Long term diarrhea

[KendrickLamar]

My beardie has had diarrhea for probably at least 3 months, every other day. The alternate days he doesn't "go." His fecal only showed some flagellates protozoans and he was treated with metronidazole. His diarrhea persisted and another fecal was done, showing same issue, nothing else. The vet said we could do another Metronidazole treatment but did not indicate that it was necessary, and couldn't guarantee that it would solve the problem. When we first brought him in, his appetite had diminished, but the treatment fixed that almost immediately.

I am at a loss for what to do. The vet tech suggested maybe the stool was normal. But it varies between VERY watery and very soft. He has had only one "formed" stool in several months. The vet tech suggested this might be normal and that only very watery stools were abnormal.

On the bright side his appetite is enormous. He is gaining weight and inches steadily every week. He seems alert and active. Here is his info:

Age: approx 6 months
Weight: 12.8 oz\362 grams
Length: 18 inches/46 cm

Diet:
Bugs- Large BSFL (many come out undigested), small to medium superworms, small to medium crickets, small discoid roaches. He generally eats 60 to 100 bugs a day, a variety of all, and he rarely gets "full." He loves crickets, discoids, superworms, and tolerates BSFL. Crickets and discoids are gut loaded w/ Repashy bug burger or Flukers.
Veggies - He is offered a salad of collard greens, papaya or mango and squash every day. He doesn't eat much of it.mostly eats the collard greens.
Supplements - Calcium dusting w/ D3 every other day. Multi-vitamin dusting 2x q week. He also gets direct sunshine/fresh air about 3 d's a week.

Viv: 75 gallon tank
UVB: Reptisun 10.0 T5 runs 3/4 length of viv
Heat: 100 watt clear basking bulb. Two basking spots placed 12 inches/15 inches below lights. Temps at lower spot using probe thermometer are 107F, temps at higher spot are 110F. He spends most if his time on the lower basking spot.
Other: He spends about an hour or two every day outside of viv, at night he falls asleep as we hold him and placed back inside. No night time heating or lights, around 70F to 75F at night. He is pretty chill, doesn't explore his viv too much, glass surfs and black beards when he needs to "go."

Any help is appreciated!

 

[CooperDragon]

I wish I had helpful advice for you. I've been dealing with the same thing for almost a year and a half now. My rescue dragon has watery loose stools and flagellates were detected in a fresh sample. He was on Ronidizole on and off for a while but it didn't seem to have an effect. Since he is otherwise healthy I'd take that as a good sign and keep offering extra water via drops on his nose along with food that has relatively high water content like squash. That should help prevent dehydration which could be harmful to kidneys.

In Darwin's case I'm wondering if it's a GI irritation of some sort. Maybe something like a Crohn's disease affecting reptiles. I've tried treatment with probiotics but that hasn't helped either. I'm going to have another fecal and blood test done in the next month or two just to check in and see where things stand. It's possible the flagellates are still there, are causing the problem, and are unresponsive to treatment but I'm not sure. I'm not sure what other treatment would be available in that case anyway if Ronidizole and Metronidizole were ineffective. For now I'm just treating the symptoms the best I can.

 

[KendrickLamar]

Thanks for the response. It's good to know that someone else has a healthy dragon despite persistent loose, watery stools. I have not tried probiotics. Did you just feed him yogurt or a special formula? How much extra water do you give him. Kenny will drink from a medicine dropper, but I cannot tell how much is enough or too much, especially when it runs right through him anyhow. I am scared for him to get dehydrated, and I have heard that eating a lot of bugs when dehydrated could be dangerous.

 

[CooperDragon]

I used Reptophilus from Tracie http://bug-de-lite.com/store/index.php?app=ecom&ns=prodshow&ref=Acidophiliz It's certainly worth a shot in your case as well.

I usually offer a 10ml syringe of water and let him lick up what he wants. He usually gets sick of me and shakes his head or runs off when he's had enough. The extra water goes through him but I feel better at this point knowing that it's being replenished. His poop didn't get much less watery when I didn't give him extra water and initial blood test indicated dehydration so I've been offering extra along with bug meal a couple of times per week (he's an adult and eats mostly veges) and plenty of fresh veges for hydration. As I learn more I'll certainly share with you but that's what I do for the time being.

 

[AHBD]

Can you post pics of his next b.m ? Sometimes they just have a softer over all consistency which looks very watery on tile or any non absorbent substrate but which may be on the looser side of acceptable. [ if that makes sense ]

 

[KendrickLamar]

I will post pic of next BM. He did it on the tile floor and the watery stuff spread out everywhere. We try to put an extra absorbent paper towel underneath him when he goes and it sops up a lot of liquid. But sometimes it's less water and more of a smushy puddle, for lack of better description.

Thanks for the probiotics link to the other p.p.

 

[kingofnobbys]

My beardie has had diarrhea for probably at least 3 months, every other day. The alternate days he doesn't "go." His fecal only showed some flagellates protozoans and he was treated with metronidazole. His diarrhea persisted and another fecal was done, showing same issue, nothing else. The vet said we could do another Metronidazole treatment but did not indicate that it was necessary, and couldn't guarantee that it would solve the problem. When we first brought him in, his appetite had diminished, but the treatment fixed that almost immediately.

