Toothless is sick

[kingofnobbys]

Symptoms :
--- been doing a few small poos each day, straining to do more but this doesn't last long when he does the pooes.
--- discovered upchucked partly digested food in his tank when checking for more poos , included some partly digested crickets and two chomped up supers he had a few days ago.
--- very flat and deenergised
--- beard not black but dark yellow shadow (so uncomfortable , not happy / sick feeling)
--- he was up and basking when I come to the lounge room to feed , weigh and attend to the lizards, moved under his hide while I was feeding Fluffy.
--- his behavior has been relatively normal for him until today when he was very flat and not his usual self.
--- he's been snuggling on my chest and them my wife's chest and back to for 3hrs , very UNTOOTHLESS , usually wont stay on me for more than 15 minutes .... even closed his eyes. If this was Peppa , I wouldn't worry as her normal.


Was very lethargic and not into his crickets and refused his bits of buk choi (usually disappears these with gusto). Had I known he had an upset sick tummy I wouldn't have tried to get him to eat his crickets , was going to give him 2 medium silkworms too but he took 20 min to finally chewup and swallow the last 4 of the 8 medium crickets he had between his lips.
He's had crickets, silkworms ( but not for a about 4 days ) , BSF lavae (2 days ago he was not impressed with these) , 2 supers 3 days ago and a few mealworms as treats each other day with his greens (mostly buk choi) .

Nothing in his tank he can ingest and impacted by, pretty sure he's not ingested something he shouldn't have off the floor.
His temperature is 38C at the basking spot as usual.
His UV is not due to be changed til next month.

Unfortunately all the local vets closed at noon and wont be open til 9am Monday.

Gave him 0.4ml manuka honey by mouth and he seemed to like this , immediately licked his lips and climbed onto my shoulder then wanted down to visit Peppa. But unlike him he stayed there and wasn't roaming all over the place as usual.

Then more cuddles , finally decided he was too warm on me and climbed off and was off the lounge onto the carpet quicker than I expected still hanging about near Peppa , but may be enjoying the coolness of the lino on the kitchen / dining area floor.
Was sitting there just looking about , at least the shadow beard seems to still be there , he's moving about but not as energetically as usual.

I'm hoping that perhaps it's just one of those tummy bugs that will go away.

I don't think he's picked up something from Fluffy because they never come in contact and I wash my hands with F10 Wipes and change my shirt between handling Fluffy and the other lizards.

Back in to bask 5pm, and he's been down and back up ontop his hubbahut .

Going to be a worrying couple of days , I hope I'm just overreacting to a minor health glitch for Toothless who has been in perfect health til now.

Been basking and moving about sitting fairly normally , and has been tracking my wife as she did "interesting things" in the kitchen while prepping food and cooking and responding to voices he likes on TV by turning towards the tv. He's much more alert now than he's been all after since we tried to feed him.

He's usually down for the count by 5:30 - 6pm , but still up basking this evening.

 

[kingofnobbys]

Update :

Sicked up his meal from today while in his tank at 7:30pm, went bb , so back out for more daddy snuggle and eventually went to sleep on me, back in straight under his hubbahut but too warm and didn't stay there long, more straining to pass something , eventually settled himself ontop his hubbahut.

Am very concerned , since he is not holding solid food down , I'll try him on some herpaboost tomorrow or should I hold off on feeding tomorrow, just give some olive oil to him , and see how he goes ?
He's a very well fed adult beardie and he'd probably be OK without food for several days if his is what it takes.

I do have VetaFarm Probiotics on hand should I need these. And an activated carbon kit but I can't see Toothless snapping up a wild roach (so poisoning by one that has been exposed to insecticide nextdoor is unlikely).

 

[kingofnobbys]

He is asleep on top his hubbahut and has a blackbeard. We've very rarely see Toothless show a blackbeard.

Just checked him , and moved him from ontop his hubbahut to under it onto his warmed slab (36 degC) , still will us , but very sleepy as expected.

A few minutes later , up when his tail and he passed some white and wet looking urates, I think that's all he passed today - wet white urates. Noting that incase it's symptomatic of something .
Show's he's well hydrated.
His historical poos over the last month had the following sequence of intervals :
3days, 1day, 4days, 3days, 2days, 1day, 1day, 3days (12 Nov), 5days (17 Nov), 5days (22 Nov) , 1day (3 poos , one normal , others white wet urates) , 1day (today - several , one with some brown (? I never saw it - wife disappeared it) , sicked up (several meals worth) either overnight or this morning , again this evening). Apart from the increased frequency in the passing of urates the last couple of days, his pooing interval has been pretty much normal for him .

Also he lost 4g this week (which is insignificant for him), historical over the last month he and Peppa have lost weight as both were in shed and he was particularly grumpy with it. He's dropped from 500g to 459g over the last month .




Any advise ? wize to hold off feeding him (especially solids and insects) ?

Should I send my wife out tomorrow to pick up something at the chemist / health food shop ? Thinking natural baby type apple sauce ? prune juice ?

 

[SHBailey]

I think it's a good idea to hold off giving him anything solid or trying anything drastic until you can get him to a vet hopefully as early as possible on Monday, although a little unsweetened babyfood applesauce or pumpkin probably wouldn't do any harm, but I wouldn't force it if he doesn't seem to want it, and just let him cuddle with you if he wants to, and try to keep him as comfortable (and hydrated) as possible in the meantime. As you said, he's well fed so he's not going to starve if he doesn't eat for a few days.

