Jumpy in Hospital

[Jumpy's Mom]

Hello - I'm new here, first time BD owner. Jumpy is 11-1/2 months and we've had her since she was 4 months. In April, had a vet check and clean bill of health. Lately she's been lethargic and laying under her hammock all day, not interested really in food and last night, she lost the use of her back legs. I took her to the reptile vet and after X-rays and blood work, they could not determine what was wrong with her. they suspect possibly pneumonia, ruled out MDB and her blood work showed healthy levels of all calcium, etc. They are treating her now in hospital, for pneumonia and sending her blood out to a specialist to see if it's possibly leukemia. Anyway, they sampled her stool and it was grey-ish paste. I don't have loose substrate and we can't figure out why this might be.
Has anyone on this forum experienced anything similar with their dragon and maybe has some insight for me? She is in the hospital until at least Saturday and she's being given injected antibiotics at this point.

thanks for any insight you may have.

 

[Hdrydr31]

Sorry this is happening to you, when did she last poop?? they can loose mobility if impacted..

 

[Jumpy's Mom]

Hi - I thought that was the issue also. She's not impacted - Xrays show no impaction. Update: They gave her an enema yesterday morning and she pooped a greyish sludge. She has pinworms and 2 other parasites (can't remember the names, I was driving and didn't write them down). So I went home, dumped all the superworms and realized that the greyish stuff was actually the oatmeal/bran mix that the supers were in. When I dumped them out into the trash, I saw the oatmeal 'powder' at the bottom of the bin. They were eating their bedding and she was eating them, hence the crap in her body. ugh. I just learned yesterday also, that they can get parasites in their lungs, and the vet was saying that she thinks she has pneumonia, looking at the xrays. But now I'm thinking parasites in her lungs....so I'm calling the vet this morning when she gets in. I sanitized her 40gal tank, then decided to build her new tank which arrived on Wednesday and just start completely over with a new tank. At this point, I'm just hoping she actually comes home to us.

 

[PatsyB]

Most bugs need to be gut loaded before you feed them to your dragon. Supers will eat their substrate if they don't have anything else to eat, and they also poop in it. So that gray stuff at the bottom of the container is poop and substrate. Feed your bugs the same healthy greens that you feed your dragon.

 

[Jumpy's Mom]

Yeah - I figured that out already, but thanks. She's home and alert, seems happy enough. But still dragging her back legs. At this point, I'm taking her to a second herp vet today for a second opinion on that. There's no signs of MBD - X-rays came back showing healthy bones.

 

[PatsyB]

Could she have fallen from something in her tank? Maybe there is nerve damage.

 

[Jumpy's Mom]

If she did, we weren't aware of it. The vet asked that also, and I said we weren't aware of any trauma/falls. We are seriously at a loss.