Hello bd community,
A couple of days ago I had a terrible accident with my bearded dragon. I had her outside on the balcony near the entrance to the inside, and just once I went out quickly, sure that I qwould avoid her. So, I stepped on the latter half of my dragon's tail. Nearly 100 kg on a concentrated point for aprox a second, and I was wearing a shoe. She did not react, perhapse because she got shocked, just looked up. I palpated the tail to see if there were breaks or other seriious problems, but it seemed normal. Then I gave her some food, but she didn't eat. It was evening and she was ready to sleep, so I put her inside the enclosure. The next day she was morwe depressed and not willing to get handled, because she always scratched and tried to go down. Her use of the tail was normal, although I observed that she tended to bend it more to the left than to the right. I don't know if that is a result of the injury, because I might just have missed such a small thing before. She was much more depressed and less active, though she ate a little. She also pooped. The next day she ate more. Now she is like before, moving, basking, etc, but seems less active probably though to raising temperatures, because that started before the tail injury. Her tail has not any discernable problem. But when she is resting or a sleep and keeps her tail immobile for hours, she is in pain. When I am touching the tail then, she takes it quickly away, and sometimes wakes up and moves a little further. The day before yesterday, when she slept on a branch and let the tail hang, she seemed normal, but yesterday, when she slept on her heating pad and I touched her tail, she pulled it away. Will that heal on its own, or should I do something?
My wife did the exact same thing to Rex when she was on the kitchen floor , fortunately apart from the shock and the horror , and I gave her a serve for not watching where she was walking ... no harm done, though after that Rex watched her and where she was walking and if she walked in Rex's direction Rex remembered and got out of her way QUICKLY.
Took 2 years and Rex finally trusts my wife now and doesn't even flinch when my wife steps over her, but she still watches where my wife is walking when on the floor.
We took Rex to the vet the very next day, who gave her a good going over and gave her a clean bill of health.
Today she didn't show any signs of discomfort. Perhapse they have a lot of connective tissue around the tails to protect them, that is the reason they seem so stiff. Hopefully there is no problem.