Swollen, possibly infected shoulder; in dire need of advice.

[Drache613]

Hello,

The sporonex is fine for a fungal issue. How long is he going to be on that medication?
Baytril is the antibiotic he on & what is the dosage? How long will he be on that medication?
Is his system responding well to the antifungal medication or are they going to do a tissue sample/culture to determine other causes?
Hopefully there are no tumors involved here!
You can try feeding chicken/turkey baby food if he will tolerate it. When feeding him, are you gently getting his mouth open with a swab or dripping it on the end of his nose to see if he will take it. How many insects does he eat?
How is he looking today?

Tracie

 

[oneiro]

The Baytril is the same dosage mentioned in the first post...0.1 ml daily, I believe. He's been put on both medications for 14 days to start with. If the treatment is looking like it is effective when we take him in for a follow-up, she'll probably keep him on it for a while longer.

He's fine today, still basking and acting very normal. I was warned about dehydration due to the medications, which might also affect how he is eating, so I've been soaking him twice a day and giving him lots and lots of water, which he is drinking quite happily. Shoulder looks the same, but two days on the medication is probably not enough time for it to show results, I imagine. Again, if the follow-up does not show good results, then a tissue sample will be done to check for tumors.

As far as feeding him goes, I usually try dribbling the formula on his nose. It works for a little bit and he is generally very acquiescent and realizes that when stuff gets put on his nose he's supposed to eat it, but he's started ignoring me when I give him formula. I haven't tried swabbing it - normally I just pop open his mouth with my finger like our vet showed me and then syringe bits in at a time. It is time-consuming, though, and he's destroyed three syringes already...

I've started doing this same thing but sticking greens and vegetables in his mouth instead. I've had more success with this and his mouth does not get bruised.

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

That is great, it sounds like he is starting to do a little better now?
It sounds like you are doing a wonderful job of keeping him hydrated too with baths. At least he is basking normally too.
Is the water fluoride free or do you use filtered water to bathe him?
Giving him food by hand feeding him works great & saves stress if he will eat that way. They do wise up when we syringe feed them though.

Keep us posted on him. I hope it turns out to not be any tumor related issue!

Tracie

 

[oneiro]

**** UPDATE *****

Hey, everyone. It's been a long time and I haven't posted because I haven't really known what to say. It has now been several months and our vet kept giving us the same dodgy, unclear answers ...so after all this time kind of running around in the dark and banging our heads on glass walls, we finally wised up and took Jaime to a different vet who apparently has a lot more experience with bearded dragons, because this vet gave us no bull.

He told us it's a classic case of yellow fungus. Which is funny, because previous vet said they'd never seen anything like this.

So here's what's happened in the mean time: Previous vet put Jaime on a salve for some strange lesions on his vent. I also applied this salve to his shoulder, which split open a couple days later. He now has a gaping hole in his shoulder that we are treating.
Meanwhile, yellow on his scales started to spread, with some dark necrotic patches appearing.

Jaime's been on and off oral antifungals (our previous vet put him on oral medication first instead of topical; it was only when we got the topical salve that it became clear what we were dealing with.

I know the prognosis for Jaime isn't the best, but I've found other posts here detailing how to treat yellow fungus and I think that with fastidious care, Jaime might stand a chance, so I'm going to start doing that immediately.

My current plan of action is to use paper towels as a substrate, replacing them every day. He will also have a daily betadine bath, followed by monistat cream or the salve we've been using, depending on what ends up being more effective.
If necessary, I might put Jaime back on the oral antifungals, but he reacts extremely poorly to them so I won't do it unless it seems necessary.

Please, anyone and everyone, feel free to add suggestions or comments, especially those of you who have dealt/are dealing with this illness.

Thank you guys so much for your help so far; I'm just happy I finally know what I'm dealing with.

 

[AHBD]

Hi again ! Poor Jaime, at least you seem to have a more competent vet now. I mentioned it before, but if you haven't already, check out the thread about Dino's yellow fungus in the infectious diseases forum. That's one that may give you the best advice. It should be right near the top of the threads. I wish the very best for you !

 

[oneiro]

Thank you, I went and checked out that thread - it was helpful! I liked one user's idea of using chamomile tea bags as compresses for bad spots, and I'm also going to make him eat lots of alkaline-rich foods. Hopefully with all these suggestions we can get him on his way to recovery. The disease has been around for a while without us recognizing what it was and I'm amazed it didn't spread faster, but if that trend continues then I think there's a good chance of kicking it. He's a fighter, too, which always helps.

Thanks so much for the well-wishes. I'll keep posting about his progress, too, maybe a weekly or biweekly update.

