HELP! Beardie doesn't poop, black beard, and spasming/twitching and bloated this morning but went to vet 3 days ago

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blackcat

Member
Original Poster
Tank Info: Zen Habitats 4'x2'x2' , 120 gal
T8 UVB in tank about 7 in. from basking area
Basking/heat lamp w/ UVA
Thermometer w/ probe going to hot end of tank; 95-100 degrees or so



Hi all, my beardie Sparkle is a little over a year old and has had health issues since I got him as a baby (last November). First, he seemed to have a really tough eye shed that progressively got worse until I got worried that it was Yellow Fungus. I took him to a regular vet that treated reptiles (I didn't know better but I do now) and she basically told me she didn't know and she isn't a reptile expert but h's probably fine (at this time he was having trouble pooping but was still going, it was just like once every two weeks). I told her about Yellow Fungus and she said she had to go look it up and then told me that she thought it could be Yellow Fungus but she doesn't know how to find out and that it doesn't matter because there would be nothing I could do and that he would die soon. He goes through cycles where his eye and neck get more yellow and I get really worried, but the last three months it has looked a lot better and now is just slightly tinted yellow and on the left side of his face only, and the scales just like slightly malformed. My current reptile specialist vet told me that it looks mostly like coloring. My previous reptile vet before i moved tested him for Yellow Fungus but he tested negative. However, she said there is a decently high change of a false negative in a blood test and that they would have to take a biopsy and test it to be sure, which was like $250 and I did not do it. I did try to give him antifungal medicine but it did not seem to help. In fact, it actually got worse over the six weeks that I gave it to him.

The last few months he has just had trouble pooping and I have taken him to the vet quite a few times. He was on lactulose and daily baths which was helping but eventually he just stopped pooping. One day when I was giving him his lactulose (about three months ago or so) he swallowed the tip of a syringe. He has pooped twice since then, both with help from my veterinarian with an enema. At the initial appointment about a month and a half ago, the vet conducted an e-ray, x-ray with contrast, blood tests, and a stool sample. The vet said everything looked fine, and gave him an enema and said that his urate was really big and hard and it seemed to be his urate that was causing his impaction and to give him less calcium. This past week he still had not pooped so I brought him in to the vet again. She did another X-ray and found a really big urate, gave him an enema, and did blood samples again and checked kidney functioning. Again she said everything looked good besides the big urate, gave him an enema, and he passed it along with his poop, which she said the poop looked healthy and so she assumed it was mostly due to the urate. She also said that she isn't worried about him still having the syringe tip stuck because she has fully flushed him twice. That was on Wednesday. It is now Saturday and Sparkle has refused his crickets since the vet, although he has been eating his greens. The vet told me she thought the urate was due to dehydration, and told me to get thermostats in the tank to decrease the temperature (95-110 on the warm side, probably 80-85 on the cool side) and return to giving him daily baths (I stopped in between vet appointments because the vet looked at his mouth last time and said she was worried about mouth rot, and I also didn't want him to get a respiroatory infection because with all his medical problems already he probably couldn't handle that). She also told me to increase his fiber and leafy greens (his typical salad is kale, but I also give very occassional asparagus, carrots and snap peas sometimes, and apples sometimes. I live in a small town (an hour from the vet) and there are not many beardie-friendly options to choose from so that's why I usually just use kale, which him and my other beardie seem to like. Although I know some people recommend not to feed your beardie spinach, she said that spinach would be a good veggie to feed him to help pass his poop and urate so I gave a little bit of it to him along with some peeled cucumber and cilantro two days in a row. I haven't given him a bath until this morning, but I have been trying to mist his tank, I have a water bowl (although the vet recommended I get a larger one that their entire body can fit in, which I will do soon), and I try to give him drinks of water by dripping it onto his nose but it rarely works.

