Mouth rot?!?! HELP.

[BreezyBeardie]

Hello all, my bearded Rocky will be 4 this coming June. He is in a 55 gallon tank and has been for the past 3 years. He's always been great. Brought him to the vet 2 years ago and he got a perfect bill of health. Temps are 95-105 at basking spot and 85ish on cool side. Sometimes the temps went higher on basking spot and I've been playing around with bulbs to get it just right. But majority of the time it was on the lower end. Everything seems fine in the enclosure.

He hasn't been eating his veggies lately but throughout his life, he tends to go through stages. Sometimes all he wants are veggies and no live feed, and vice versa. He is eating live feed right now so hes not anoerxic. I don't see this being a part of mouth rot, but you never know. I'm just trying to cover everything .

But he seems to have gotten an infection and it looks just like mouth rot :-( He runs around the tank like a crazy person all the time and rubs his face against the glass and I've heard that this could be caused from that as well. Tell me what you think from the pictures and what should I do? I CAN take him to the vet and it's only $50 for him to be seen but I'm worried that it will cost me a fortune for meds. I've been reading that when it's not a severe case of mouth rot that you can start out by trying peroxide, as we do with our infections. Has anyone tried this before?

I also recently cleaned his entire tank. Took everything out and cleaned everything in the tub with water and vinegar mix.

Please help with all advice and past experiences. Thank you!!!

 

[CooperDragon]

Are you able to look into his mouth? If the issue is just that swollen gum, it may just be a bit of swelling or irritation from rubbing it on something. If that's the case, it should heal up without much problem. You could put some unpasteurized honey on the area to protect it and keep it from becoming infected if it looks raw. If you want to try cleaning his gums, I wouldn't use peroxide. I suggest using MaxiGuard which is a brush free oral cleansing gel. You can put it on a q-tip and just rub it along his teeth and gums to clean them. If the inside of his mouth and his teeth/gums around his teeth look normal then I wouldn't worry too much.

 

[BreezyBeardie]

Wow really? That's a huge relief. All day I've been researching and after I posted this, I found so much info on betadine. So I made a solution with water so that it is a super light tea color and used a q tip and swabbed that on his mouth. I haven't seen anything inside when he's eating. But besides that I haven't been able to see inside much.

But on another note, which I should have made this a 2 part post, is that his toe nail seemed to be pulled out a bit as if it got stuck on the towel I had in the bottom of the tank. So I immediately switched it back to the repticarpet covered with paper towels. I will post pictures tomorrow. But his nail is pulled out further than the others and doesn't touch the ground, it sticks up a tiny bit higher than the others. I'm afraid of it getting infected so I also put the betadine solution on that today as well.

My plan is to do the solution for both spots again tomorrow. But do you think it's worthless for his mouth? And do you think it's a good idea to continue using it on his toe/nail?

My poor baby!

 

[CooperDragon]

I'd probably put some unpasteurized honey on both his lip and his toe. That should help protect the areas from infection.

 

[BreezyBeardie]

Great thank you so much. I greatly appreciate it!

 

[BreezyBeardie]

I'd probably put some unpasteurized honey on both his lip and his toe. That should help protect the areas from infection.

So I think this is a silly question but for some reason I'm asking it anyway. I have this honey at home already. Doesn't say unpasteurized or raw but I literally know nothing about honey. Is this okay or should I just buy one that clearly states it is raw? http://www.amazon.com/Gunters-Pure-Buckwheat-Honey-16/dp/B0037JQPUU

 

[CooperDragon]

It doesn't specify so I'd probably get a bottle of raw honey from a health food store or healthy aisle of a grocery store. Tracie carries jars of manuka honey on her website too.