Help please.

[Gaiasmom13]

Hi everybody!
It’s my first time posting here but I’ve been reading and researching thanks to you guys ever since I got Gaia. She’s about 8months now and I purchased her at a local petsmart, which I might not do again knowing what I know now.. anyways, ever since I can remember I’ve been obsessively worried about her tail. She’s been growing great she’s active and healthy. I have a heat light that reaches about 95-105. I have a reptisun t5 HO 10.0. I’ll be moving her into her bigger cage soon. But back to why I’m here, her tail always worried me. Finally today I gave her about a 30 minute soak in a solution I read about on here can’t remember the name right now, and I started to help detach the retained shed. It looks horrifying now and I’m worried either a) I harmed her, or b) she’s got tail rot. I don’t know if I should take her into a doctor or if I should keep trying to see some positive results on my own. Also, I’m hoping somebody out there will tell me I’m not a horrible mom lol. Really worried about her right now. I’ll be posting some pictures hope to hear back from someone soon. Also u guys should know that her tail was just the normal color of a shed before I assisted with the retained shed, however there’s been new kinks coming up every shed and that’s what caused me to worry, when I started to assist with the retained shed, there’s brown color was undearneath. Now part of me is worried that I did this to her, but I’m pretty sure I just exposed what was underneath the retained shed. I just can’t believe we woke up normal and now after I helped with the shed, this color appears. Will it need to be amputated? The very end is like shriveled up. Help.

 

[AHBD]

Hi G'smom......your girl looks like she's been pretty healthy but glad to see you posting here because this does look like it's going to be a problem. Can you take a few more closer pics of where the tail color changes ? And yes, removing shed will definitely cause a problem. There's still confusion about what retained shed is, a lingering shed on an adult dragon just needs to come off in it's own time. But please post more pics, I do think this will need vet care.

 

[Gaiasmom13]

Do you think it’s possible I did this to her by removing the retained shed? & yes but I’m at work right now, I might leave to run her to the doctor though, what would you do?

 

[AHBD]

You don't need to take off work right now. Post a few more pics when you get home, a few of us can look at some more close up pics. In the meantime you can schedule an appt. . Is your vet experienced with beardies ?

 

[Gaiasmom13]

Thank you, I will do that. I’ll post as soon as I get home. Thank you for your help. & yes, that’s what they told me. I called them and told them the situation and they said the vet can take a look and if all can be fixed with antibiotics they said they’ll do that instead of an amputation. I know kinda jumping the bridge

 

[AHBD]

The skin is now bruised + tender, The tip might eventually fall off but what you can do now is put some raw unpasteurized honey on the tail. It's a natural antimicrobial + can help heal wounds very quickly. Dilute it by mixing with 3 parts warm + applying it to the dark areas. Just be sure her tank is clean and of course she's not on any loose substrate.

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

Yes, that does look like it needs some care. As suggested, the raw honey is excellent for
helping with wound healing. Be sure you don't have any loose substrate in the tank so that
it will stay cleaner.
Did you make it to the vets today & if so, what did they say?
Let us know how she is doing. She is a pretty girl!

Tracie

 

[Gaiasmom13]

Would you guys be able to give me some pointers with posting pictures? I can’t upload any new ones. I have a vet app with an experienced vet for Friday. I’m pretty sure what happened was whatever retained shed I removed exposed her tail rot. I’ll be buying the honey today.

 

[AHBD]

To post pics :
https://www.beardeddragon.org/useruploads/ use the XIMG to upload them

Pulling any skin off before it's ready can cause that to happen. Beardies shed in stages, so you just have to wait until the shed is ready. Here is one of mine with an uneven shed. Although it looks abnormal the shed comes off when it's ready. If a tank is too dry, spraying the dragon lightly with water 2X a day can increase humidity + make it easier for them to shed. But the shed itself must never be pulled off in these stages.

https://www.beardeddragon.org/media/29897/full

 

[AHBD]

BTW, this may not be tail rot , might be trauma/bruising from pulling off shed and it may heal over with application of the raw honey. See how it goes + what your vet says.

 

[EllenD]

It's definitely suspect, but not necessarily "Tail Rot" as AHBD already mentioned. You didn't "expose her Tail Rot" when you pulled off the shed, as Tail Rot is a term describing a spreading infection up the tail towards the body, that kills all of the tissue along it's path. The very end of his tail is definitely already dead, and as said it may just fall off, it may not. This isn't necessarily Tail Rot though...

If I had to guess I'd say that what you pulled off was not "retained" shed at all, it was just normal shedding skin that was not yet ready to come off, because the new skin underneath it was not ready yet. So when you pulled the old shed off too soon, you also pulled off the new skin underneath because it was not ready/fully formed and attached yet. And this exposure of raw, bare tissue underneath probably got infected.

Their tails have one of, if not the thickest areas of skin on their bodies, and as such their tails typically take the longest to shed. I just went through a very, very long full-body shed with my year and 3 month old female. Once she shed every other part of her body, her tail remained for another month and a half before it even started to shed, and it was the first part of her body to change to the lighter gray/white color indicating shed. So you just have to let them shed and wait for it to happen, and it will..."Retained" Shed actually refers to any skin that is left AFTER a body part/area fully sheds, and is usually just little, tiny specks of shed that is obviously already dead, and when it's pulled off/scrubbed off in the bath with a brush, etc., the new skin underneath it is ready. It's just dead skin that didn't come off with the rest of the area for whatever reason. If you had pulled off "Retained" Shed, the skin underneath would have been fine.

So either the end of her tail, the shriveled, dead part, is the result of an old injury or bite and it just hasn't fallen off yet, or it was a result of an infection that took hold after the raw tissue was exposed. Either way it really doesn't matter the cause, what the Vet needs to determine is if there is currently an active infection that is killing the healthy tissue ABOVE that already shriveled, dead end of her tail, that part is already dead, it can't be saved, and that's fine, no big deal. It's just a matter of whether or not that infection has stopped spreading up the tail, because what eventually happens if the infection is not stopped is that it kills all of the tail tissue along it's way towards the body, until it spreads to the bloodstream.

The good news is that your Dragon looks very healthy and well taken care of, and it's not at all going to spread to her bloodstream any time soon, meaning it's not emergent at this point. Hopefully the Vet you're taking her to know what they're doing and acts directly and quickly to either diagnose and treat the infections, and if that doesn't start to work very quickly, then they make the decision to just amputate the end portion of her tail.