- Messages
- 15
- Location
- South Carolina
-
Hello guest! Are you a Bearded Dragon enthusiast? If so we invite you to join our community and see what it has to offer. Our site is specifically designed for you and it's a great place for Beardie enthusiasts to meet online. Once you join you'll be able to post messages, upload pictures of your dragons and enclosures and have a great time with other Bearded Dragon enthusiasts. Sign up today!
Sore in my beardie's mouth
- Thread starter hammons
- Start date
SmaugMommy
Bearded Dragon Egg
- Messages
- 13
It’s hard to tell from the picture exactly what’s going on. Since his beard is black though, maybe he is in some pain. Is his beard often that color? It wouldn’t hurt to see a vet if you are worried.
mamaof2dragons
Juvenile Dragon
- Messages
- 207
you definitely need to get him to the vet yellow In the mouth is not normal and that sore could be causing pain. the vet can rule out things like mouth rot which is really serious infection. that's what I would do anyway
Halgerl
Hatchling Dragon
- Messages
- 51
Oh yeah that doesn’t look good... I would call a reptile vet asap 
hope he’s okay
hope he’s okay
- Messages
- 15
- Location
- South Carolina
Thank y'all for your input. I did end up taking Spyro to the vet, and it's looking like the sore is the least of his worries unfortunately.
These are some things I have been noticing over the course of the last year:
1. First, he slowed down on eating and would not poop as often. He went from every week or so to several weeks between. So, I increased baths. This did help with the pooping, but did not fix the appetite problem. He started showing less and less interest in eating.
2. He would not move around as much in his cage. He would not really go to his backing spot, and stayed out in the middle, not moving. He closed his eyes/slept a lot. He seemed lethargic. I tried getting him a new log, cave, and a half log to hid under, lay on to bask, anything to get him moving. I thought changing up the environment might help in case he was just super bored. He did like the cave but doesn't really use anything anymore.
3. He will not hunt for food or willingly eat on his own now; I have been hand feeding him dubias, worms and all his veggies for a long while now. I took him to a vet like a year ago, and she said "oh, he is just lazy, and spoiled since he is now used to you hand feeding him." She suggested instead of offering food every day(I left his veggies in his cage every day hoping he might one day be hungry and eat some on his own.I always tong feed the feeders and make sure he eats what is in there because one time dubias took up residence in his log.) to maybe feed him 2-3 times a week. So I tried doing that, hoping that maybe offering food less often would help him get his appetite back. Now, when I say I was hand feeding him every day, I would hold his insect near his face to get his attention, and most of the time he would go for it, and then while he was chewing it, I could slip in some greens/veggies. I just fed him what he would willingly eat for that day. But that no longer works. Now I have to kind of pull his bottom lip down and slide the food toward the front of his mouth to get him to eat it. Insects or veggies, doesn't matter. He sometimes acts interested in the insects, but really it seems like he could care less. So, to make sure he gets food, I force him to eat something at least twice a week. I don't want him to starve.
4. Around the time I took him to the vet last year, I asked on here about his lighting, and decided to upgrade him from the 24" T8 Reptisun 10.0 to the 24" T5 Reptisun 10.0 to see if that might make a difference. I also go a temp gun to make sure his temps were ok, and continued using the 100w basking bulb for heat. I have not noticed any difference in his behavior, but that is ok, because the lighting is still better for him. I measured his cool side at 76F, the center of the cage 85-89F and the warm side where the basking bulb as 96F. From what I've been reading that is not that bad, since he is an adult and not a baby.
Since making all these changes and not noticing any improvement, I took him to that same vet, and she only saw him for a couple minutes and said the same thing as before, that he is just lazy and spoiled, and that all she saw was stuck shed. I wanted her to run some bloodwork and maybe do a fecal but she said it wasn't necessary and that he looked normal. I disagreed. This has been going on too long.
So I took him to a new vet last week, and she did blood work, sent off for a CBC, and suggested we see what that looks like along with a fecal, and then from there we could do xrays and a scan if necessary, to see if we can narrow down what is wrong. So I agreed to that. I also wanted her to check for atadenovirus because from researching his symptoms that is what I thought he might have. The blood work showed that most of the numbers looked pretty good but that his calcium was pretty high for a male. She suggested on days I take him outside for sun to use calcium without d3. He was negative for adenovirus. She doesn't think it is fatty liver because it is usually seen in much larger beardies, and he has always been on the small side. She does think he is a little dehydrated, and she said she noticed a small tremor in his legs, but only sometimes. She agrees that he is very weak, and lethargic, and that it's definately health related, not that he is "lazy". He does have some stuck shed, but she said that it is more of a symptom than the cause of these other problems. His fecal did show he has a lot of pinworm eggs. She sent me home with some antibiotic shots to give him every 3 days, and a dewormer that is to be given by mouth every 2 weeks. I was also instructed to clean out his cage every night with water and vinegar solution, and that Wipe Out was ok to use as well. Thank goodness his substrate is newspaper and most of his cage decor can be put in dishwasher. What about the branch and half log, should I bake them? Since we did not get a definite answer as to what the cause of all this was, I did opt to do the xrays and scan. She didn't notice anything really abnormal in the xrays, but the scan shows that he might have pneumonia. So I am to keep doing the antibiotics and once I am through with that, to bring him back for a recheck. She wants to monitor the mouth sore as well, she said it looks more like a tiny growth. She swabbed his mouth too. He also has some black spots on his scale she said we could biopsy but she wants to see how he responds to current treatment.
