Hi all,
Looking for a hail mary diagnosis here... Drax never really improved. He would get slightly better for a couple weeks, then regress.
As of now he is limp and incredibly weak (can't really move any limb). It really looks like I am running out of time to figure out what is going on here. For the record, I have been working closely with Tracie (Drache613), who has been amazing in trying to help. Figured I'd just reach out to see if anyone has any other perspectives/ideas on the matter as a last attempt to save this amazing creature's life.
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To help folks not have to read everything up to this point, here is a summary:
About 8 months ago (July), Drax was 10 months old/337 grams and things were normal... He was growing at a great pace and no issues were noted. From July to December, he slowly lost weight (down to 240 grams by December), despite behaving relatively normally. Additionally, he seemed to stop growing and didn't have a single shed over that time period (and still hasn't). Despite the weight loss, he was still eating "fine"... I say that in quotes because he has always been a bit picky on certain occasions. Due to the weight loss though, we were starting to get concerned. By November, with his weight at 258 grams, we added even more variety to his diet to see if this would help. This seemed to have a positive impact and he actually picked up a little weight (up to 270 grams). Thinking things were going in the right direction, we decided to continue with our plans to visit family for the holidays (we had to bring him with us). We have traveled with him before, and this had messed with his eating habits before, which is why we were somewhat hesitant. Unfortunately, our fears became reality, as he only ate 3 worms the entire 15 days that we were with family (those three worms were also towards the beginning of that time period).
When we got back from our trip, we immediately went to our local exotics vet as it had been over a week since he had eaten. The symptoms we provided to the vet were no appetite and weight loss. The vet could not find any visible signs of illness outside of being too skinny... They also mentioned that these symptoms can be caused by many different things. While a fecal would have helped, Drax's lack of food intake made that not possible. Despite not having a fecal, the vet decided to treat Drax for parasites using Albon and Panacur (5-day treatment). Additionally, they provided me with some oxbow critical care food in order to start getting something into his stomach.
After the parasite treatments ended, Drax still had no interest in food (though his weight had stabilized at around 240 grams). As I did during treatment, I syringed critical care and squash/chicken baby food (in addition to some probiotic) to keep him from wasting away. Worried over his lack of appetite, I proceeded to get a stool sample (stool sample was now possible due to syringing food) and blood work (this was in the middle of January.) The stool sample came back negative for any parasites, but the blood work identified low calcium levels (everything else seemed to be normal, and I actually had you look over the charts) and a bad calcium to phosphorus ratio. The vet diagnosed him with nutritional secondary hyperparathyroidism. This seemed to make sense as the issues always got worse when we traveled... and we later found out that his travel UVB was no good (it had a plastic cover on it
).
With a diagnosis in mind, we began treating him with liquid calcium (Flukers) and adjusting his lights to achieve better distances. We also replaced our 10.0 T8 UVB setup (which we now know was too far away and above a wired top) with a 10.0 T5 UVB hood (reptisun). We also purchased a mercury vapor bulb per the vet's request. The day we got the mercury vapor bulb, he started
black bearding. He would also freak out and run full speed in all directions... we were scared for his safety! Eventually we concluded he hated the bulb for some reason, so we changed the setup to having just the T5 UVB and his basking lamps. Almost right away the freak outs stopped. Not long after this, we noticed his walking had become strange. He was off balance and would limp. Additionally, he began having head tremors. The vet (and beardeddragon.org folks) seemed convinced this was just the hypocalcemia progressing, so I decided to switch calcium brands to one that had better dosing instructions (Zilla). Within a week his walking was back to normal. Soon after (beginning of February), he actually began eating on his own (collards and mustard greens when hand fed). We thought we were finally seeing progress... Then, literally overnight, his limp returned. Within 24 hours the limp progressed to full paralysis of his front left arm. A few days before he re-developed the limp, he did take a fall off of his basking rock... but I didn't think much of it when he was fine directly afterwards. Either way, I decided to "baby proof" his tank to make things easy on him in case it was an injury. After a week, he regained use of his arm. So, again we were hopeful that it was just a minor setback and we were still treating for the right thing. Then, a week later, his front right arm (opposite of before) randomly become weak (partially paralyzed). This partial limb paralysis on different extremities continued off and on through much of February and all of March. Additionally, he began experiencing swelling on his right hand's big finger and his left arm's wrist. He also began walking on his right wrist consistently during the last couple weeks of March. A couple weeks ago I tried treating for gout in addition to the calcium treatments, but never saw any improvement. Within the past week though, he took a nose dive. He really can't move any of his limbs and is completely limp when I pick him up. His eyes are often still alert though and he will react to food in front of him... That said, he is too weak to eat anything. He has now been like this since Friday (4/1).
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I can honestly say I have spent 10s of hours scrolling through this site looking at past situations to find anything remotely similar to this... but I haven't. I am hoping maybe someone on here has a suggestion.