I am at a loss for what to do. The vet tech suggested maybe the stool was normal. But it varies between VERY watery and very soft. He has had only one "formed" stool in several months. The vet tech suggested this might be normal and that only very watery stools were abnormal.

On the bright side his appetite is enormous. He is gaining weight and inches steadily every week. He seems alert and active. Here is his info:

Age: approx 6 months
Weight: 12.8 oz\362 grams
Length: 18 inches/46 cm

Diet:
Bugs- Large BSFL (many come out undigested), small to medium superworms, <<< I cut the supers , he's too young to handle digesting them properly

small to medium crickets, small discoid roaches. He generally eats 60 to 100 bugs a day, a variety of all, and he rarely gets "full." He loves crickets, discoids, superworms, and tolerates BSFL. Crickets and discoids are gut loaded w/ Repashy bug burger or Flukers.
Veggies - He is offered a salad of collard greens, papaya or mango and squash every day. He doesn't eat much of it.mostly eats the collard greens.
Supplements - Calcium dusting w/ D3 every other day. Multi-vitamin dusting 2x q week. He also gets direct sunshine/fresh air about 3 d's a week.

Viv: 75 gallon tank
UVB: Reptisun 10.0 T5 runs 3/4 length of viv
Heat: 100 watt clear basking bulb. Two basking spots placed 12 inches/15 inches below lights. Temps at lower spot using probe thermometer are 107F, temps at higher spot are 110F. He spends most if his time on the lower basking spot.
Other: He spends about an hour or two every day outside of viv, at night he falls asleep as we hold him and placed back inside. No night time heating or lights, around 70F to 75F at night. He is pretty chill, doesn't explore his viv too much, glass surfs and black beards when he needs to "go."

Any help is appreciated!

maybe add some high fibre veg , like squash or cranberries ????

 

[AHBD]

Superworms in moderation are fine, and at 18" this dragon can certainly eat them. All my dragons were eating supers in small amounts [ with crickets being the main staple] at 14" , there is no problem unless you allow the dragons to gorge on them. That;s where people make the mistake, but the other worms like silkworms are to be preferred . BSFL often are not digested by some dragons so they are no benefit if this happens, they are kind of small for larger dragons.

 

[KendrickLamar]

We always fed him very small supers, and I always pick out the freshly molted as much as possible. He used to digest the BSFL just fine but when the diarrhea began is when I noticed they were coming out undigested. Poking holes in the bsfl helps but still a few come out undigested. I will try cutting down the supers and bsfl and increasing crickets and roaches. He is offered squash daily but eats very little of it.

 

[CooperDragon]

Darwin started passing the BSFL undigested as well. After seeing that I just kept them in their container until they morphed into flies. He goes NUTS for the flies and doesn't seem to have a problem digesting them. He does well with silk worms and loves those too. He gets dubia roaches every few days and handles those pretty well too aside from some shell bits occasionally passing through.

 

[KendrickLamar]

Yeah mine seems to be okay with the flies.

 

[KendrickLamar]

I just wanted to post an update. Kendrick's appetite went south, his diarrhea became more frequent (a few times in a day) and we took him back to the vet again. They performed another fecal and again there was nothing. They gave him metronizadole and sent hia fecal out to another lab. The metronizadole as always increased his appetite but he still had diarrhea. When we got the results back from the fecal that was sent to the other lab it showed multiple strains of bacteria that the vet had not seen before. He said he also had high levels of salmonell but that doesn't usually make dragons sick. I did some research and cannot find much related to the bacteria and bearded dragons. However, since he has been taking daily antibiotics, he now has had almost 2 normal poops, which he has not had in several months! His personality has changed a bit too. I am guessing and hoping that he must feel better because he runs all over house and is a lot more active in his viv - jumping on rocks, jumping off,and on again, etc. He never did that before. He almost seems restless. I hope this is an indication that he feels better and not worse!

 

[CooperDragon]

I'm so glad to hear he is feeling better. They can carry salmonella and it doesn't affect them but can be quite harmful to us so do be sure to wash your hands and thoroughly sanitize areas that come in contact with his poop. Which antibiotics was he given? Do you know which other bacteria strains were detected?

 

[kingofnobbys]

Yeah mine seems to be okay with the flies.

Similar experience with blowfly gents .... Peppa and Toothless had a ball stalking and catching them , BUT my wife and I however didn't enjoy having dozens of bluebottomed blowflies zooming about and crawling on the walls , windows and ceilings - so that experience was brought to a quick stop.

 

[kingofnobbys]

I just wanted to post an update. Kendrick's appetite went south, his diarrhea became more frequent (a few times in a day) and we took him back to the vet again. They performed another fecal and again there was nothing. They gave him metronizadole and sent hia fecal out to another lab. The metronizadole as always increased his appetite but he still had diarrhea. When we got the results back from the fecal that was sent to the other lab it showed multiple strains of bacteria that the vet had not seen before. He said he also had high levels of salmonell but that doesn't usually make dragons sick. I did some research and cannot find much related to the bacteria and bearded dragons. However, since he has been taking daily antibiotics, he now has had almost 2 normal poops, which he has not had in several months! His personality has changed a bit too. I am guessing and hoping that he must feel better because he runs all over house and is a lot more active in his viv - jumping on rocks, jumping off,and on again, etc. He never did that before. He almost seems restless. I hope this is an indication that he feels better and not worse!

Maybe the bacteria were in the insects on his greens .... glad he's on the mend.