Waking up from 1 year brumation and eye problems

[Desdemona]

So, a little history... a little over a year ago my dragon had something in her eye that made it look a little cloudy. I took her to the vet and he tried a couple of things with no results at all. She was losing weight fast as well. She was just going into brumation and after dropping a lot of money on her with no results I decided to just let her sleep and monitor. He had just completed a fecal test with clean results so I let her sleep. The eye wasn't getting better but it also wasn't getting worse. She brumated for a little over a year but with no weight or eye changes. Her eye even seemed to clean up a little bit. After a year I decided to wake her up and see about revisiting the vet again, though a different one this time around. It took some coxing and some baby food but I finally got her up after heating her enclosure a little (it's back to normal now). She is fully awake and even eating on her own, which is a big step for her (she took a couple of months to get around the last time she brumated too, but was fine after a trip to So Cal and summer in the desert). However, when she eats she seems to miss a little, then she'll dig, throwing bugs around (she's not in anything digable) then eat some more. The first time she really ate she spun in a bunch of circles trying to watch all of the bugs at once, would miss a few, but eventually she did manage to eat most of them (supers). I bought some slow soft bodied bugs for her to include hornworms which should be easy enough, especially when they get big.

So, my question is... is she still waking up mentally or do you think maybe some brain damage? She has never been the brightest of Beardies, but eating was never an issue. She is eating, eventually getting a decent amount of bugs in her, so not completely helpless. I'm hoping the soft bodied slower guys will help her bulk back up (she stopped losing weight but never regained much from those first vet visits). While her eyes have not changed she was a little teary today so I do plan on taking her back after she gets some fat (soon). I'm pretty sure the vet visits were stressing her a lot the last go around so I want her to have something to lose if she stresses out again. She did catch a roach, so she's not completely blind or anything like that. But the more than normal confusion, digging, and occasional missing does make me wonder if she lost a few more of her little brain cells.

 

[sue09]

Can I ask why you would let a beardie sleep for a year? I thought they only slept for a few months,surely a year cant be good.

 

[Desdemona]

I've read that some will sleep for up to a year and a half. I double checked after she brumated for a while to be sure. Maybe those sources were wrong? But, that is why I woke her up. Though she had no chances it was like, "ok.... this is a bit much." The lack of a natural environment (their environment is what you make of it...) might be why some do sleep for so long. I doubt they do that in the wild. Mine had light/heat year around but she would flatten out on the floor of the tank so she could be cool. I basically heated her floor (not a lot) so she couldn't snooze anymore. It was still below 80 degrees, but it worked. I use paper towels as substrate so she can easily push them aside and pass out.