laurenB":819zoyc8 said:Ok, called the vet, he is 381 grams. She said per his weight, appx 7ml per feeding, 3 times per day. Have a pic of his tank and also the reptisun bulb I got from pet smart, trying to figure out how to post them here....
laurenB":244x4qko said:EllenD":244x4qko said:Okay, please do not euthanize him based on what that vet told you, she was not a reptile vet and unfortunately it's quite obvious she doesn't know what she's talking about at all, as Knobbys said, "She put this in the too hard to bother with" basket and that was it...
Very, very, very likely MBD and possibly a combo of Vitamin B1 (Thiamine) deficiency. He's not ever had adequate UVB light (Zilla tube/fixture I'm assuming with the plastic cover), the he's never manufactured any vitamin D3 on his own, this he's not absorbed any Calcium. THE ONLY WAY A VET CAN DIAGNOSE MBD IS BY X-RAY OR BLOOD WORK, NOT JUST BY LOOKING AT HIM, ABD HIS HISTORY SHOULD HAVE MADE IT QUITE OBVIOUS TO HER.
You were given very bad advice and false info by a vet who should have just said "I'm not a reptile specialist". I'm betting had she done a regular, flat x-ray his bone density would be horrible.
That being said, you cannot expect him to get better overnight from MBD, but especially not if you have a Reptisun 10.0 T8 UVB tube on top of the mesh and 15 inches away, he's still not gotten any UVB light, nor any liquid Calcium, which you can actually buy at Petco/PetSmart, and he'll absorb it much more quickly and readily, as long as he's getting adequate UVB light.
Poke 4 holes in the mesh and then use those long, plastic Zip ties to attach the entire fixture to the underside of the mesh. I don't know why the vet made you get rid of all his wood/rocks, but he'll need a Basking platform that will get his Basking Spot within 6" of the unobstructed UVB tube. And make sure that the bright white basking bulb is right alongside the UVB tube, and both are directly over the basking platform, inside the Hot Side of the enclosure. Be sure both lights are on for no less than 14 hours a day. And try to get him some liquid Calcium, in the meantime dust all his bugs in Calcium powder with vitamin D3 after you get the UVB tube mounted correctly. A T8 strength UVB tube does not penetrate mesh well enough to reach your beardie, and even without the mesh the UVB light needs to be at least within 6" to give him adequate UVB light.
I know you're frustrated and concerned, but give him a few days under a properly mounted UVB tube that is within a distance that it will reach him, and while dusting the insects he'll eat in the Calcium. Do this before you make any rash decisions based on what an unqualified vet told you, because I'd bet my life he has severe MBD. He'd have to without any UVB light for what, years? Months?
Thank you thank you thank you for this advice. I took some string and hung his UVB inside the cage. It's about 7 inches from light to the top of his body. Going get some liquid calcium today. He does not respond to crickets or anything I offer him on his own. I have to force feed him very slowly with syringe until he laps it up from me. The vet did not suggest I euthanize, I was feeling guilty that he was suffering and I was not having any improvement. As for his UVB, I SPECIFICALLY TOLD HER THAT ID LEARNED THAT PLASTIC COMPLETELY BLOCKS OUT UVB AND THAT THIS FIXTURE HAD BEEN IN PLACE FOR A YEAR. I was very very angry and frustrated that I'd had to learn this online and that the product didn't give some type of obvious indication to remove it. That for a year he'd had virtually no UVB. She seemed to think he was still getting "some UVB" from this setup and not ZERO. She also told me to skip the pedialyte and to give just water but I've read repeatedly that Pedialyte is very good for them when dehydrated. She told me to get rid of any porous material that couldn't properly be disinfected. This is why I am hesitant to go to vets period. If I make the call to go and spend a big chunk of money that I don't really have and I STILL can't rely on the advice being given, what's the point? There is FAR too much misinformation out there for beardies and I was sadly very uneducated that I was doing things wrong. As far as basking rock, he has a hammock on his cool side. But he is not mentally aware enough to know that anything is in his presence. He responds to touch only. And not favorably. The only time I handle is for a soak and feeding. For his screen, it is not the "fine mesh" screen that I had on his smaller tank. This is a coated metal screen with much wider openings, so while his UVB was still 15 inches above him I am hoping he has gotten some rays through this type of metal screening. Again, thank you so much for your help. I won't euthanize him now that I have gotten some hopeful responses. THANK YOU!!!!!! I am going to get some liquid calcium, mix in with pedialyte and some smashed up beardie bites bc they are very nutritious and he just seems to love the flavor. Is it possible to overload him with calcium at this point? How am I to know how much is too much? Vet told me for his weight about 7 cc's of liquid a day. I'll have to call her and confirm that number
EllenD":2mm93nko said:Gotcha, I misunderstood what you were saying about the hammock then...okay, so if he can't safely get up onto anything, then I would just make one side of the tank the Hot Side, one side the Cool Side, and as long as the Reptisun 10.0 T8 UVB tube is within 6" of the floor on the Hot Side where the temperature is at or over 100 degrees, and he has a place he can crawl to that is down at or below 80, then it looks good. The only suggestion I would make looking at the tank is if there is any way you can figure out to get the UVB tube away from the back of the tank and more in the center of it, that would make a HUGE difference, because right now half of the UVB light is being reflected right off the back glass and away from him. The UVB tube is low enough that if you can get it right in the center of the tank at the height it's already at, he'd be getting adequate UVB light anywhere in the tank that he goes because of the reflector, so even if he's not directly in the "Basking Temps" he'd still be getting adequate UVB, which is what he needs.