This morning when I went to check on him and turn his lights on he was lying in the corner on the warm side of his viv, with a very very black beard and looked really sick. There were small pieces of poop spread around his cage and a tiny bit of urate. I assumed he had been trying to poop but was struggling, so I thought if I turned the lights on and gave it an hour or two that he might be able to. I also noticed his tummy felt pretty full and bloated, which is odd because he hasn't eaten crickets in probably a week. I don't want to force him to eat critical care because he seems like he is in a lot of pain and his tummy kind of spasms/twitches every few minutes. Also, when I tried to massage his tummy his stomach twitched just slightly below the midpoint on just his body. That was not the case, so I decided to put him on a heating pad and then give him a bath. he didn't like the heating pad and kept crawling off of it so I ended up just giving him a bath. He has been in the bath for probably the last 40 minutes, but is mostly staying out of the water by propping himself up on the rock I put in with him (he hates baths and he was frantically trying to escape so I didn't want to force him to stay in the bath and be super distressed). but his legs and tail are in the water.

I've had a lot of really tough events going on in my life with multiple family emergencies and am also a college student, so with all the out of town drives to the vet and daily care plus my job and chronic illness of mine that has emerged in the past year I've gotten really behind on a lot of my other daily tasks and school work. I have some stuff that I need to work on today and am really busy plus trying to keep an eye on my beardie's health so I will post the cage details in a bit, because I also forgot what sizes and wattages things are and need to double check. He is in a big cage with a heat lamp and a long UVB that I need to change soon but changed it about five months ago probably. It does not have a reflector but it is hanging inside his cage about 7 inches above his basking area and covering about half of his vivarium. He is not on his cool side very often. The temps in my house drop below 65 at night but I keep a space heater on in their room and the room stays at about 72 degrees. In addition to him not eating much or pooping (or on his own at all in the last 3 months), he is relatively lethargic but seems healthy and when he does move around he looks healthy, although he is less active than I would want him to be. He's also been pretty nervous lately it seems like. When I take him out of his viv. to exercise/explore or sit with me, he usually just bobs his head, even if there is not another beardie or any animal or a mirror around. Sorry this is a long post! I just wanted to give all the background info because there's so much. I'll try and get the cage info posted by tonight sometime, I just wanted to post the general question first because I'm worried and it seems like he's in a lot of pain.
 

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KarrieRee

BD.org Sicko
Beardie name(s)
Hiccup he is 6 and Blaze is 4
Tank Info: Will post tonight!!!


Hi all, my beardie Sparkle is a little over a year old and has had health issues since I got him as a baby (last November). First, he seemed to have a really tough eye shed that progressively got worse until I got worried that it was Yellow Fungus. I took him to a regular vet that treated reptiles (I didn't know better but I do now) and she basically told me she didn't know and she isn't a reptile expert but h's probably fine (at this time he was having trouble pooping but was still going, it was just like once every two weeks). I told her about Yellow Fungus and she said she had to go look it up and then told me that she thought it could be Yellow Fungus but she doesn't know how to find out and that it doesn't matter because there would be nothing I could do and that he would die soon. He goes through cycles where his eye and neck get more yellow and I get really worried, but the last three months it has looked a lot better and now is just slightly tinted yellow and on the left side of his face only, and the scales just like slightly malformed. My current reptile specialist vet told me that it looks mostly like coloring. My previous reptile vet before i moved tested him for Yellow Fungus but he tested negative. However, she said there is a decently high change of a false negative in a blood test and that they would have to take a biopsy and test it to be sure, which was like $250 and I did not do it. I did try to give him antifungal medicine but it did not seem to help. In fact, it actually got worse over the six weeks that I gave it to him.

