possible RI?? or what?

[mastershake]

one of my male beardies is now making a very faint wheezing noise. once in a while i hear a slight clicking also. he seems to be having a slightly hard time breathing also. he was just on albon for 2 weeks then switched to Ponazuril for coccidia. he has been tested clean now and off the meds for around 2.5 weeks now. we did give him probiotics as well as critical care the whole time he was one the meds, then the vet suggested us giving him a bit of pedialite as well as reptiboost after that to help with his appetite. he still is not eating on his own though no matter what i offer him. he did for like 2 days and then stopped again. but he is running around now and exploring when we let him out which he did NONE of before. he will run all over the house now. before he just sat there like a bump on a log. he is also climbing his logs and sitting under his uv now as well which he did not do before either. i know the meds can cause this because the vet had us treat one of our females he was in contact with also for the coccidia and now she is refusing to eat also. we are instructed to gently force feed him a few small roaches daily till he gets his appetite back (which at this point im doubting honestly)

he has no mucus in his mouth i can see there is no stringiness and nothing from his nose. we keep his humidity set to 32% with use of a humidistat and sensor i set up. basking temps he likes right around 98-100 any hotter and he refuses to sit there. we use a reptisun t5 ho 10.0 36" bulb in his enclosure. cool side temps are right between 83-85deg. night temps are right at 76deg but they do have a small ferret tunnel which is fuzzy and warm they each have in their own cages they sleep in.

he is currently shedding right now and im wondeirng if the slight wheezing could be coming from the insides of his nose starting to shed? or we had to give him all his meds using a small syringe by gently opening his mouth. could some of the liquid have got into his lungs? my new vet is sway for another 9 days and the local one to me is an *****. the fill in vet is not as versed with dragons.

any thoughts i do have baytril here available but hate to use it especially after all he has been through already. after all the other meds i would doubt he would have a ri?

thank you for any help with this guy he has been up and down since we got him and im just trying to get him right for once. what do you think i should do, should i give him more meds? i have baytril, ammoxicillian, albon and pretty much any other antibiotic available to me.

 

[Rankins]

Its too bad your vet is away for awhile. It is possible that the dragon aspirated some of the meds, but hard telling exactly what's going on. I hesitate to give advice if I'm not pretty sure of what to tell you. But I don't advise dumping more meds into an animal as an experiment to see what works. I would call the other vet you dont like. I don't like a lot of people, but most have something that I do like about them. Maybe their advice is good....

 

[mastershake]

and what should i do if they aspirated some of the meds today? they were only given the oral liquid critical care today with a multi mixed into it? is it something i need to worry about? the local vet knows NOTHING about beardies. they actually said (about one of my females) you can tell its a female because it has a lot of spots on its head!!! *****s. i know of no one else local of really anywhere near me who deals with these guys and i have called around before going 3 hours away to my new vet. trust me i would not drive 3 hours if i thought someone local was knowledgeable. neither me or my wife remember him doing this yesterday. so im assuming its not an ri. he sleeps on my shoulder near my ear for a little while before bed and im almost positive he was not making this noise yesterday. its like a very faint whistle not scratchy more of a high pitched whistle. i did use my stethoscope to listen underneath him and i dont hear any crunching noises (like pneumonia type noises) (im trained in the medical field just not on reptiles) i just hear a faint whistle also its much louder on his left nostril then his right side

 

[Rankins]

It sounds like your good at at lung assessments I'm in the medical field also, been a nurse for 26 years.
Its hard to tell you what to do without knowing what is causing the problem. Could be aspiration pneumonia or something else entirely. I would keep him warm, keep humidity low, no baths and continue to monitor. If it worsens or doesn't improve soon a vet visit is warrented.

 

[mastershake]

could this be from doing the force feeding? we had no other option for a while or he would be dead by now. just dont know what to do now. scared for him

 

[Rankins]

It is a possibility...but don't beat yourself up over something if it isn't the cause of the problem. Even if it is the problem don't beat yourself up over it. There is risk with any treatment, things don't always go as planned. I wouldn't blame you or anyone else for it at all.
Do what we have discussed and see how things go. Others may have further suggestions to go along with mine.

