My bearded Dragon has a bump by her eye

[edisoncooper]

My bearded dragon has a bump about the size of a small pea on her eyelid. If she were human I would say it looks like a large wart. She does not appear to be in any pain. She is eating regularly, active, pooping etc. Any ideas?

 

[Claudiusx]

Hi there,

Can you get a picture of the eye?

What substrate are you housing on?
What does your lighting look like?
Specifically, what uvb bulb do you use and do you use a colored basking bulb, or a bright white basking bulb.

-Brandon

 

[edisoncooper]

I took three pictures but I can't figure out how to attach them. Can you tell me.
She is housed using the sand sold at the pet store for bearded dragons
We have a red light and a white light.

 

[bdalton]

Sand is no good. You want to dump it ASAP and switch it out for paper towels for now and then to a safer substrate like tile, reptile carpet, non adhesive shelf liner or newspaper. Sand is unsanitary and can impact your beardie if he ingests it, which is almost impossible to avoid since they lick everything and get it in their mouth when they catch their food.
Do you only have one white light? Is it a regular bulb or is it coil or as long tube?
A UVB source is absolutely necessary. They need UVB to survive, to absorb calcium and will get metabolic bone disease without one.
The red light should be turned off as well. They need a bright white basking light during the day, a regular old household bulb works fine, and at night they need complete darkness to sleep. If your house doesn't go below 65 at night you don't need any light and if it does a ceramic heat emitter which puts only heat out and no light should be used.

To post a pic you can use photobucket. Make an account, upload your pics to the site and them copy and paste the IMG code into your post on here.

My first guess about the bump is possibly an irritation from the sand. Thats another reason sand is no good, it easily gets into their eyes. Once you post a pic we will be able to tell better.

Do you use calcium and vitamin powder? These are also necessary. Unfortunetly petstores seem to give out wrong information, or none at all.

 

[edisoncooper]

I'll switch out the sand today. That really stinks that they sell something with a picture of a beardie on the cover even though it's bad for them.
The one white light is a long tube. Again, we bought that specific light because they told me it was meant for lizards. Is the white light the source of UVB? What is UVB?
Our house doesn't go below 65 but, even with a heat rock, I was having trouble keeping the temperature in the cage up above 75 without the red light.
I'll try to figure out photobucket.

Thanks.

 

[bdalton]

Okay, a long tube means it should be a uvb. Uvb is the rays the sun puts off. Unfortunetly there are some bad uvb bulbs, so if you can see if it has a brand on it. What are the temps in the tank and how are you measuring them? The stick on thermometers are useless, you need a digital thermkmeter with a probe so you can put it directly on the basking spot and get a reading, you cant do that withthe stick ons. You can get a digital probe at walmart for around 10$. The basking temp needs to be 105-110 degrees, with acool side of 80. It will do this by itself if you put the basking light on one side of the tank. He needs a bright white basking light, so see if you have any housebulbs around you can use. This is important. The wattage will depend on your house temp, but somewhere between 60-100 watt bulb should work. You will have to play around with wattages.
Turn the rock off ASAP. They are bad for beardies because they cant sense heat from their stomach and can get burned easily. You can leave it in the tank but unplugged.
you will also need to get calcium and vitamin powder. They need calcium on their food 5x a week and vitamins 2x a week.
what are you feeding him, how often and how much?

We will get everything setup perfect for your beardie with minor adjustments.

Most important things first are thethermometer and getting his temps correct,turning the rock off and dumping the sand.

 

[edisoncooper]

OK. Will do.

Here are the pictures. I'm not familiar with photobucket so hopefully this is what you need.

 

[bdalton]

Okay you need to get her to a vet ASAP. Like yesterday.

She looks really bad, and it looks like she had metabolic bone disease, probably dehydration and looks extremely thin. There's not much you can do at this point but get her to a vet.
How old is your UVB? You need to get a reptiSUN 10.0 tube immediately. The MBD is from lack of UVB and calcium. The light has to be INSIDE the cage because it doesn't penetrate through screen.
How long has she looked like that? Have you ever dusted with calcium?

While she's at the vet you will need to get the reptisun setup, her temperatures adjusted and read through a care sheet.

She absolutely HAS to go to an experienced reptile vet ASAP!!!

Can you answer the questions from before? (type of thermometer, temps, what she eats and how much)

 

[edisoncooper]

Do you know how I find an appropriate vet? I live in the Chicago area and I can't find one on line

 

[MissFirefly]

Here's a link to a listing of herp vets in Illinois - http://www.herpvetconnection.com/illinois.shtml

If none of those work, just google herp vet or reptile vet in Chicago and other pages will pop up. I second what everyone else has said, she needs to see a vet ASAP.

 

[bdalton]

When was the last time she ate? Does she poop regularly?

This didn't happen overnight, it doesn't even look like she can hold her head up. MBD takes awhile to show, as it first starts as calcium deficiency and centrally leads up to MBD when not treated.

I really hope you get her to a vet soon. She's not going to make it much longer, I don't know how she made it this far.

 

[bdalton]

Eventually* not centrally.

 

[edisoncooper]

She goes to the vet tomorrow. She eats like a champ. She poops regularly. She is active. I'll let you know what the vet finds. Thank you for all of your help.

 

[bdalton]

Good gla to hear she's going and still eating and pooping, that's a good sign! And just the fact that she's still going shows she's a fighter and will get through this.

Since she does have MBD, you will need to get a new UVB bulb that's ready for her when she comes home. Reptisun is the best, www.petmountain.com has them for about 20$ and just get the same length as the one you have now so you can use the same fixture. You can mount it in the tank with command hooks or industrial Velcro. This is very important since the old UVB is what caused the MBD along with lack of calcium, so you will want to get calcium powder too. The vet will probably give you some liquid calcium for her because liquid is absorbed better than powder. Also be sure to bath her a few times a week to hydrate her, and the last thing is the digital thermometer which is also very important. For her age 100-105 degree basking is good, 80 cool side.

As long as you make those adjustments she will be way on her way to recovery.

Good luck and keep us posted!

 

[edisoncooper]

Ok. I just got home and am checking everything we've been talking about. Her existing light is a Reptisun 10.0 UVB. We feed her an adult bearded dragon food by Rep-Cal. We also feed her crickets - 36 per week. She typically scarfs up about 10 right when we put them in and then eats the others a few at a time over the next couple of days. We do try to remember to dust them in calcium about every other time we feed crickets. My pet store told me to only do it that often. I now understand that was bad information. I only have the stick on type of thermometer. Ill get a probe tonight. The stick on only shows 80 degrees.
Anything else??