The last few months he has just had trouble pooping and I have taken him to the vet quite a few times. He was on lactulose and daily baths which was helping but eventually he just stopped pooping. One day when I was giving him his lactulose (about three months ago or so) he swallowed the tip of a syringe. He has pooped twice since then, both with help from my veterinarian with an enema. At the initial appointment about a month and a half ago, the vet conducted an e-ray, x-ray with contrast, blood tests, and a stool sample. The vet said everything looked fine, and gave him an enema and said that his urate was really big and hard and it seemed to be his urate that was causing his impaction and to give him less calcium. This past week he still had not pooped so I brought him in to the vet again. She did another X-ray and found a really big urate, gave him an enema, and did blood samples again and checked kidney functioning. Again she said everything looked good besides the big urate, gave him an enema, and he passed it along with his poop, which she said the poop looked healthy and so she assumed it was mostly due to the urate. She also said that she isn't worried about him still having the syringe tip stuck because she has fully flushed him twice. That was on Wednesday. It is now Saturday and Sparkle has refused his crickets since the vet, although he has been eating his greens. The vet told me she thought the urate was due to dehydration, and told me to get thermostats in the tank to decrease the temperature (95-110 on the warm side, probably 80-85 on the cool side) and return to giving him daily baths (I stopped in between vet appointments because the vet looked at his mouth last time and said she was worried about mouth rot, and I also didn't want him to get a respiroatory infection because with all his medical problems already he probably couldn't handle that). She also told me to increase his fiber and leafy greens (his typical salad is kale, but I also give very occassional asparagus, carrots and snap peas sometimes, and apples sometimes. I live in a small town (an hour from the vet) and there are not many beardie-friendly options to choose from so that's why I usually just use kale, which him and my other beardie seem to like. Although I know some people recommend not to feed your beardie spinach, she said that spinach would be a good veggie to feed him to help pass his poop and urate so I gave a little bit of it to him along with some peeled cucumber and cilantro two days in a row. I haven't given him a bath until this morning, but I have been trying to mist his tank, I have a water bowl (although the vet recommended I get a larger one that their entire body can fit in, which I will do soon), and I try to give him drinks of water by dripping it onto his nose but it rarely works.

This morning when I went to check on him and turn his lights on he was lying in the corner on the warm side of his viv, with a very very black beard and looked really sick. There were small pieces of poop spread around his cage and a tiny bit of urate. I assumed he had been trying to poop but was struggling, so I thought if I turned the lights on and gave it an hour or two that he might be able to. I also noticed his tummy felt pretty full and bloated, which is odd because he hasn't eaten crickets in probably a week. I don't want to force him to eat critical care because he seems like he is in a lot of pain and his tummy kind of spasms/twitches every few minutes. Also, when I tried to massage his tummy his stomach twitched just slightly below the midpoint on just his body. That was not the case, so I decided to put him on a heating pad and then give him a bath. he didn't like the heating pad and kept crawling off of it so I ended up just giving him a bath. He has been in the bath for probably the last 40 minutes, but is mostly staying out of the water by propping himself up on the rock I put in with him (he hates baths and he was frantically trying to escape so I didn't want to force him to stay in the bath and be super distressed). but his legs and tail are in the water.

I've had a lot of really tough events going on in my life with multiple family emergencies and am also a college student, so with all the out of town drives to the vet and daily care plus my job and chronic illness of mine that has emerged in the past year I've gotten really behind on a lot of my other daily tasks and school work. I have some stuff that I need to work on today and am really busy plus trying to keep an eye on my beardie's health so I will post the cage details in a bit, because I also forgot what sizes and wattages things are and need to double check. He is in a big cage with a heat lamp and a long UVB that I need to change soon but changed it about five months ago probably. It does not have a reflector but it is hanging inside his cage about 7 inches above his basking area and covering about half of his vivarium. He is not on his cool side very often. The temps in my house drop below 65 at night but I keep a space heater on in their room and the room stays at about 72 degrees. In addition to him not eating much or pooping (or on his own at all in the last 3 months), he is relatively lethargic but seems healthy and when he does move around he looks healthy, although he is less active than I would want him to be. He's also been pretty nervous lately it seems like. When I take him out of his viv. to exercise/explore or sit with me, he usually just bobs his head, even if there is not another beardie or any animal or a mirror around. Sorry this is a long post! I just wanted to give all the background info because there's so much. I'll try and get the cage info posted by tonight sometime, I just wanted to post the general question first because I'm worried and it seems like he's in a lot of pain.
Hes showing dominance part of the mating thing not to worry --- the basking temps in the tank are being taken w/a digital probe thermometer? No stick ons please ---- the UVB is a long tube is it a T 8 or a T 5 ? Look on the bulb please it needs to have certain distance --- please do not leave the dragon in the bath for 40 minutes ---- his pooping is fine w/ him going every couple of weeks dragons do not poop as often as when they are babies --- PLEASE NO MORE ENEMAS------------ they are too risky for something going wrong and if hes in pain now its probably from the enema he received - your dragon will go when he needs to go w/ proper basking temps and correct UVB he will be fine ---- if you want him to poop feed him some raw shredded sweet potato or some plain canned pumpkin but if your feeding a good diet of fresh greens squash and a good staple insect he should be fine ---- here is a website for nutrition Nutrition Content ignore the kale thing its a good staple feeder --- please post a pic of him
 