At first I was hoping it was just a little indigestion, but it sounds like it's getting more serious. You've been taking all the possible precautions to make sure he didn't eat anything he shouldn't, or catch anything from Fluffy, so no telling what's up with him. Hopefully he'll get better, or the vet will be able to figure out that it's something easily treatable.

Unfortunately, Murphy's law dictates that these sorts of things always seem to happen on a holiday weekend right after all the needed help is off for the day.

 

[kingofnobbys]

He survived the night, but died not long after I got up (early) to check on him. Had a really bad night worrying about him, and expecting to get up to find him dead.

Toothless just passed away - I found him at the cool end of his tank when I got up, but alive but eyes closed and breathing very shallowly.

Tried giving him a couple drops of water using a catheter tube but his mouth was clamped shut so this was impossible.

He did muster enough to crawl up under my chin and snuggle into my neck but started fitting so I placed him over my heart and comforted him, not long after that he had a super bad fit of some kind and tensed up every muscle in his body and had his mouth open poking his tongue out and the look in eyes was one terror/agony for about 30seconds to a minute then he went limp and stopped breathing.

I can feel no hard masses in his gut anywhere so I don't think he was impacted.

I believe his heart gave out.

This happened an hour ago , he would not have survived the trip to the vet, even the one only 15 minutes away and if that vet was open on Sundays.

I suspect he must have had some kind of organ failure that caused the symptoms that came on so fast and unexpectedly in what we thought was a perfectly healthy 2 yr old had never been the least bit sick til yesterday.

Rest In Peace Toothless , life is going to be boring without you getting into everything and entertaining us with your antics.

 

[Esther19]

I am so very sorry for your loss. It's unbelievable that he went so quickly. There must have been something wrong that was undetectable, like you said with his heart. There was nothing more you could have done. He was very fortunate to have you there with him as he crossed over, though I can only imagine the hell that must have been for you. Sincere condolences to you and your wife

 

[AHBD]

Oh my, I'm so sorry to read this, never saw it posted yasterday. I know how special your pets are to you and this must be such a difficult blow, especially coming on so suddenly, so sad !

It does sound like he was definitely straining to get something out since he vomited and was trying to poo, so was impacted. Sometimes we don't see everything on our floors, maybe like in my kitchen a twisty from a bread bag or just some random wire on the floor. There's always the chance of them gobbling up something, even a small screw ,etc. Might also have been a small tumor,No way to know for sure without a necropsy, but so, so sad.

Whatever happened, I send my heartfelt sympathy to your family.

 

[Gormagon]

It is hard to type this with tears in my eyes. I am so so sorry he is gone and, my heart goes out to you and, your wife!

 

[kingofnobbys]

First day without my little spikey mischievous boy, really sinking in today, been really sad,, shed some tears when I thought about how horrible his last minutes were for him , was terrible seeing the look in his eyes while he was in his death throws , the powerlessness of not being able to help him and make it all easier for him .



I think Peppa is missing her brother as she's been really clingy and refused to leave me , been snuggling into me on my chest for hours .

 

[SHBailey]

So sorry to find out Toothless didn't make it through the weekend, but it seems that he chose to die in your arms and at least you were there for him, even if there was nothing you could do. It sounds like you took every precaution and did everything you could.

I know you'll miss him, so you and Peppa have every right to snuggle all you want to comfort each other.

 

[CooperDragon]

I'm really saddened to read this =(. Such an unexpected sudden turn. I wonder what went wrong. He was certainly one of the lucky ones and had a fantastic life with you. Too short a run for the little guy though. I'll miss stories about him climbing around in the kitchen cabinets.

 

[EllenD]

Oh Knobbys I'm so sorry, I saw this post for the first time just now, I feel awful for not seeing it and trying to help, not that there was much I could help with, but at least I could have tried...I'm just so sorry, what a horrible, freak thing to have happen, I can't imagine how you're feeling right now...

Are you going to have a necropsy done? I only ask because of any potential risk to your other guys, although it doesn't sound to me like any type of parasite or infection that would be contagious, it actually sounds to me like either he ate something poisonous, or more than likely, as AHBD also said, it does sound like an impaction or bowel obstruction of some kind, based on both the multiple, small bowel movements, the multiple bowel movements with only urates and no fecal matter, the straining, and the vomiting, all of his symptoms are very indicative to a bowel obstruction. They do eat the damndest things, who knows what he may have picked up off of the floor, it wouldn't take much to cause a bowel obstruction and/or perforation and resulting peritonitis in a beardie, could have been something as simple as a screw, a button, a small battery, etc.

I'm so very sorry, I'll be thinking about you and Toothless...

 

[kingofnobbys]

I never felt any hard lumps in his tummy. Impaction was considered but he had pooed normally a few days before.
We are obsessive about making sure there is nothing on the areas of the floor the lizards are allowed into that they might accidentially ingest.

At the moment I am not keen on having a necropsy done - as it wont help him . I may change my mind later when I'm less emotional about his sudden illness and death, Since I still have Rex in the freezer (haven't been able to get down the steps to bury him) and Toothless is there with him now so they will keep and will be preserved as long as needed.

My focus NOW is caring for the skinks (two bluetongues (who are approaching 8 yrs old) and helping Fluffy heal and recover) and Peppa.

I'm thankful I have them to focus on as I'm pretty miserable keep beating myself up with the whatifs over Toothless, I'd be in a really dark place without my other scaley children to care for.

 

[Betty53218]

My sincere sympathy to you and your wife. Just reading through this now and I’m crying like a baby. I know you love and care for your little ones very much, and this is going to take some time to get through. I can’t even imagine the pain this must be causing your heart. Toothless had a wonderful life with you. I’m so glad he picked you for his daddy.