He looks very big, bright, and a very healthy weight, which you have in your favor for sure. Usually when a dragon is in a situation like this where they haven't gotten any UVB/UVA light for an entire year, their appetite has gone down so much and they've eaten so little that they are extremely skinny, dehydrated, and very weak, and that's what usually makes a recovery impossible. But he looks strong and healthy, and I can tell that he was well taken care of until that damn Zilla UVB fixture with the cover...ironically, I just had a conversation yesterday with AHBD about that cover on the Zilla Slimline fixtures, there are currently at least 2 other members posting on the forum right now that had the exact same thing happen to their dragons, unfortunately they were both very young babies that didn't have a chance to grow and develop like your guy did.
I actually had a good friend that went through this exact thing with a Zilla fixture (I didn't know him when he first bought the fixture, I met him when he started working with me) and one day he started telling me about his 2 year old dragon that went from healthy to not eating, losing weight, and having twitching and tremors. So I went over to his apartment after work and sure enough I spotted the Zilla UVB tube fixture with that cover on it. Not to mention that he had it on top of a mesh lid, so same situation, his dragon hadn't gotten any UVB or UVA light for a year because he had gone through 2 of the Zilla tubes. He thought he was doing the right thing because he replaced the tube every 6 months. I got angry about it because it wasn't the first time I'd seen this, so I got onto Zilla's website and emailed Customer Service, asking them why they put that cover on fixtures that come in a package with a T8 UVB tube specifically meant for "Desert Reptiles", and why they don't put a warning about removing the plastic cover if you're using it for a reptile, or about not setting it on top of a mesh lid (believe it or not, the Zilla Desert 50 T8 UVB tube puts out just as much UVB/UVA light as the Reptisun 10.0 T8 tube does when it's within 6" of the reptile and not obstructed by that damn plastic cover, lol). There reply to me was that they sell individual fixtures that are not a part of a package that includes a UVB tube, and since people may be using the fixtures to house a normal T12 light tube that gets extremely hot, they have to put the cover on them for safety reasons so that people don't get burnt or cause a fire, etc. Now that explanation would have made sense to me if they only included the cover on the fixtures that are sold by themselves and not include the cover on the fixtures that come with a UVB tube meant to emit UVB light to a reptile, but of course they are saving money by just plopping the cover on all of them...They don't care, no big surprise there...it sucks though, Zilla calls themselves a "Reptile Company", yet they sell UVB lights that literally kill and permanently disable reptiles...
>>>> OMG .... so they simply sell essentially a domestic fluorescent fitting and add the cheap Chinese knockoffs (T8 and T5HO and compact UVB lights) they flog. Even more reason to never buy anything labeled Zilla.
Anyway, you're not alone in this, trust me, and yes I'm sure he has a chance, especially now since I've seen him. You gotta understand that a desert reptile that needs to get 13 to 14 hours of strong UVB and UVA light every single day just to be able to absorb any nutrition from their food really must have a lot of daily UVB light. We get a lot of people that come on here asking why their dragons are suddenly sick, usually they are babies or juveniles that the person got as a month old baby, and it's now around 5 or 6 months old and is suddenly sleeping all the time, not eating, eyes are sinking in, and usually the first real sign of MBD is that little twitches start happening in their tails and their toes, then they stop being able to judge distances when trying to grab a live insect to eat, and so on. So when we tell them that they've been using a UVB light that is for a tropical reptile, or that their compact UVB bulb is 20" away from their dragon, or they haven't been using any UVB light at all (usually that's either because they bought a basking bulb that said "UVA" on the box, or because either they or their parents decided that dragons don't need a UVB light at all and it's just a scheme to get them to spend more money), they don't believe that the lack of UVB light would ever be able to cause such illness or twitching, tremors, seizures, sometimes it's really hard to convince them, which is frustrating...but not as frustrating as this Zilla thing, this is a totally preventable situation that happens all the time at no fault of the dragon owner...
The biggest thing now is to make sure his lights are on for at least 13 to 14 hours a day, that he's getting the dose of liquid calcium every day, and that you're syringe feeding him every day if he's not willing to eat on his own. But like I said, he's a good weight, he's nice and big and bright looking, and there is no doubt that this is MBD based on his symptoms and the lack of any UVB for a year. I cannot believe that the vet ignored what you told her about the UVB tube, and just went right to Adenovirus, which by the way doesn't make any sense at all, I think Tracie already mentioned this, she took the words right out of my mouth when she wrote it, and that's that Adenovirus would have shown up long ago, it has to come from a source and typically they have it from the time they are still with their breeders or at the pet shop. At his age, even if that's what killed your other dragon, it would have been evident by now. And that's not mentioning that we know he hasn't had any UVB light for a year and his symptoms are classic MBD symptoms. I think if you can keep getting nutrition in him daily he should start showing improvement pretty directly. It can be a slow process, but you do see significant improvement quickly once they are under adequate UVB and getting liquid calcium.
Keep us posted daily, ask any questions you many have, feel free to PM me any time. I have a rescue boy that is now a year and 3 months old, I took him in at 8 months old, and he went the first 8 months of his life without any UVB at all...he will always have some permanent disabilities, like his front legs are always folded together and he walks a little bit like he's drunk, but he's improved 500% since I brought him home and got him under proper lighting, in proper temps, and got calcium and a multivitamin in him daily. So yes, I think your guy is going to be okay, it's just going to take some time and some patience. Just forget the amount of doubt and the complete hopelessness that damn vet gave you, simply by looking at him. That's the worst thing she did, she took a look at him, she knew she didn't know what was going on, so she just went to "It's probably adenovirus and isn't curable", and took your hope away and didn't give him a fair chance. That's the worst thing she did...
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