 

[mastershake]

okay so we got him in to another vet who my current vet sent me to we just left (we had to drive all the way to miami area so we drove 3+ hours to get here) he for sure has a bad RI and he was put on baytril along with an injection he was given on the spot. then he pooped i think everything he had in him on my shoulder after the shot so they did a fecal.

well if you read my other thread he had coccidia which there is none of ....zero none they could find and they looked hard BUT now he has a few worm eggs. so he is also now on fenbendazole for those. this poor guy i dont know if this will ever end but im hoping now that he will recover quickly. he is already looking better a few hours after the injection they gave him. this vet was awesome and luckily is close friends with my other vet and i cant believe it because we drove all that way he didnt even charge us for anything. he also did an xray of the lungs. gave us the meds and the er vet visit. zero charge. some people really do care about people who love their animals.

i was SO freaked out last night, thank you very much to rankins here who did help to calm me some. now we do have to get all of the others checked because even though they do not share the same enclosure they have been very close and this sick guy loves to sleep close to the others we have when we are holding more then one. so they want to fecal everyone now to be sure and arghhh 2 of them are brand new babies who are still 12 grams or less so it will be harder to treat them. im just REALLY hoping the other dont get the RI now. we have 7 here to treat now :mrgreen:

ill keep this updated as he (hopefully) gets better


edit: wow is he black. i dont think ive ever seen him get this black his beard is just crazy dark is this normal after the baytril? he was not black at all before that. hopefully he is ok

 

[Rankins]

Things sounded good up until the last paragraph. Turning dark is a sign of distress, maybe pain from the shot or worse.
I know your really nervous but you need to call the vet. Let us know what they say.

 

[mastershake]

def from the shot. he is fine now. actually its weird i know its only been 2 doses but he seems more alert now then he has ever been after a couple doses of the baytril. he actually watches us walk around his cage and is coming to the glass. also now its kind of funny (well in a way) he wants us to hold him ALL the time when we put him back his beard goes almost totally black, we take him out and within seconds its normal again he is a spoiled boy now lol

he does have a lump where the shot was given im hoping this will go away any thoughts?

one question i have is his humidity is great sitting right at 30% almost the whole day varies up to 31-32% here and there but most of the time i check it its sitting at 30%. problem is during the night it slowly rises to match our house humidity. it takes a LONG time like until say around 4am but then when we wake him up in the morning his humidity is a little over 40% highest i saw was 45% then when we turn on his heat and uv it starts dropping again. what can i do overnight to keep the humidity down lower? none of our other dragons have an issue like he did so im wondering if he is just susceptible to the humidity especially right now.

thank you again!!

 

[Rankins]

Great news!! I figured it was probably discomfort due to the shot, but I was a bit worried about your dragon. Turning dark is never a good sign and didn't want it to be something worse than the shot.
A lump where the shot was given is normal. Batryl is very tissue irritating and a painful shot.
40% humidity should be fine at night.
Glad to hear your dragon is doing better now!!

 

[mastershake]

so the RI is back yet again. this is the third time in the last year. everything temp wise and humidity is spot on so i know its not that. he is on baytril once again and im thinking that its just working for him. someone told me i have to use fortaz to wipe it out for good but cant find vets to give him that. the vet increased his dosage of baytril over the previous time. im worried that this baytril is killing his liver.

he was literally gasping for breath and the day before he was fine, i went over to look at him and he is opening his mouth and then like hacking all the air out not sure how to explain it. almost like he is trying to cough. i do not see any discharge out of his nose. but he is whistling something fierce when he breathes like you can hear it across the whole room. like a person who has emphysema trying to breath. he is not shedding at all right now.

i was so happy because he finally starting growing after months of making nearly no progress he grew a ton over the last 2 months. we love him so much and i hate seeing him like this and if the baytril isnt working not sure what to do because thats all my vet will give him.