Unusual Behavior During a Possible Brumation..? (UPDATED)

[CooperDragon]

Hopefully the local doctor will have experience with bearded dragons. It's important, especially with fairly complex issues, to visit an experienced reptile vet. If your local vet isn't able to diagnose the problem, hopefully they will be able to recommend a specialist who can help. Michigan State has a veterinary school and small animal clinic, but I'm not sure if they have a reptile specialist on staff or not.

 

[rlanguid]

When we had first taken Sam to the vet, we visited Airport Animal Clinic in Cadillac, MI. (http://airportanimal.com/exotics/3573442)
The drive was the worst part of going there, and the doctor who looked at Sammy was able to identify what had happened to our little guy at the time. He had broken his arm and wasn't using it, so she was able to give us the information we needed to take care of him.
His second visit to the vet was Animal Alley in Saginaw, MI.
(http://www.animalalleyvet.com/)
We had taken Sam there for issues with constipation - he had been dehydrated, due to the extremely cold Winter we had last year and the heat running constantly - and they were able to diagnose and check Sam for various issues. His blood and fecal tests, and his x-ray(Which brought us to the attention that our little jumper had - once upon a time - broken ALL of his limbs!) came up with everything looking great. His calcium levels were above average, and all in all he was healthy, albeit the dehydration.
So now, we're going to try out Arenac Bay Veterinary Services.
(http://arenacbayvet.com/)
My girlfriend spoke to the secretary and was told that the owner and doctor who wanted to speak to us not only worked on exotics before, but was a reptile owner as well. This was comforting news! So until tomorrow, we will have to wait to find out more.
(We unfortunately live in a small town, which as you may have found out is quite a distance from larger cities with more facilities that can suit our Sammy's needs)

As of now, I've taken to the liberty of getting Sam new UVB bulbs, making sure his heat and UVB rays are accurate as can be.
As always, I'll update this as soon as we learn more!

 

[Esther19]

To my eye, his movement looks coordinated, but somewhat jerky/wobbly. Are those tiny crickets crawling on him and around the tank? How often is his beard black? That can indicate illness or discomfort. Is he getting calcium and vitamins? If so, what is your schedule?

 

[rlanguid]

To my eye, his movement looks coordinated, but somewhat jerky/wobbly. Are those tiny crickets crawling on him and around the tank? How often is his beard black? That can indicate illness or discomfort. Is he getting calcium and vitamins? If so, what is your schedule?

To my knowledge there are no crickets in his tank at the moment - did you happen to spot one in the YouTube video? But either way, we do not leave - or atleast attempt to - crickets in his cage, but sometimes one or so might sneak away and hide in a log. Usually we flush the logs out with water to get the little buggers out.
As for his beard being this dark, it has only started after he began his symptoms of brumation. I'd have to assume it was 4 days or so into him sleeping for long amounts of time that he then started to awake and be upset. Otherwise he's bright and yellow, just like in my avatar and signature. His beard has only been keeping his black complexion as of late, and I only assume it's due to what he's currently going through. Sam has never been an aggressive/spunky boy - very friendly, curious, and docile mostly.
As for his calcium, he has always happily ate plenty of crickets dusted in a bag of calcium powder, up until a week and a half ago(possibly two weeks now) since he started his long sleeping, which we believe to be him trying to brumate. His last tests, granted a year ago, had him at an above average in his required amount of calcium. We haven't given him any other sorts of artificial supplements though - only that which is gained through greens and the crickets he eats.
Hopefully we're able to get a hold of the vet tomorrow, as he was unfortunately unable to call us today, so we can pinpoint what the issue is.
I'm beginning to believe it's a deficiency, but what he is exactly lacking is what we don't know. I'm hoping to get him into the vet asap, perhaps by Wednesday/Thursday.
Even to make sure things were okay with his environment, I just made a trip and bought him a new Exo Terra Solar Glo bulb. (http://www.exo-terra.com/en/products/solar_glo.php) If something was off with his lighting/uvb, it should be fixed now.
As always, I plan on updating this thread as soon as we find out more!

 

[rlanguid]

Hopefully the local doctor will have experience with bearded dragons. It's important, especially with fairly complex issues, to visit an experienced reptile vet. If your local vet isn't able to diagnose the problem, hopefully they will be able to recommend a specialist who can help. Michigan State has a veterinary school and small animal clinic, but I'm not sure if they have a reptile specialist on staff or not.

