Possible early MBD or Impaction?

[Malon3r]

So I have noticed a few times in the past few weeks that when I put my beardie in the bath, he would raise 1 or 2 legs in the air and kind of shake them. At first I just figured that this was maybe too hot of water as sometimes we do when getting into something a tad bit warmer than we like. Also in the bath, after pooping, his legs will be paralyzed for a brief moment after passing the poop. But today as I was feeding him, at one point after chasing crickets he just stopped, and started doing this with 1 front and 1 back leg, and it got me quite nervous.

He would just lift it up, bend it backwards a bit and start twitching them around. I have read and it seems this is either early signs of impaction or MBD.

He has bowel movements every day, so I dont know how it would be impaction, however I also have a 10.0 reptisun flo. tube that I baught in sept(so not 6 months yet) and dust his crickets with calcium w/ d3 5x a week.

He is on shelf liner, basking spot @ 95-110 and is about 6ish months old. Ive had him since september.
Is there anything I can do to try and fix this? As much as I like him, I dont know if I can afford the vet bills since the closest place to me w/ a herp vet is apparently a scam artist and overprices everything MASSIVELY and dont know what I have done wrong to cause this... Never had sand, made sure to feed apropriate sized crickets, followed everything... sad times. And I dont want him to suffer

What should I do people of the forum. I need help!!

 

[Zaxtor99]

I can't say myself if that is impaction or not, but that sounds serious the way you describe it.

I would be very concerned, and maybe get him into a vet ASAP. Others here might be able to give you more useful information, however a short video of what you are seeing would help people here to a great degree, and a video would help new beardie owners like myself learn more as well!

I don't know if you have a YouTube account, but its free and easy to start one there. And I think most people have some way these days of recording video, be it a small digital camera or even their cell phone. Making even a 20 second video of what your beardie is doing, if and when he does it again would be be invaluable!

Like I say however, I myself even as a new beardie owner would make a call to my vet seeing what you described, especially if its your first time witnessing that behavior. I can tell you already that my beardie does make some weird and funny looking behaviors for sure, but what you describe doesn't sound playful or funny at all, it sounds like it might be quite serious.

I'll cross my fingers for your beardie, PLEASE keep us posted on any new developments, no matter how insignificant they might seem... more information is always better then too little! Also please try and capture a video or videos of any similar re-occurring behaviors that raise your concern, ie - have your camera ready especially at feeding time!

 

[AHBD]

Hi There....sometimes beardies DO leave their legs stretched out after a b.m....it seems to be normal behavior for some. If he's moving + running normally, then it may just be that little quirk. And they do sometimes lift their leg in a little " wave " when chasing their prey. The beginning of low blood calcium that leads to MBD is a very gentle " twitching " of the limbs, like they will be laying there and there's a very subtle trembling. What your beardie is doing doesn't really sound serious, but like Zaxtor mentioned a video would be extremely helpful. There may be something developing, so it's good to nip it in the bud if possible.

 

[Malon3r]

Ok so last night I left in a bowl of squash w/ vegetable oil and his normal bowl of greens. I did not feed him any crickets to see if it would happen again.
Gave him a bath this morning and he raised an arm slightly, but nothing worrying looking. I had a camera ready, but of course, nothing today.
I also fed him about 20-25 crickets instead of the usual like 40, when I get home Ill give him another bath and see if he does it. If its pressure on the spine I'm trying to reduce the strain with less food.

But so far nothing bad has happened today, will update if I see anything unusual in the pm and maybe a video if it reoccurs.