This "Phase", the vet visit - stuff!

[kimmie]

Well Angie had her first vet visit - we WON'T be going back I'm sure. For starters, he's NOT a herp vet but see's them (if that makes sense). He looked her all over and said she looks "fabulous and in great health" but didn't have a darn word to say about her not eating/pooing. Looked in her mouth - fine, tried to listen to her heart but couldn't get a hearing (said that was the 1st time) WTH does that mean? (rhetoric question).

He asked what had I been feeding her and I told him (started on cricx, added some pw's, added hornworms and silkworms and when she got tired of the crix and I couldn't get silkies, we went to supers). The gal at the desk told me to try ......"MEALWORMS" :shock: I replied with "Why, they have no nutritional value and they have way too much chitin for a young beardie" She then went on to tell me I should breed them blah blah blah, gutloading them makes them nutritious blah blah blah. Yeah ...ok (no thank you). Besides, if Angie isn't going to eat a super right now, what makes you think she'd eat a mealworm. I can't even get her to eat her grubs NOR her salad.

He did take the stool sample from Tuesday and said he'd have it tested, I find those results out tomorrow. OH he said (after looking in a book) that Pinworms shouldn't cause a problem! WHAT :shock: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He wouldn't do any labs because he hasn't and won't do that with lizards or beardies!

The only GOOD thing out of this is that I did get a name & number of a vet in Northern Virginia to go to! You betcha I'll be contacting them!

So I get Angie home and take her outside for some natural UV. What does the wench do? She POOPED on the grass - almost 2 days of NOT pooping and the little booger POOPED! I did find a stick to poke at it (gross I know) and looked like some undigested supers in there. What does that mean?

I hope this "PHASE" of not eating rectifies itself and soon! I'll have to take a day off to take her to this other vet as it's a 2 - 3 hr drive one way!

 

[Nasubi77]

What exactly are your temps and how exactly do you measure them? Undigested bug parts can mean that the temps are not hot enough.

How old and how long is Angie? If she's under 15" she may not be big enough for supers quite yet. Some of them just have a hard time digesting supers, especially in high quantity, so once she starts eating, you may want to limit her to 5 a day. Make sure she can digest those, and add a couple every few days until you find out what her limit is (as far as being able to digest them).

Ugh, I would definitely not go back to that vet! In fact, I would have been tempted to walk out without paying for that useless visit. You obviously know more than they do.

If she continues to refuse food, you can syringe feed her some chicken and squash baby food. Zap it in the microwave for just a few seconds, long enough to knock off the chill, thin it down a tad with water or pedialyte and add a pinch of calcium.

Anyway, hope she gets to feeling better soon. A good vet is worth a long drive!

 

[kimmie]

What exactly are your temps and how exactly do you measure them? Undigested bug parts can mean that the temps are not hot enough.

How old and how long is Angie? If she's under 15" she may not be big enough for supers quite yet. Some of them just have a hard time digesting supers, especially in high quantity, so once she starts eating, you may want to limit her to 5 a day. Make sure she can digest those, and add a couple every few days until you find out what her limit is (as far as being able to digest them).

Ugh, I would definitely not go back to that vet! In fact, I would have been tempted to walk out without paying for that useless visit. You obviously know more than they do.

If she continues to refuse food, you can syringe feed her some chicken and squash baby food. Zap it in the microwave for just a few seconds, long enough to knock off the chill, thin it down a tad with water or pedialyte and add a pinch of calcium.

Anyway, hope she gets to feeling better soon. A good vet is worth a long drive!

She's 19" long now and I didn't start feeding her supers until she was between 16" and 17" inches as I knew NOT to. She'd been eating supers fine w/o any problem actually and in great amounts, pooping twice a day (sometimes the size of a small puppy dogs poo ) Her temps are measured 2 ways, one - having an accurite thermometer in the viv and the other - with a temp gun. Her basking spot was between 100 - 105 but she started hiding or not going to it so I bumped it down to 99 as maybe she doesn't want that much heat (as some have mentioned/recommended here). I HAVE been offering/trying to syringe a mixture of babyfood chicken with babyfood applesauce, a little water and some calcium powder with that and the first 2 days she was fine, lapping at it but today - NO GO!

She's fine, alert, in great shape, while I thought she lost weight, she hasn't - weighs 356 grams. She just does NOT want to eat.

Once I get results of the fecal, I'll be calling for an appoint. from the out of town vet. They do have Saturday hours, maybe I can arrange to take her then!

 

[Sapphire]

My dragon is about the same age/size as yours and recently he has begun having undigested food in his poo, There's a whole thread on it somewhere in beardie ER, but I'll summarize: Essentially I never figured out what was causing it, nothing helped it (not even acidophiliz), it seemed to clear up on his own after I got smaller crickets (theory was that he was having trouble digesting the adult ones). But after 2-3 days of normalish poo, it went back to having undigested bits in it for two days, then today it was normal... So I don't know what's going on with him and the vet didn't have anything to say about it either. I think they just blamed it on the coccidia, which is feasible I suppose. He has extremely high coccidia counts. Basically the "reptile expert" at the vet's office there told me that I should throw away everything in his viv and clean it with bleach after every time he poops so he doesn't keep re-infecting himself with coccidia. I got some albon (which I thought was what had caused the digestive issues in the first place) and have to treat him for ten days, bleach his viv after every poop, and take his fecal back after the treatment is over. AHHHH *pulls out hair* This is like the fifth time I've had to get meds for him because of worms and/or coccidia.
The weird thing is, through all these treatments, Vash has always been eating. He has never lost interest in food.

But, I hope your vet visit goes well and the vet gives you something that will help...

 

[kimmie]

Well I was able to get an appointment with a REAL specialist for Saturday! YEAH I hope she POOPS before then so I have a "Fresh" sample to take.