My name is Tom I have been following your post about Zeke for the past two weeks due to my lizard having some of the same symptoms. I am not sure if i am posting to get help of a similar issue, or trying to let you know your not alone.
Here is the information about my little girl Lucy
- Age = 7-8 months
- Size = 14 inches
- Size of the enclosure = 4' long 1' wide and 2' tall
- Temperatures = cool side is 85-90 basking spot is 100-105
- Type of substrate = reptile carpet
- Diet (before she got sick) was crickets leafy greens and fruit
- Diet (when i have been hand feeding her)- carnivore care(powder food), baby food (squash, apple, prunes),
-Lighting = I have a 4 foot 2 bulb florescent fixture with two reptisun 10.0 uvb
The first time I took lucy to the vet was due to the way she was playing with her own reflection in her cage. I have seen bearded dragons do this before, but what scared me and made me rush her to the vet was that she would seem to kind of tremor and "spaz" out a bit as she would move and squish her body in weird ways. The vet did a comprehensive physical exam, and during lucy took a huge poop the vet told me that she could have just been constipated and constipation can push up on to there nervs and make them do weird things. I still being worried had the vet test for parasites, this test came back clear. I watched her closely for the next day and at times felt as if things were getting better.
Two days later though I turned on her light in the morning and had quite the traumatic experience. She stuck her head and tail straight up into the air and puffed out flat as a piece of paper and began running around her cage, she even flipped her self all the way over. I helped her back up to a normal position as quick as I could only to have her continue to tremor. she continued to keep her head (with mouth open) and tail straight back through out this whole experience. I had never seen anything like this before. I rushed her to the vet immediately. The vet told me that she seemed defensive during the exam so she thought that she could be in pain. the vet game me METACAM a pain medication, and ENROFLOXACIN an antibiotic to give her two times a day. I did as the vet told me and gave her these meds for three days till i saw the same symptoms as before. during this time she also began to ignore her normal food so i brought her back to the vet again. This time the vet gave lucy a calcium glucose injection, a mineral admin, and a powder food to mix with water and feed her twice a day. The vet also told me to stop giving the meds that she had prescribed three days before. I began to feed lucy by hand twice a day and felt like i was almost getting there. she had two big poops of really hard black matter come out after i began to hand feed her by hand. her overall color seemed to come back (except the beard) i kept a really close eye on her but as of sunday things began to go down hill again she started to have the same spaz attack from before again. I just took her to the vet today due to this symptom coming back. This time getting an xray. the results were not good the vet told us that it looked like a cancer growth that was blocking up her lungs. the vet said this was why she was having her spaz attacks. she said she didnt even think surgery was an option. she basically just told me how much it was to Euthanasia her and that she would want to perform an autopsy due to the way that lucy has baffeled her mind, yet they wouldn't tell us the results from this unless we paid another 50 dollars for the phone call.
I am at a loss, I am broken down and i don't really know what to do. The only thing i have thought of was when my uncles dog was diagnosed with cancer they were told by the vet that he may live 6 days to 6 months. they herd from a friend to mix flax seed oil in with his food, they took her advice and began to do this six months later they returned to the vet and had a cancer free dog. after my news from the vet I took her home and decided to give it one last shot and began mixing flax seed oil in with her powder formula.
Does anyone else have any ideas?
Please keep my up to date with ZEKEs progress and what your vet recommends you do?