Head shake/twitch, swallowing, loss of coordination

[skyfishcafe]

Hi all,

You might have a passing familiarity with our young bearded dragon Alduîn from this thread. I haven't posted an update in several months. Here's the short version:

• Current age is approximately 11 months, weight 293g.
• Diagnosed with MBD at very early age (approx. 2 months) despite appropriate husbandry in our care; suspect poor breeding practices and/or genetics.
• Needed antibiotics to fight off opportunistic bacterial infection.
• Following completion of antibiotic regimen, experienced period of rapid growth followed by MBD relapse. Apparently unable to efficiently absorb calcium dust; receives daily oral administration of liquid calcium gluconate dosed according to mass.
• Nearly imperceptible kinks in spine/tail (retrospectively identified in early xrays) developed into severe scoliosis despite continued administration of calcium. Gentle traction applied 2-3x daily to attempt to keep muscles supporting spine supple, delay onset of chronic pain.
• Recent foecal test and blood test results within normal limits.
• Tested positive for atadenovirus.
• Currently trialing very small (0.03cc) daily dose of gabapentin for pain control. He absolutely hates it and spits out whatever insect we inject with it.

We have monthly (or more frequent) visits with our ARAV-member veterinarian, who has been open about possible treatments and honest about limits and dearth of peer-reviewed research on them.

We feel glad to have been able to live with Alduîn for this long. When he suddenly collapsed in October last year, we hardly expected him to survive the week, much less another 8 months! Then came the infection, and the MBD relapse... Our veterinarians and vet techs have been rooting for us the whole time, and have been impressed with his survival and continued growth. Yet we can't help but feel that his time may be running out. We are cherishing each moment as we can. Which brings me to the purpose of this post.

We're noticed a troubling behavior that started about 6 weeks ago and has recently increased in frequency. Alduîn will twitch/shake his head, swallow repeatedly, and have difficulty with coordinated mobility. The first two times we noticed it, it was shortly after he had eaten a superworm treat, so we stopped giving those thinking there might be a link. We then noticed that he would sometimes do it after his insect feeders in the evening; today we witnessed it in the morning for the first time, immediately after he had eaten his greens.

We had been hypothesizing that it could be pressure from his GI tract on his kinked spine causing neuropathy or some kind of spasm. However, this evening he did it again despite minimal food intake, and he stumbled so hard when walking that he nearly flipped over. We are beginning to suspect it may be atadenovirus progression or flare-up.

We don't have video of today's incident, but here are some previous examples:

05/25/2020 - https://youtu.be/MRkKYtuhJyo
06/06/2020 - https://youtu.be/4OLebiDBftA
06/08/2020 - https://youtu.be/kKRhrrNbX10

We haven't been able to find any videos of bearded dragons demonstrating this sort of behavior elsewhere. Have you seen anything like this before?

With kind regards,
Aaron

 

[Drache613]

Hello Aaron,

Poor Alduin, he sure has hung in there with you!
Do you have a copy of his blood tests I could look over? Have they considered checking
his parathyroid gland for dysfunction? That particular gland is responsible for regulating the
release of calcium & though it is rare there are cases of it that have happened.
You are giving him liquid calcium/gluconate how many times per week now?
It is possible that the adeno virus has caused neurological issues, absolutely. You could
also look at trying CBD to try & help with symptoms.
What about gout, his swelling is not bad right now? Do his hands/feet swell up when he is
on antibiotics mostly?
The care & love you are giving is phenomenal & for his situation he is doing astoundingly
well, bless him. I will try to help figure anything else out!

Tracie

 

[skyfishcafe]

Good morning Tracie,

Thanks for your response. We don't yet have a copy of the blood test results (I think our request for a copy got lost in the shuffle, so I'll be asking again soon). We will also ask if any of the results from that test indicate possible parathyroid gland dysfunction. Alduîn receives calcium gluconate daily, injected into his insect feeders. His urates are usually pure white, occasionally with a wisp of pink tinge, so he doesn't seem to be excreting much excess dietary calcium.

Past swelling seems to have mostly been a sequella of opportunistic bacterial infection, and he hasn't had swelling since that was treated (final antibiotic injection was in January).

We've decided to stop the spinal traction exercise, at least temporarily, because yesterday his twitching started immediately as I began the exercise. We don't want to cause one problem to fix another, and will consult our vet on this as well.

Thanks again,
Aaron