AHBD

BD.org Sicko
Yes, please post a picture to show his condition. I hope that his intestines did not rupture from the last enema. They are actually pretty dangerous and should only be used as a very last resort, most beardies can poo on their own even if it takes a while. I'm sorry that you + Sparkles are going through such a hard time.
 

blackcat

Member
Original Poster
Hes showing dominance part of the mating thing not to worry --- the basking temps in the tank are being taken w/a digital probe thermometer? No stick ons please ---- the UVB is a long tube is it a T 8 or a T 5 ? Look on the bulb please it needs to have certain distance --- please do not leave the dragon in the bath for 40 minutes ---- his pooping is fine w/ him going every couple of weeks dragons do not poop as often as when they are babies --- PLEASE NO MORE ENEMAS------------ they are too risky for something going wrong and if hes in pain now its probably from the enema he received - your dragon will go when he needs to go w/ proper basking temps and correct UVB he will be fine ---- if you want him to poop feed him some raw shredded sweet potato or some plain canned pumpkin but if your feeding a good diet of fresh greens squash and a good staple insect he should be fine ---- here is a website for nutrition Nutrition Content ignore the kale thing its a good staple feeder --- please post a pic of him
It is T8, UVB 50, 50 watts
 

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blackcat

Member
Original Poster
Yes, please post a picture to show his condition. I hope that his intestines did not rupture from the last enema. They are actually pretty dangerous and should only be used as a very last resort, most beardies can poo on their own even if it takes a while. I'm sorry that you + Sparkles are going through such a hard time.
Tank Info: Will post tonight!!!


Hi all, my beardie Sparkle is a little over a year old and has had health issues since I got him as a baby (last November). First, he seemed to have a really tough eye shed that progressively got worse until I got worried that it was Yellow Fungus. I took him to a regular vet that treated reptiles (I didn't know better but I do now) and she basically told me she didn't know and she isn't a reptile expert but h's probably fine (at this time he was having trouble pooping but was still going, it was just like once every two weeks). I told her about Yellow Fungus and she said she had to go look it up and then told me that she thought it could be Yellow Fungus but she doesn't know how to find out and that it doesn't matter because there would be nothing I could do and that he would die soon. He goes through cycles where his eye and neck get more yellow and I get really worried, but the last three months it has looked a lot better and now is just slightly tinted yellow and on the left side of his face only, and the scales just like slightly malformed. My current reptile specialist vet told me that it looks mostly like coloring. My previous reptile vet before i moved tested him for Yellow Fungus but he tested negative. However, she said there is a decently high change of a false negative in a blood test and that they would have to take a biopsy and test it to be sure, which was like $250 and I did not do it. I did try to give him antifungal medicine but it did not seem to help. In fact, it actually got worse over the six weeks that I gave it to him.

