Will Oral Ca supplementation interfere with IM Baytril?

[parodyofagirl]

These are my main questions:

Will my addition of a small amount of Calcium to Quincy's diet interfere with the effectiveness of his IM Baytril injections. I know oral calcium can bind to oral antibiotics.

Is there any way to determine how much calcium Quincy needs?  He was having some minor fast twitchy muscle fasciculations while his UV bulb was out.  They stopped after his new bulb arrived and I started adding a tiny bit of extra calcium to his food.


This is the whole detailed, long-winded story:
Quincy is a 6 year old male (figured that out yesterday...FINALY lol) bearded dragon.  He weighs around 460 grams and is a bit underweight for his length.  (he is at least 20" long.)  He had oral surgery on 12-23-2013 to remove two 'areas of concern" from the right side of his mouth.  The vet is also treating him for a mild secondary infection in his mouth.  So far, Quincy is healing up nicely.


For the secondary oral infection, he has been receiving Baytril (don't know the strength) 9 units IM every 5 days at the vet's office.  His 4th shot is tomorrow evening, his 3rd was Saturday, his second was dec 23rd while he was under anesthesia, and the first was 6 days prior during his initial visit on a Tuesday. (Vets office is closed on Sunday.)


Quincy has bulging eyes and has for years.  Many people here have suggested it is because of damage caused by his reptiGLO tube bulb.  The vet suspects that Quincy has a vascular problem like an aneurism or possibly an URI.  Quincy has no neurological deficits, and no symptoms that suggest that he has had a URI for 4+ years.  I think they might be caused by a chronic deficiency (maybe calcium) or genetic quirk but I am not an expert.


There is no excuse for this, but a long time ago, we got the names of the bulbs mixed up and started buying the reptiGLO 18" tubes instead of the reptiSUN 18" tubes.  We live in Florida and I've always taken Quincy outside on sunny days to get natural light.  He has been too stressed since his surgery to want to go outside when we have had sun.


We ordered the reptiSUN and I turned off his reptiGLO for a few days over the weekend to see if it would help with his eyes.


He started having some fast twitchy muscle fasciculations in his beard and shoulder on his right side while the reptiGLO was off.  I also noticed this happen with a muscle group in one of his legs and the thick part of his tail.  I immediately suspected a Calcium deficiency and tried to not freak out.


The reptiSUN arrived monday and it has been on approximately 12 hours a day since it arrived.


I have been syringe feeding Quincy for awhile.  I went to the pet store Monday night to get him calcium to add to his baby food, pumpkin, and repta+boost.  The repta+boost has an okay Ca ratio of 1.2 (I think.)  

Quincy does not consume enough Repta+Boost to meet his nutritional needs as a 460 gram dragon.  He has some other symptoms that seem to fit a chronic calcium deficiency like the way his toes have started bending weird.  This is likely due to years under the wrong crappy UV light and more recently his months of reduced food intake due to the problems with his mouth.

Because I know the muscle fasciculations are a bad thing.  I've started adding small amounts of Zoo Med's repti calcium with D3 (they didn't have it without D3) to his food.  I've been adding 1/4 of a .625cc scoop of Ca to 4 scoops of repta+boost which is added to baby food and pumpkin puree.  He doesn't eat it all.

I haven't seen any additional muscle fasciculations since I started giving him extra calcium.

What I need to know is if this addition of Calcium to his diet will interfere with the effectiveness of his IM Baytril injections. I know oral calcium can bind to oral antibiotics.

Is there any way to determine how much calcium Quincy needs?

I want to play it safe with him so, I would prefer to start at a lower dose of additional Calcium and titrate upwards to the proper dose for his weight.  He has had problems with calcium supplementation and hard urates in the past.

 

[AHBD]

I don't think that a normal amount of calcium supplementation will make any difference to the injections. It sounds like his mouth is healing well, so that's great ! And he really IS a he.... what a shock after there years, huh?

 

[parodyofagirl]

So, it really is just oral calcium that causes certain oral antibiotics to not work?

Yes, he really is a he. When I was looking at google images for femoral pores (his are really big) one of the pictures was this weird looking bent plasticky pinkish/whitish thing.

We were on the phone with the vet a few months back trying to get an emergency appointment because Quincy had been straining in the bath for close to 45 minutes trying to pass something that kind of looked like urates, but was in the vent fold going down his tail. We thought he was developing a prolapse in front of our eyes when I was able to help him enough for it to come out. It was the same thing as the weird bent plasticky pinkish whitish thing from the picture. He passed a second one a few days later without any problem.

The weird bent pinkish whitish plasticky things were apparently seminal plugs. He is definitely male lol.

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

Those seminal plugs are strange, aren't they? So he passed a couple of them?
Which calcium are you using, do you have a strength of the solution? I can help dose the calcium, if you need for Quincy. The liquid calcium should be absorbed easily with the injections of the Baytril. The Ba tril should be able to be effective when giving liquid calcium. The urates shouldn't get too hard with liquid calcium, either.

I think that the Reptisun 10 tube bulb should do much better than the Reptiglo 10. The UVB wavelengths are much better.
How is Quincy doing well today?
How is his appetite & are you giving probiotics also to help while he is on meds?

Tracie

 

[parodyofagirl]

Tracie, those seminal plugs were weird.  I'd seen them before once or twice, when he passed them without a problem, but i just thought they were weird urates.

I have not given Quincy any probiotics (but i did pick up some benebac from petco just in case).  His bowel movements since he started the antibiotics have been perfect and regular. Prior to the antibiotics, they were always just a little bit off.  His appetite is really good too.  He has been eating about twice as much as he was prior to surgery and he has been gaining weight little by little which is good.

Thank you for helping me with the calcium dosing.

Quincy's repta+boost has calcium (0.60% min) and phosphorus (0.50% min).  He gets between 8-10 0.625cc scoops of reptiboost mixed with baby food and pumpkin puree.  He regularly eats about 2/3rds of what I give him.  (This is less than what is recommended he consume for his weight.)

The calcium I purchased from petco is the 3oz container of zoo med's repti calcium with D3.  It was the only low/no phosphorus supplement in the store that didn't have a lot of D3.  The repti calcium is calcium carbonate and cholecalciferol (source of D3).
It has a guaranteed analysis of between 38%-43% calcium (between 380,000mg and 430,000mg calcium per kg)
and 10,390 IU of D3 (22,907 IU per kg)

Repta+boost already has D3 and a bunch of other vitamins/minerals in it, but doesn't list the amounts beyond those of fat, protein, fiber, moisture, calcium, and phosphorus.

Finally, we got the good news yesterday:  Quincy does NOT have cancer.  The pathologist described the growth as a fibropapilloma that lacked viral inclusions (so, not reptile herpes or a papillomavirus either!!!) but it was full of colonies of bacilli and cocci.  This is the link to a picture of his pathology report: http://i.imgur.com/X8cYaQy.jpg

In a nutshell, poor husbandry and/or a chronic infection and/or a chronic condition and/or chronic nutritional deficiency caused his immune system to be too weakened to fight the infection once his mouth was injured when he leapt off of the couch.

Right now, we need to focus on correcting our husbandry (he is so much more active under the reptisun bulb it is incredible), and meeting his dietary and nutritional needs.

Is a probiotic advisable if Quincy's oral surgical site isn't completely healed and he has seemingly had no adverse gastrointestinal symptoms from the Baytril?