of a wait are you looking at for the allopurinol? Do you know what dose he is
starting her on?
I hope she isn't hurting too badly, that swelling did get worse on the knee.
You can test for Adeno via swab or by blood, both of which are tested using the PCR method. It
has come a long way. It used to only be post mortem for testing!

Tracie

 

[DanielleGia920]

Hello Tracie,

I was feeding the dubais repashy bug burger and flukers high protein cricket diet. Flukers is 20 percent protein and repashy is 14 percent protein.

The vet is only giving the allopurinol, I talked to her last night and she said hopefully it will be here Friday. Fingers crossed. She wasn't comfortable with having me crush up the pills and dose it out myself, so I have to wait for it. ? I asked about doing sub q treatments at home. She said they wanted to hospitalize her because she's so small they would have to administer the fluids directly into the bone. She said, since Deka is so tiny she doesn't have a lot of subcutaneous room (forgive me if I'm not wording this correctly). Dr said she would need about .01 mils of fluid and in order to do that subcutaneously in such a tiny reptile I would have to poke her over and over and over again. Same answer in regards to pain medication. Since Dekas so small and her kidneys are already in overdrive she doesn't want to add more to the mix that isn't absolutely necessary. I was told last night to try and giver her 1 ml of fluid every hour, so that's what I'll be doing today. Yesterday I got about 7mls in her, I was doing 2-3mls every couple of hours. If her urates are more like jello instead of chalk, is that a good sign or bad? Her urates have been more like jello than chalky for some time now, have I been over hydrating her this whole time. (2-3mls of water through dropper everyday) Could over hydrating her cause kidney problems?

 

[AHBD]

The consistency of poo can change for a variety of reasons, esp. when they are ill. It wouldn't be over-hydration at all.

 

[DanielleGia920]

Ok, thanks AHBD! ?

 

[EllenD]

Fluids into the bone? Hmmm, I don't like that at all, but I can't imagine they there isn't an oral pain med they can give her that isn't so hard on her kidneys. Metacam would be because it's a Cox-II inhibitor (I believe), so anything with an antiinflammatory in it would be off the table, but a mild narcotic like tramadol wouldn't be a problem in a very small dose. I just can't imagine that the stress she's under from being in so much constant pain for such a long time isn't more harmful to her, just based on what stress like this does to dragons. She just looks so uncomfortable, poor girl.

I hope the Allopurinol comes in soon, I like your vet's cautiousness, but dosing Allopurinol from a tablet for a dragon is a common thing a lot of certified reptile vets do on a regular basis. Hopefully she won't have to wait much longer for it.

Did your Silkworms come in yet? Usually the serapeptase helps with their pain quite a bit.

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

Sorry you had to wait on the allopurinol. Actually, it is very easy to compound drugs, just
takes a little bit of math that's all. How is she doing today?
There are plenty of oral pain meds they could give, so you wouldn't have to give an injection
in her like that.
Overhydration wouldn't cause gout, no, but could maybe mess up electrolyte balances, perhaps.
It's good that her urates are soft, though.
I hope your silkworms get there soon. It seems like they should be there already!
Keep us posted on her.

Tracie

 

[DanielleGia920]

I'm so annoyed! I called a pharmacy up the block from my house and they said they would compound it for me and I could pick it up today, just need the vet to call it in. I call vet and she won't call it in. I told her I'll still pay for the one that was ordered I just want to start her on it right now. She said it should be here today or tomorrow and the pharmacies only have it in tablet form and she needs it in liquid form! Hello! I just spoke to the pharmists, he just has to crush it down to powder and add liquid to it. I do it all the time when I run out of children's Tylenol. It's like she's never heard of it before in her life. My pharmacist was going to do the same exact thing her manufacturer did right? I brought her into the vet on Monday so I could get her started on treatment ASAP, instead I've had to sit here all week long and watch her get worse and worse. When I took her in Monday she had very little swelling in her right back leg. Now she has swelling in the front hand and finger. Both back legs look swollen and she's got a big knot on her right knee!

It's so frustrating. Whenever I talk to her she says "I've consulted with other reptile specialist and blah blah blah" who are these specialists and can I just go there!!!! Every time I ask to do something that I know can be done, because everyone else on here is doing it, she says it can't be done. It's so aggravating because she's the vet and I don't want to be disrespectful or try and tell her how to do her job but when your constantly told "no that's not possible" how do you move forward! ?