The last few months he has just had trouble pooping and I have taken him to the vet quite a few times. He was on lactulose and daily baths which was helping but eventually he just stopped pooping. One day when I was giving him his lactulose (about three months ago or so) he swallowed the tip of a syringe. He has pooped twice since then, both with help from my veterinarian with an enema. At the initial appointment about a month and a half ago, the vet conducted an e-ray, x-ray with contrast, blood tests, and a stool sample. The vet said everything looked fine, and gave him an enema and said that his urate was really big and hard and it seemed to be his urate that was causing his impaction and to give him less calcium. This past week he still had not pooped so I brought him in to the vet again. She did another X-ray and found a really big urate, gave him an enema, and did blood samples again and checked kidney functioning. Again she said everything looked good besides the big urate, gave him an enema, and he passed it along with his poop, which she said the poop looked healthy and so she assumed it was mostly due to the urate. She also said that she isn't worried about him still having the syringe tip stuck because she has fully flushed him twice. That was on Wednesday. It is now Saturday and Sparkle has refused his crickets since the vet, although he has been eating his greens. The vet told me she thought the urate was due to dehydration, and told me to get thermostats in the tank to decrease the temperature (95-110 on the warm side, probably 80-85 on the cool side) and return to giving him daily baths (I stopped in between vet appointments because the vet looked at his mouth last time and said she was worried about mouth rot, and I also didn't want him to get a respiroatory infection because with all his medical problems already he probably couldn't handle that). She also told me to increase his fiber and leafy greens (his typical salad is kale, but I also give very occassional asparagus, carrots and snap peas sometimes, and apples sometimes. I live in a small town (an hour from the vet) and there are not many beardie-friendly options to choose from so that's why I usually just use kale, which him and my other beardie seem to like. Although I know some people recommend not to feed your beardie spinach, she said that spinach would be a good veggie to feed him to help pass his poop and urate so I gave a little bit of it to him along with some peeled cucumber and cilantro two days in a row. I haven't given him a bath until this morning, but I have been trying to mist his tank, I have a water bowl (although the vet recommended I get a larger one that their entire body can fit in, which I will do soon), and I try to give him drinks of water by dripping it onto his nose but it rarely works.

This morning when I went to check on him and turn his lights on he was lying in the corner on the warm side of his viv, with a very very black beard and looked really sick. There were small pieces of poop spread around his cage and a tiny bit of urate. I assumed he had been trying to poop but was struggling, so I thought if I turned the lights on and gave it an hour or two that he might be able to. I also noticed his tummy felt pretty full and bloated, which is odd because he hasn't eaten crickets in probably a week. I don't want to force him to eat critical care because he seems like he is in a lot of pain and his tummy kind of spasms/twitches every few minutes. Also, when I tried to massage his tummy his stomach twitched just slightly below the midpoint on just his body. That was not the case, so I decided to put him on a heating pad and then give him a bath. he didn't like the heating pad and kept crawling off of it so I ended up just giving him a bath. He has been in the bath for probably the last 40 minutes, but is mostly staying out of the water by propping himself up on the rock I put in with him (he hates baths and he was frantically trying to escape so I didn't want to force him to stay in the bath and be super distressed). but his legs and tail are in the water.

I've had a lot of really tough events going on in my life with multiple family emergencies and am also a college student, so with all the out of town drives to the vet and daily care plus my job and chronic illness of mine that has emerged in the past year I've gotten really behind on a lot of my other daily tasks and school work. I have some stuff that I need to work on today and am really busy plus trying to keep an eye on my beardie's health so I will post the cage details in a bit, because I also forgot what sizes and wattages things are and need to double check. He is in a big cage with a heat lamp and a long UVB that I need to change soon but changed it about five months ago probably. It does not have a reflector but it is hanging inside his cage about 7 inches above his basking area and covering about half of his vivarium. He is not on his cool side very often. The temps in my house drop below 65 at night but I keep a space heater on in their room and the room stays at about 72 degrees. In addition to him not eating much or pooping (or on his own at all in the last 3 months), he is relatively lethargic but seems healthy and when he does move around he looks healthy, although he is less active than I would want him to be. He's also been pretty nervous lately it seems like. When I take him out of his viv. to exercise/explore or sit with me, he usually just bobs his head, even if there is not another beardie or any animal or a mirror around. Sorry this is a long post! I just wanted to give all the background info because there's so much. I'll try and get the cage info posted by tonight sometime, I just wanted to post the general question first because I'm worried and it seems like he's in a lot of pain.
@KarrieRee @AHBD what should I do with him tonight to make him feel better? Should I give him another bath? I feel like he is dehydrated but he doesn't want to drink water. He is very lethargic and just laying in his tank with his beard so black! I know that he is trying to poop because he is pooping a tiny bit and looks like he is also in a position to poo but he can't.
 

