Muscular Dystrophy in 3 month old Beardie

[Jolee0222]

Ever since my husband got me my baby beardie, Penelope, we've wondered if something was wrong. At first it was just her appetite. It took her about 3 weeks to start really eating correctly. Then her walk was a bit off. We thought maybe she was just a bit clumsy. We had read that bearded dragons were excellent climbers and rarely, if ever, fell off their trees. But Penelope seemed to constantly fall. It got to the point that I started lining the bottom of her basking tree with a soft blanket just in case she did fall.
Last week, we noticed her steps were a bit more exaggerated than they had been before. This week, it's seemed to get worse. We do have a vet appointment set up, but it's not until the 15th. All other vets I called are booked to April.
We've been doing more and more research, and I've contacted some experienced people, and we've come to think that Penelope may have muscular dystrophy. When I sent a video to one lady, she said Penelope could be the poster lizard for this disease.
So my questions are as follows:
1. Is there anyone that has experience with an MD beardie?
2 .Is there any other issue that could mimic the issues that MD presents? How would I know if it's an issue from one of her falls and not MD?
3. What kind of feeding routine is recommended? She can eat by herself so far. She loves her dubia roaches as well as wax worms. I've been told serrapeptase would be good for her. She is underweight so we were thinking of also giving her the Critical Care Carnivore. Can these two things be given together?
I just need advice and recommendations on how to help her. She doesn't seem to be in any pain. She still poops normally and eats every day. I give her calcium and vitamins. She has an Arcadia T5 Dragon 14% UVB tube light and a 100 watt basking bulb. She loves her hide and loves to climb but I'm honestly debating on getting her something smaller and lower to the ground. Any sort of recommendations are greatly appreciated. The picture is how she lays and falls asleep and even sits. She has ballerina legs. She is able to move them and sometimes bends them at the joint like a normal beardie, but it's happening less often than before.

 

[Bailey]

From the looks of her legs and back, she has bad metabolic bone disease. That is just the start of these issues, though.

Please post your husbandry and diet info it will better help us help you.

As far as the feeding, babies and juveniles need to be fed as many insects as they can eat in 15 minutes. You can offer them greens too but they don't need it now as much as they need it when they are adults. -- Adults need 75% salads (greens/vegetables) and 25% insects.
They eat as many insects as they can eat in 15 minutes three days a week. Offer fresh salads daily.
Dust their bugs with non-d3 calcium each feeding and multi-vitamin with d3 twice a month.

You can google there are lots and lots of options as far as greens and vegetables go for these guys!

 

[Bailey]

To help not worsen the metabolic bone disease she will need on-point UVB lighting.

ReptiSun T5 10.0 Linear (the desert ones) do the best job, as well as the Arcadias. On top of that the basking spot needs to be 95-110 degrees. -- You can usually achieve this with 100-150 watt bulbs.

 

[Jolee0222]

From the looks of her legs and back, she has bad metabolic bone disease. That is just the start of these issues, though.

Please post your husbandry and diet info it will better help us help you.

As far as the feeding, babies and juveniles need to be fed as many insects as they can eat in 15 minutes. You can offer them greens too but they don't need it now as much as they need it when they are adults. -- Adults need 75% salads (greens/vegetables) and 25% insects.
They eat as many insects as they can eat in 15 minutes three days a week. Offer fresh salads daily.
Dust their bugs with non-d3 calcium each feeding and multi-vitamin with d3 twice a month.

You can google there are lots and lots of options as far as greens and vegetables go for these guys!

Her spine just looks curved because of the way she was laying on me and the angle my husband took the picture at. It’s not curved. As far as husbandry, she has a tube Arcadia T5 dragon 14% light and a 100 watt basking bulb. She eats dubia roaches and wax worms. She’s not a fan of veggies or fruit yet. We alternate calcium with D3 and without, give her vitamins, and her ambient temps are 100 with a basking spot between 104 and 108.

 

[Bailey]

Her spine just looks curved because of the way she was laying on me and the angle my husband took the picture at. It’s not curved. As far as husbandry, she has a tube Arcadia T5 dragon 14% light and a 100 watt basking bulb. She eats dubia roaches and wax worms. She’s not a fan of veggies or fruit yet. We alternate calcium with D3 and without, give her vitamins, and her ambient temps are 100 with a basking spot between 104 and 108.

Do you do calcium with out d3 each feeding then the multi-vitamin twice a month? or do you give one on a day and the other on the next? It can be confusing sometimes haha.

 

[Bailey]

Also, I just saw the new pictures you uploaded, she looks healthy as far as I can see. Her tail looks a little crooked in the first photo, though. Still make sure your husbandry, diet, and supplementing habits are correct

 

[Jolee0222]

Do you do calcium with out d3 each feeding then the multi-vitamin twice a month? or do you give one on a day and the other on the next? It can be confusing sometimes haha.

I dust every day, 3 days with D3, 3 days without d3, and multivitamin on the 7th day. It’s definitely confusing!! There’s so much info I’ve read and gotten from other people. Some say to dust every meal, others say to dust one meal a day, while some say every other day it’s overwhelming especially when my baby has issues

 

[Bailey]

I dust every day, 3 days with D3, 3 days without d3, and multivitamin on the 7th day. It’s definitely confusing!! There’s so much info I’ve read and gotten from other people. Some say to dust every meal, others say to dust one meal a day, while some say every other day it’s overwhelming especially when my baby has issues

Do NOT use d3 every feeding! Only twice a month! Use the calcium with no d3 each feeding. This is a major concern supplementing is very important.

 

[Emilia Thuet]

Ok so number one Penelope is so cute, I truly die for her little face. Sadly MD does seem like the likely cause for clumsy walk. Though I’ve never dealt with MD myself I do have a friend how has a beardie with MD, his name is sea-legs . Sadly it’s not curable and your beardie will have it forever but that doesn’t mean they won’t have a good life, though sea-legs is wobbly he still loves adventuring around my friends living room and climbing pillows. You beardie will definitely be a more hands on lizard and you may have to get used to hand feeding her every day. At the moment her weight doesn’t look to be that bad but getting the critical care could help improve her muscles a bit and decrease her MD. If you are going to get critical care get both the carnivore and herbivore one and mix it 75-80% carnivore and the rest herbivore. Your husbandry looks amazing and I see nothing wrong with it, you have truly outdone yourselves. With the supplements try giving her more of the calcium with vitamin D when they are younger. I suggest calcium with vitamin D 4 days a week and multivitamin twice a week. Once she gets older you can decrease the amount of calcium with vitamin you give her to at least once a week and giving her plain calcium powder 3-4 times a week and giving her multivitamins 2-3 times a week.