I have good news, and some bad news. I'll start with the bad first.
As said before, yesterday I went and purchased Sammy a new bulb, just to cross my t's and dot my i's, making sure that everything that we had for him was good. I usually keep all of the boxes of my beardie supplies in my garage, and I thought to look at the last bulb's box to see if something was off. Much to my dismay I've discovered that the last time that we had purchased bulbs for Sam, we ended up buying a bulb with little to no UVB light!
I remember the day specifically - the store only happened to have this brand of 150w bulbs, and we completely forgot to check to see the potency of UVB rays in the bulb.

If that is the case, my baby boy has been without UVB rays for about 6+ months now! I hope not many more than that! I'm mad at myself for not realizing this sooner. Would his behavior wax something of a calcium deficiency??
I've examined his limbs and toes during this time, and everything feels completely normal; no stiffening of the joints, and no tremors in his toes, or abnormal lump on his back/tail/limbs, but maybe that explains his jitters as he moves?
Am I witnessing the minor/beginning states of MBD?

The good news is that we have his appointment scheduled. After a second call to the local veterinary, the doctor was 'still' out on calls at farms, and we couldn't wait any longer. My girlfriend contacted the Animal Alley Vet in Saginaw, the last vet we had went to, and we've set an appointment on Thursday at 12:40pm. (It was the soonest we could get it)
We plan on showing the doctor the footage we received to help pinpoint the issue.

The other good news is that since we've placed the new bulb in his cage, he has shown an apparent liking to it. I can also be happy to report to that we haven't had an issue with his sprinting around his cage for a day and a half now. He's currently napping underneath his light, his head hidden under one of his plateau.

 

[CooperDragon]

Lack of proper UVB for that period of time could cause symptoms like that I believe. Correcting the UVB lighting may fix the issue. Did he get any time outside in natural sunlight this summer? The Solar Glo should put out decent amounts of UVB at about 12'' going by that chart. Which wattage did you pick up? I think there are better bulbs out there but this one will certainly be a big improvement over no UVB at all. What did you have in place before?

 

[rlanguid]

Lack of proper UVB for that period of time could cause symptoms like that I believe. Correcting the UVB lighting may fix the issue. Did he get any time outside in natural sunlight this summer? The Solar Glo should put out decent amounts of UVB at about 12'' going by that chart. Which wattage did you pick up? I think there are better bulbs out there but this one will certainly be a big improvement over no UVB at all. What did you have in place before?

This was his last bulb. (Notice the lack of UVB! I was so mad when I saw that I picked up the wrong bulb!) http://www.exo-terra.com/en/products/intense_basking_spot.php
He was basically getting no UVB rays at all.
As for him getting natural sunlight, he did, but not nearly as much as he has in the past. Where we live now is quite shaded by a large pine tree, so other than when he sat next to me on the windowsill, and the handful of times that he went outside with us(about 6 or 8 times, sitting on our laps), that would be about it.
The bulb is a 125w bulb, which is 25 less than we'd optimally need it to be, but we have his tank floor propped up in order for the rays to impact him more. The only other UVB bulb they had for purchase was the exact same, just at 165w. My domes can only go up to 150w, though.
I am seeing slight improvements with his behavior, hopefully thanks to the usage of his new bulb. I'm under close watch to make sure he's in contact with it.

With that, I wanted to ask if you'd think it'd be a good idea to leave this light on a little longer than usual, given the circumstance. I'd like to fill him up with as much UVB as possible. Normally Sam is content with about 10/11 hours of light, but with him going through this possible brumation I feel like I should dock it down to about 8 or 9.
As much as I would like to give him some calcium powder/water mixture to try to get him to drink, I feel I should wait until we go to the vet and get better direction on what we should do.

 

[CooperDragon]

Yeah that's just a regular basking lamp, not a mercury vapor bulb, so no UVB output. Those are usually used in conjunction with a UVB tube light. That's an alternative setup to using the MVBs. Now that he has an MVB he should be getting enough UVB so he can process calcium and synthesize D3. Hopefully that will help him bounce back. I'd continue to provide him with calcium dust on bugs (with D3 for now) daily as well as a good multivitamin in place of the calcium dust a couple of times per week. 10-11 hours with the light on should be sufficient.

 

[rlanguid]

Well, as always, thank you kindly for your help. I'll see what I can do for the little man and hope he's interested in eating some crickets.
Until then, I'll probably be checking back here on Thursday after our appointment. Let's hope that if it's earlier than that, it's good news!

*Edit* - I just tried to feed Sam some dusted crickets, and he still showed no interest in them whatsoever. If he is actually trying to brumate through this, I imagine trying to get him to ingest the calcium he's going to need will be quite the process.