AHBD

BD.org Sicko
A bath won't help but if that's what you want to do, a warm 10 minute bath and then pat him dry and put him directly back in the warm tank. Hopefully he can recover but from your description he sounds very ill. Multiple enemas may have damaged his organs. Hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. I'm really sorry you're going through this.
 

Drache613

BD.org Sicko
Staff member
Moderator
Hello,

Poor thing, I am so sorry for your boy. I as well, hope that the enemas didn't do internal
damage. They really shouldn't be used unless it is a last resort & even then they should
be carefully considered.
As suggested, keep him warm overnight & try to get him hydrated as best you can. What
calcium or other supplementation have you been giving to him?

Let us know how he is doing.
Tracie
 

KarrieRee

BD.org Sicko
Beardie name(s)
Hiccup he is 6 and Blaze is 4
@KarrieRee @AHBD what should I do with him tonight to make him feel better? Should I give him another bath? I feel like he is dehydrated but he doesn't want to drink water. He is very lethargic and just laying in his tank with his beard so black! I know that he is trying to poop because he is pooping a tiny bit and looks like he is also in a position to poo but he can't.
You can feed him some water by syringe VERY SLOWLY so he does not aspirate or drop water on his nose --- see if he will lick the water --- feed him some canned pumpkin plain I am afraid the enema 's has done some damage tho--- I need @AHBD or @Drache 613 to help w / this matter now
 

blackcat

Member
Original Poster
Hello,

Poor thing, I am so sorry for your boy. I as well, hope that the enemas didn't do internal
damage. They really shouldn't be used unless it is a last resort & even then they should
be carefully considered.
As suggested, keep him warm overnight & try to get him hydrated as best you can. What
calcium or other supplementation have you been giving to him?

Let us know how he is doing.
Tracie
I dust his feeders with calcium twice a week (I have repashy calcium plus, fluker's repta-calcium w/ D3 and phophorous free, and repta-calcium without D3) and a multivitamin (Rep-Cal Herptivite) once a week. I was previously trying to give him vitamins every day (calcium every other day) but the vet said that his urate seemed to be causing his impaction last time and to cut back. He hasn't eaten feeders though in almost a week. He seemed fine the day he got back from the vet and two days after that, until he just seemed like he was in so much pain yesterday.
 

blackcat

Member
Original Poster
Tank Info: Will post tonight!!!


Hi all, my beardie Sparkle is a little over a year old and has had health issues since I got him as a baby (last November). First, he seemed to have a really tough eye shed that progressively got worse until I got worried that it was Yellow Fungus. I took him to a regular vet that treated reptiles (I didn't know better but I do now) and she basically told me she didn't know and she isn't a reptile expert but h's probably fine (at this time he was having trouble pooping but was still going, it was just like once every two weeks). I told her about Yellow Fungus and she said she had to go look it up and then told me that she thought it could be Yellow Fungus but she doesn't know how to find out and that it doesn't matter because there would be nothing I could do and that he would die soon. He goes through cycles where his eye and neck get more yellow and I get really worried, but the last three months it has looked a lot better and now is just slightly tinted yellow and on the left side of his face only, and the scales just like slightly malformed. My current reptile specialist vet told me that it looks mostly like coloring. My previous reptile vet before i moved tested him for Yellow Fungus but he tested negative. However, she said there is a decently high change of a false negative in a blood test and that they would have to take a biopsy and test it to be sure, which was like $250 and I did not do it. I did try to give him antifungal medicine but it did not seem to help. In fact, it actually got worse over the six weeks that I gave it to him.

