Should I ask to put my bearded dragon down?

[Mordekaifly]

This is a hard post to make these past couple of weeks I have been fighting to make my bearded dragon healthy again but it just seems like everything is going downhill.

the terrarium: It is a hundred gallons, his basking spot is 98 F , hot side 93 F , cool side 84 . lighting is Reptisun 10.0 UVB ( long tube bulb)

It all started when my dragon began acting weird he first didn't want to really want to eat. I was even shocked when he didn't want to eat any crickets. A couple of days go by and I was afraid he had an impaction so I syringe fed him pumpkin and he miraculously pooped. Yet, another issue appeared in which he was closing one eye...I was researching to see what could be causing it and after a couple of days, I decided to take him to the vet because I have never seen him with such behavior before. The vet looked at his eye and said that he had an abscess and he gave my bearded dragon a convenia shot with some eye drops to treat his eye. I had hope that he would get better but he got worse. The first week he became extremely weak he was hardly eating at all, and I had to syringe feed him pure greens because I was terrified that he would literally starve to death from refusing to eat (He absolutely Hated being syringe fed). He would hardly walk and slowly began to lose the strength to walk and looked like he was shaking from how weak he was. I asked the vet if it's Possible if he had MBD but he said the type of abscess he has is the one that affects his brain, however, it is not something he can entirely determine?
I saw the vet again the second week, and I asked what to feed my dragon since he is absolutely refusing to eat veggies or crickets and the vet recommended baby food and a smaller syringe to feed my dragon with. So I started to give him baby food with repta boost on the side and I noticed an improvement. My dragon was able to stand and walk for a short period of time, however, now he just slumps down and breathes really hard. Also, the baby food worked for a week but yesterday he had diarrhea and vomited so I was really hesitant about feeding him yesterday. He started to drool a lot recently as well and with a lot of research it looks like it possible he could have respiratory issues? I emailed the vet extremely worried and he said he will look at my dragon on Saturday.
However, today I honestly lost faith in his healing whatsoever. Idk why the vet cant look deeper into my dragon's issues or how I can sternly ask him because from what I have seen I have no clue what could be happening to my dragon.
Today I tried to give my dragon insects again and I tried to specifically feed him a hornworm. He actually reached out to grab it showing that he wanted to eat it but I saw something more disturbing. Instead of reaching to bite out at the worm he pointed his head up and was biting at the air and was twitching and he went back down twitching and shaking his head. He would only stand up on all fours when he was biting into the air instead of when he usually would lazily wait for the insects to come to him to eat them. It honestly looked like the soul of my dragon was gone and there is just a shell of my reptile in pain unable to even eat his food properly. I'm bawling my eyes typing this because I am in overall shock at what I am looking at I really want to know if this is the doing of an abscess. It feels like it's something else and honestly if this is permanent ( the neurological issues) should I ask my vet to put my dragon down. I feel like I am selfishly keeping him here and it has been so hard to watch him these past thew weeks. Everything just happened so fast and I am struggling to keep up. I have never asked for an animal to be put down so I do not know what is proper or the right way to go about things.

 

[KarrieRee]

Please post pics of the dragon and his lighting so we can see what is going on
https://www.beardeddragon.org/useruploads/ click on XIMG at the top of the message box then click on the pic it should post ----
Where is the UVB in the tank ? Top of screen or inside the tank --
www.arav.org to find another vet -- sounds like you need a reptile vet
Karrie

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

I am so sorry your dragon is having such an awful time. As Karrie has requested, we do need
your setup information so we can try to pinpoint any issues.
The 100 gallon tank is large so we need to see the lighting placement. Is the light on top of or
underneath of the screen top?
Could he have had a stroke possibly? It does sound neurological a bit, but an abscess on or
around his eye is odd.
Has his beard been black at all?

Tracie

 

[Longfellow777]

is this an exotics vet or herp vet your dealing with? in my experience with a exotics vet they are not as equiped or experienced. They get alot of snakes and easier reptiles but may have not worked with beardies much. I wasn't getting good help unless I drove hours to the herp vet. Do you have herp vets near you?

 

[AHBD]

Longfellow this thread is almost a year old. Still, hopefully things turned out O.K and maybe the O.P. will update.

 

[Longfellow777]

oh wow I didn't even notice ty AHBD. He was so descriptive about the drooling and symptoms it made me really feel for him. Can't imagine ?

 

[beardie]

FYI. Looks like the older lock on posts didn't seem to stick universally. I've added a plugin to our new system that should similarly auto lock old threads. It may take a while to catch up.

[Edit] I think the plugin isn't what I want. Looks like it will lock any thread from its start time, not last post time. Will keep looking for an alternative to better manage idle threads.