 

[AHBD]

I can imagine this is very frustrating for you. It may be that the vet is being super cautious of going out of her comfort zone in prescribing it a different way. Hopefully you'll get it today or tomorrow + be dosing your girl soon.

 

[DanielleGia920]

Thanks AHBD for the reassurance. I've calmed down since last post lol ? and was just looking at pictures and I "think" the swelling is actually going down a little bit. She also moved off her basking rock today which she hasn't done in a week and a half. Here's a comparison from Tuesday to now.

the top picture was Tuesday, you can see her right lower leg is pretty swollen. The bottom picture is from today, it's still swollen but I don't think as bad. Maybe it's just wishful Thinking. She was also sitting up on her basking rock today with her weight on back legs instead of pancaking it.

. Looks like removing the dubais from her diet and flushing her with fluids and cherry juice has helped! If I could only get my hands on some allopurinol. ?

 

[EllenD]

That is extremely frustrating. I'm sure what AHBD said is true, she's completely out of her comfort zone, that was obvious when she let her leave on Monday with no oral pain medication at all, and she doesn't want to mess something up. However, if she is truly consulting with multiple "reptile specialists" they would have recommended, no, probably demanded that she give her an oral dose of Tramadol or another oral, narcotic pain med, and that she just write a normal prescription for the smallest available tablet dose of Allopurinol so that you could take it to any pharmacy and have it compounded...that's why pharmacists actually go to pharmacy school for 3 years after college, lol. They don't have to do it nearly as often as they used to due to computers and already prepared medications, but they all know how to do it as long as they have the dosage for her from the vet on the prescription. This frustrates me actually, quite a bit, because I know how horribly painful gout is, and in all honesty, as many cases of beardies who have gone to the vet and were diagnosed with gout that we've had on here, this is the first time that I've seen the poor dragon #1 Not given any pain medication on the same day they were at the vet the first time, let alone allowed to go an entire week with no pain med or Allopurinol, and #2 That they didn't leave the vet with either the correctly dosed Allopurinol in-hand for a month because the reptile vet actually compounded it themselves from a tablet before they left, or with a month's prescription of Allopurinol to take to any pharmacy to get filled...so yeah, this sucks...poor baby girl...

I'm sure stopping the beefed-up dubias did help quite a bit, she had uric acid just pumping into her, so hopefully the swelling has gone down a bit, but I hate the thought of her going all weekend without pain meds, serrapeptase, or without starting the Allopurinol, because it takes a while after them starting it for it to start helping, it's not an instant pain or swelling reliever, which is why I can't believe she is making her wait to start taking it like this. This vet is unnecessarily worried about an oral pain medication causing damage to her kidneys, but she's okay with needlessly waiting for over a week to start her on the Allopurinol, which will take at least another week or two to start helping, and she's okay with her being under such tremendous stress from being in constant pain for over a week, which is usually more harmful to beardies than anything else...uhg, now I'm all wound up!!!

Sorry, I just hate watching her be in so much pain so unnecessarily. My grandfather had pretty bad gout, and I have a really good friend that was diagnosed with it about 5 years ago, and they both said that flare-ups were the most painful things they had ever been through. My friend waited to go to the doctor, he was about 39 when it first started, and he was stubborn about it, he kept telling me over the phone that "he was pretty sure he broke his foot", except he kept saying that it felt like his foot was literally on fire and that it was so swollen and hot that he thought it was going to "pop". This went on for like 2 months until finally I went over to his apartment one night, we were supposed to go out, and there he was on his couch almost crying, with this massive, bright red left foot that looked like a cartoon or something. The skin had started to peel off because of the swelling, and I said "Come on, I'll drive you to the ER. You have gout. It's painful." Lol...and he did have gout. He said he was in so much pain he wanted them to cut off his foot. Of course he let it go like that for 2 months before doing anything about it....either way, I just hate seeing your poor little beardie have to go through that, any time their in pain like that it breaks my heart...

 

[DanielleGia920]

I know I feel terrible too which is why I've been the most annoying patient ever calling 2x a day for the last week. I just talked to dr again and the medicine still hasn't come, she has finally agreed to call my pharmacy! She sounds confused which is concerning ?

Deka has diarrhea now, is that because of all the fluids I've been giving her? The only other time I've ever seen it look like that was after she ate a couple horn worms ?

Hopefully shell have her first dose of meds in her shortly.