The last few months he has just had trouble pooping and I have taken him to the vet quite a few times. He was on lactulose and daily baths which was helping but eventually he just stopped pooping. One day when I was giving him his lactulose (about three months ago or so) he swallowed the tip of a syringe. He has pooped twice since then, both with help from my veterinarian with an enema. At the initial appointment about a month and a half ago, the vet conducted an e-ray, x-ray with contrast, blood tests, and a stool sample. The vet said everything looked fine, and gave him an enema and said that his urate was really big and hard and it seemed to be his urate that was causing his impaction and to give him less calcium. This past week he still had not pooped so I brought him in to the vet again. She did another X-ray and found a really big urate, gave him an enema, and did blood samples again and checked kidney functioning. Again she said everything looked good besides the big urate, gave him an enema, and he passed it along with his poop, which she said the poop looked healthy and so she assumed it was mostly due to the urate. She also said that she isn't worried about him still having the syringe tip stuck because she has fully flushed him twice. That was on Wednesday. It is now Saturday and Sparkle has refused his crickets since the vet, although he has been eating his greens. The vet told me she thought the urate was due to dehydration, and told me to get thermostats in the tank to decrease the temperature (95-110 on the warm side, probably 80-85 on the cool side) and return to giving him daily baths (I stopped in between vet appointments because the vet looked at his mouth last time and said she was worried about mouth rot, and I also didn't want him to get a respiroatory infection because with all his medical problems already he probably couldn't handle that). She also told me to increase his fiber and leafy greens (his typical salad is kale, but I also give very occassional asparagus, carrots and snap peas sometimes, and apples sometimes. I live in a small town (an hour from the vet) and there are not many beardie-friendly options to choose from so that's why I usually just use kale, which him and my other beardie seem to like. Although I know some people recommend not to feed your beardie spinach, she said that spinach would be a good veggie to feed him to help pass his poop and urate so I gave a little bit of it to him along with some peeled cucumber and cilantro two days in a row. I haven't given him a bath until this morning, but I have been trying to mist his tank, I have a water bowl (although the vet recommended I get a larger one that their entire body can fit in, which I will do soon), and I try to give him drinks of water by dripping it onto his nose but it rarely works.

This morning when I went to check on him and turn his lights on he was lying in the corner on the warm side of his viv, with a very very black beard and looked really sick. There were small pieces of poop spread around his cage and a tiny bit of urate. I assumed he had been trying to poop but was struggling, so I thought if I turned the lights on and gave it an hour or two that he might be able to. I also noticed his tummy felt pretty full and bloated, which is odd because he hasn't eaten crickets in probably a week. I don't want to force him to eat critical care because he seems like he is in a lot of pain and his tummy kind of spasms/twitches every few minutes. Also, when I tried to massage his tummy his stomach twitched just slightly below the midpoint on just his body. That was not the case, so I decided to put him on a heating pad and then give him a bath. he didn't like the heating pad and kept crawling off of it so I ended up just giving him a bath. He has been in the bath for probably the last 40 minutes, but is mostly staying out of the water by propping himself up on the rock I put in with him (he hates baths and he was frantically trying to escape so I didn't want to force him to stay in the bath and be super distressed). but his legs and tail are in the water.

I've had a lot of really tough events going on in my life with multiple family emergencies and am also a college student, so with all the out of town drives to the vet and daily care plus my job and chronic illness of mine that has emerged in the past year I've gotten really behind on a lot of my other daily tasks and school work. I have some stuff that I need to work on today and am really busy plus trying to keep an eye on my beardie's health so I will post the cage details in a bit, because I also forgot what sizes and wattages things are and need to double check. He is in a big cage with a heat lamp and a long UVB that I need to change soon but changed it about five months ago probably. It does not have a reflector but it is hanging inside his cage about 7 inches above his basking area and covering about half of his vivarium. He is not on his cool side very often. The temps in my house drop below 65 at night but I keep a space heater on in their room and the room stays at about 72 degrees. In addition to him not eating much or pooping (or on his own at all in the last 3 months), he is relatively lethargic but seems healthy and when he does move around he looks healthy, although he is less active than I would want him to be. He's also been pretty nervous lately it seems like. When I take him out of his viv. to exercise/explore or sit with me, he usually just bobs his head, even if there is not another beardie or any animal or a mirror around. Sorry this is a long post! I just wanted to give all the background info because there's so much. I'll try and get the cage info posted by tonight sometime, I just wanted to post the general question first because I'm worried and it seems like he's in a lot of pain.
He doesn't seem to be much better today. His beard is still very black, even while he is sleeping, and he is very weak. He might be more bloated than he was yesterday. It is hard to tell. Should I call the vet? It is so hard for me to see him in pain like this and I just want to do something to make him feel better:(
 