 

[CooperDragon]

I would speak with the vet about liquid calcium and the appropriate dosage for his weight. It's a bit more concentrated and can be offered on it's own. If he continues to resist eating you could try dropping some baby food squash or green beans on his nose. If he licks that up it will give him some hydration and some nutrients. You can mix a pinch of calcium powder in with it as well. It's possible he is trying to brumate (stable weight will help indicate this) but with lack of UVB it's also likely a nutritional deficiency of some sort.

 

[rlanguid]

Thankfully of all the mess that has happened, I feel his weight has stayed about the same. He doesn't look too different than normal and doesn't feel like he weighs less either. He had stopped eating about a week and a half ago now, so with him not really having anything in his system and his weight appearing to be okay, I think he's alright.
Of course, we'll see what the vet recommends when the time comes.

 

[rlanguid]

So Sam has surprised us, yet again! He had another, albeit quite small, bowel movement just now. We had put him to bed about 2 hours ago, and we found him awake, taking care of business. This is sort of a good thing though! I scooped it up and double-bagged it to take with us to his vet appointment on Thursday.
Perhaps a blessing in disguise? Either way, I thought to update this with what had happened.

 

[rlanguid]

Alright, so Sam's visit to the vet was quite quick! I'm happy to report as well that we may have figured out the main problem.

Here is a chart from Sammy's bloodwork: (right-click, view image, for higher resolution)

He happened to have a very low phosphorus level, which was caused by the lack of eating/his diet. This is expected with how he had stopped eating. His sodium intake was high as well, due to the fact that he was dehydrated. Something that surprised us though was that his calcium levels were actually high. I'm relieved to know it wasn't a deficiency of that after all.

The doctor handled Sammy very well, as he had before when we first went to Animal Alley, and Sam thankfully cooperated really well! I'm willing to bet it was those two days of that UVB bulb increasing his mood and making him feel better. No x-ray was needed, as he said that everything felt completely normal and his levels were high.
As for Sam's odd behavior, he was willing to bet that the lower levels of phosphorus in his body, among the other imbalances he was having, were the likely culprit for it. He said it may have slightly affected him in his neurological functions which caused what we were seeing from him. It made sense, as after we set him up with the proper lighting he had shown improvements within the day.
The treatment that he prescribed was LRS (Lactated Ringer's solution), which we'll be injecting into his skin near right above his thigh. As always, the doctor was extremely descriptive and helpful when teaching us how to administer this to him. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactated_Ringer's_solution)
Finally, he also recommended to feed him twice a day, using a mixture of baby food as the source. We have a blender specifically for Sam which we grind crickets and baby food in(We have had to feed him like this before).
In terms of brumation, the doctor told us to basically keep him fed, as he needs to stabilize. The only worry I had about that was the food possibly sitting in his stomach, but Sam surprised us yet again by having another small bowel movement in the car! He was in his carrier of course, and thankfully we were two blocks away from home when he did.

So thank you, everyone, who happened to look at/post on this thread of mine. It's been a long, strange journey, and hopefully things are going to get back to normal for our baby boy very soon!
I'm going to update this thread with any other news/information we get on him, and as well as after the end of the year. (The doctor wished to take another blood test after a month or so of us fixing the little man up)

All in all, I'm relieved that this issue turned out to be something we can fix! I feel like the chain of stress have been freed, even at a pretty penny. The things we do for love! :lol:

 

[CooperDragon]

That's very good news! I'm glad you got the blood test done and have a better idea about what's going on now. It sounds like you have a good doctor to work with as well =)

 

[Phurba390]

To me it just looks like he is struggling to get comfortable. Maybe he just can't seem to get his body temp where he wants it or lights are bothering him. After watching the youtube vid the first thing I thought was "omg this is ME in the mornings." I get so groggy I feel drunk and often stumble around like this.

I have even heard of beardies having nightmares. It almost seems like that's what's happening. I know this may sound ridiculous but does anyone know if beardies can sleep walk?

I'm just trying to think of other reasons for his behavior that are simple but may be less obvious, since after seeing all you've done (vet visits, light replacement, etc.) you obviously know what you're doing and have pretty much done all you can.

I would recommend placing some small towels or baby blankets in different places in his tank. This way he will have more options. You could also make him a brumation box by cutting a hole big enough for him to crawl out of in the side of a shoebox. You can line it with blankets and put him in there.

In the wild they burrow into the dirt, so maybe it's that cozy feeling of being surrounded and safe that he is trying to find but can't.

I know all this may sound silly, but have you considered maybe it's as simple as a comfort issue? Have you experimented with any different "beds" for him?