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

I hope that he gets better soon. Are you giving probiotics for him daily, to help with restoring his bacteria system?
I am surprised it didn't spread more, too!
How are his spirits, is he doing well & eating?
I am pulling for him!

Keep us posted on him.

Tracie

 

[oneiro]

Hi Tracie,

It just occurred to me yesterday that I should probably start some sort of probiotic treatment. I bought soy yogurt a while back which seemed to work, but haven't been able to do that this time around yet for reasons related to both time and to money, but I will do that ASAP.

So far he's been pretty down; it's been five or six days now after taking him off the antifungals and for this entire time he's been extremely lethargic and not moving, with a constant black beard no matter what we do, and he's badly underweight again (273 grams as of today). I've decided I probably just need to be more ruthless about giving him critical and carnivore care formulas - he really hates them and I feel so bad forcing him, but since he won't eat on his own I'm just going to give him as much as he can stand until he shows some significant weight gain. His eyes look really sunken and his head ridges have deep indentations; it's basically just his skull with a layer of skin on it. Saddest and scariest thing we've seen with him so far.

(For comparison, the last time he was like this, he started acting like himself roughly three days after stopping the antifungals; that doesn't seem to be holding now, though perhaps that is due to the fact that we haven't restored the natural balance of bacteria like we did last time.)

I suspect a possible concurrent coccidia infection, he's always been kind of prone to them and he had a tiny bit of blood in his stool this morning - I can't afford a fecal for a couple of weeks, though, and I don't know if it's a good idea to give him medicine for that unless we know for sure. (Maybe you have some advice there?)

The new vet that we took him to seemed to think that he might be like this for a while, so while I've been worried about it I haven't been having panic attacks over it or anything; I thought it might also be possible that his shoulder is really hurting him and might cause this behavior. If you have any ideas about how to improve his mood and behavior, though, I'd love suggestions 'cause I'm running out of ideas. I should add that he seemed quite a bit better today when I fed him at lunchtime; I think I fed him so much he was almost sick, but he started moving around a little bit more after that and his beard went to a darkisk gray instead of the black we've been seeing.

Okay, I think that's it for how he's doing right now. Thanks so much for your time and advice.

I do have one question that I was hoping someone might be able to answer; the salve we've been using that worked really well on his vent lesions is called DermaVet and I'm not sure whether to use just that, just Monistat, or both. The previous vet recommended that we start using DermaVet twice a day, but I was wondering if it would be better to use Monistat in the morning and DermaVet at night or something like that?

I can't remember the specifics of DermaVet right now and I'm at work, but here's a link to it: http://www.drugs.com/vet/derma-vet-ointment.html

Thanks again to everyone here!

 

[oneiro]

Okay, small update/question:
I got home and I'm more concerned now...

Jaime's been going to the bathroom several times a day and it's been pretty runny...I figured this was due to meds, but now I've seen small amounts of blood in two of them (one earlier today, one after I fed him when I came home). Should I be worried that the meds he was on messed up his liver, or is this more likely a consequence of gut flora being unbalanced? (or are my original suspicions about coccidia/parasites more likely to be correct?)

Edit: Oddly enough, he's being a bit more normal/active now too...

 

[AHBD]

Poor little Jaime...can you get a picture if you see any blood next time ? I think it would be good to try getting the probiotics in him to see if he feels a little better + maybe his stress levels go down a bit and his poo gets back to looking normal. Give it a few days or so. As for the ointments, if you feel the one that the vet was prescribed was doing any good, keep it up. But I think trying the other can't hurt either.

 

[oneiro]

I only have a camera phone and the poo is so runny/covers such a small area that you can't really see it in the picture, let alone the blood traces...if there's one where it shows up, I'll post it here.

Something else just happened that made me nervous and got me thinking...the lesions on his vent cleared up really well after we used the DermaVet salve and seemed to be completely gone, but apparently there was yet another layer of fungus under that because a piece just fell off. Thing is, it's around the edges of his vent - most of it came off just now, but now I'm worried that there might be fungus inside his vent and might make its way to vital organs from there? Is that possible, and if so, could these issues be because fungus got somewhere important?

Sorry for the onslaught of questions, but I just started noticing all these weird things at once. o_o

 

[oneiro]

****************************UPDATE**************************************

Jaime passed away sometime last night. I don't know why or what happened. It appears he may have thrown up, perhaps choked...he was lying with his mouth open and food around him.

I suspect he hasn't really been digesting food these past couple of days. Maybe fungus got in the liver. Maybe meds damaged his liver. I don't know. I hope he is in peace now.

Thanks everyone for your help.

 

[AHBD]

Oh no, I'm so very , very sorry ! My heart goes out to you, you really tried to help your baby Jamie, and I know you're devastated. Please accept all my condolences and know that others are thinking of you. I'm so sorry.