KarrieRee

BD.org Sicko
Beardie name(s)
Hiccup he is 6 and Blaze is 4
He doesn't seem to be much better today. His beard is still very black, even while he is sleeping, and he is very weak. He might be more bloated than he was yesterday. It is hard to tell. Should I call the vet? It is so hard for me to see him in pain like this and I just want to do something to make him feel better:(
Do not go back to the same vet---- www.arav.org we need Tracie or AHBD to help you -- I dont know what else to tell you - if internal has been done I am not sure what they can do -- only Tracie would be able to help w/ that --
 

AHBD

BD.org Sicko
I'm so so sorry about this situation. My guess is that the numerous enemas have caused extreme pain and possibly perforation in the intestine. My heart breaks just reading this. If you feel the need to see the vet, it's your choice. They can give him pain meds. like Metacam [ Meloxicam ] I truly hope that I'm wrong and would be thrilled if this passes and he recupes. If anyone else has suggestions I hope you get some helpful info.
 

blackcat

Member
Original Poster
I'm so so sorry about this situation. My guess is that the numerous enemas have caused extreme pain and possibly perforation in the intestine. My heart breaks just reading this. If you feel the need to see the vet, it's your choice. They can give him pain meds. like Metacam [ Meloxicam ] I truly hope that I'm wrong and would be thrilled if this passes and he recupes. If anyone else has suggestions I hope you get some helpful info.
I took him to an emergency vet tonight, which is an hour away from where I live. Before I left he was throwing up fluid that looked brown-ish (I'm assuming blood) and writhing his body. On the way to the vet I was holding him (not driving) and he was writhing around in pain a lot and convulsing and opening his mouth really wide like he was trying to scream. He died on the way to the vet. The vet that scanned his heart said she scanned his abdomen too and said she didn't see any perforations but it looked like his gallbladder had ruptured. She drew some of the fluid from the gallbladder and it was black, and she said it was consistent with gallbladder rupturing, and that this could be a result of liver issues or liver disease. We asked about the enema and she said that a gallbladder rupture would not be caused by the enema (but that she cannot definitively determine this as the cause of death without doing a necropsy). Would it be worth it for me to do a necropsy? I would have to drive an hour out of town again to do it, but I want to know if it could have been caused by the enema.
 

blackcat

Member
Original Poster
I took him to an emergency vet tonight, which is an hour away from where I live. Before I left he was throwing up fluid that looked brown-ish (I'm assuming blood) and writhing his body. On the way to the vet I was holding him (not driving) and he was writhing around in pain a lot and convulsing and opening his mouth really wide like he was trying to scream. He died on the way to the vet. The vet that scanned his heart said she scanned his abdomen too and said she didn't see any perforations but it looked like his gallbladder had ruptured. She drew some of the fluid from the gallbladder and it was black, and she said it was consistent with gallbladder rupturing, and that this could be a result of liver issues or liver disease. We asked about the enema and she said that a gallbladder rupture would not be caused by the enema (but that she cannot definitively determine this as the cause of death without doing a necropsy). Would it be worth it for me to do a necropsy? I would have to drive an hour out of town again to do it, but I want to know if it could have been caused by the enema.
Thank you all for all of the help. I cannot believe his heath deteriorated so quickly and I feel so so horrible because I don't think I have ever seen an animal in so much pain before as he was when we were on the way to the vet😢
 

AHBD

BD.org Sicko
I can't tell you how sorry I am for your pain right now and the trauma of seeing this. :( I can feel your deep sadness and the wondering about exactly what caused this. Whatever you feel you want/need to do but it's very hard to make decisions when we're distraught. My deepest sympathy to you for the loss of your boy.
 
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Things to do:
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Material to raise surface for basking spot
Scenery decals for back of tank

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