Ready for a long post? I have never taken a reptile to a vet before and I have a lot of stuff below - comments and questions.
Okay, so we are home (and someone is very unhappy about the whole ordeal)... The vet took a look at my husbandry (I printed out bd's list of questions and brought them with me...) and some baby pictures of Squishy. They took a radiograph of Squishy and her bone density is actually looking really good (yay me!). They are happy with her bone density and looking at the joints she felt there was no gout happening. She is worried about infection or fungus.
So we put in (I say we because I am a tech and helped) a local anesthetic and made a small incision. She took a couple of swabs of the 'blood' that she was able to milk out of there and she is sending one to the lab for bacti and one she used to make some slides and she is going to have a look at one under the microscope and the other she may send off to the lab as well. I call it blood but it was actually relatively clear (with some blood from the incision) and gooey looking (more like clear snot with blood mixed in). It was not what the vet was expecting to come out of there either - she expected more pus-like looking stuff.
In the mean time... Squishy is on 3 different drugs - 4 kind of (Tracy I do not know what the dosages are for reptiles so please let me know if they are wrong - she is 382gm):
Metacam (anti-inflammatory) 0.5mg/ml - 0.04ml PO SID (by mouth once daily) until treatment and diagnosis are decided
Metronidazole (antibiotic) 50mg/ml - 0.15ml PO SID for 10 days unless directed otherwise
Baytril (antibiotic) 50mg/ml - 0.04ml SQ SID for 10 days unless directed otherwise.
Flamazine (like polysporin) - apply to incision SID - BID until healed
She detests the injection of Baytril and her
black beard has not gone away since the oral Flagyl (Metronidazole) but she doesn't seem to mind the Metacam (yay!). So I was wondering if there is any way to flavour the flagyl to make it so she does not hate me for the next 10 days or until we get the results back. I could try the crickets again (I injected them with baytril when I gave them to my leopard gecko a while ago) as she loves to eat them even if only a leg is moving... I am also to push 5-8 mls of fluids into her everyday (maybe some diluted apple or cranberry juice would help?). Also - probiotics... being on 2 antibiotics I know her gut is not going to be happy. I have Acidophilus with BIFIDUS and FOS capsules for myself. Can I give her some of the powder from in one of those in her fluids or is there another type I should get her?
She still cannot feel her rear foot (although it is very nicely coloured yellow right now - her happy colour) and is otherwise all dark. She is currently sitting in the windowsill (window open, screen closed) on her snugglesafe (like a heating pad) as it is still cool outside.
Now regarding her sutures - she has 2 sutures in the top side of her rear right foot, she also has some dried blood around the incision. Can I give her a
bath or should I wait until tomorrow so the incision has a chance to seal with the serum? Can I take a piece of gauze and give it a wipe down? I would love to clean it up as blood is a great bacteria medium and I would prefer to do it while she is still frozen so she doesn't feel it.
Thanks for your help in advance - her shed has not started but she has quite a few large patches that are going to go when it gets started.... Hopefully she will be a bit happier when the taste of the flagyl is gone and she has shed a bit (maybe I will go and get her a couple of treats from the store)