Sorry for the book. I am very worried for my little guy. Anybody been through something like this? Any thoughts about what might be the underlying issue? I just want some answers for him and I want to see him happy again.
These are some things I have been noticing over the course of the last year:
1. First, he slowed down on eating and would not poop as often. He went from every week or so to several weeks between. So, I increased baths. This did help with the pooping, but did not fix the appetite problem. He started showing less and less interest in eating.
2. He would not move around as much in his cage. He would not really go to his backing spot, and stayed out in the middle, not moving. He closed his eyes/slept a lot. He seemed lethargic. I tried getting him a new log, cave, and a half log to hid under, lay on to bask, anything to get him moving. I thought changing up the environment might help in case he was just super bored. He did like the cave but doesn't really use anything anymore.
3. He will not hunt for food or willingly eat on his own now; I have been hand feeding him dubias, worms and all his veggies for a long while now. I took him to a vet like a year ago, and she said "oh, he is just lazy, and spoiled since he is now used to you hand feeding him." She suggested instead of offering food every day(I left his veggies in his cage every day hoping he might one day be hungry and eat some on his own.I always tong feed the feeders and make sure he eats what is in there because one time dubias took up residence in his log.) to maybe feed him 2-3 times a week. So I tried doing that, hoping that maybe offering food less often would help him get his appetite back. Now, when I say I was hand feeding him every day, I would hold his insect near his face to get his attention, and most of the time he would go for it, and then while he was chewing it, I could slip in some greens/veggies. I just fed him what he would willingly eat for that day. But that no longer works. Now I have to kind of pull his bottom lip down and slide the food toward the front of his mouth to get him to eat it. Insects or veggies, doesn't matter. He sometimes acts interested in the insects, but really it seems like he could care less. So, to make sure he gets food, I force him to eat something at least twice a week. I don't want him to starve.
4. Around the time I took him to the vet last year, I asked on here about his lighting, and decided to upgrade him from the 24" T8 Reptisun 10.0 to the 24" T5 Reptisun 10.0 to see if that might make a difference. I also go a temp gun to make sure his temps were ok, and continued using the 100w basking bulb for heat. I have not noticed any difference in his behavior, but that is ok, because the lighting is still better for him. I measured his cool side at 76F, the center of the cage 85-89F and the warm side where the basking bulb as 96F. From what I've been reading that is not that bad, since he is an adult and not a baby.
Since making all these changes and not noticing any improvement, I took him to that same vet, and she only saw him for a couple minutes and said the same thing as before, that he is just lazy and spoiled, and that all she saw was stuck shed. I wanted her to run some bloodwork and maybe do a fecal but she said it wasn't necessary and that he looked normal. I disagreed. This has been going on too long.
So I took him to a new vet last week, and she did blood work, sent off for a CBC, and suggested we see what that looks like along with a fecal, and then from there we could do xrays and a scan if necessary, to see if we can narrow down what is wrong. So I agreed to that. I also wanted her to check for atadenovirus because from researching his symptoms that is what I thought he might have. The blood work showed that most of the numbers looked pretty good but that his calcium was pretty high for a male. She suggested on days I take him outside for sun to use calcium without d3. He was negative for adenovirus. She doesn't think it is fatty liver because it is usually seen in much larger beardies, and he has always been on the small side. She does think he is a little dehydrated, and she said she noticed a small tremor in his legs, but only sometimes. She agrees that he is very weak, and lethargic, and that it's definately health related, not that he is "lazy". He does have some stuck shed, but she said that it is more of a symptom than the cause of these other problems. His fecal did show he has a lot of pinworm eggs. She sent me home with some antibiotic shots to give him every 3 days, and a dewormer that is to be given by mouth every 2 weeks. I was also instructed to clean out his cage every night with water and vinegar solution, and that Wipe Out was ok to use as well. Thank goodness his substrate is newspaper and most of his cage decor can be put in dishwasher. What about the branch and half log, should I bake them? Since we did not get a definite answer as to what the cause of all this was, I did opt to do the xrays and scan. She didn't notice anything really abnormal in the xrays, but the scan shows that he might have pneumonia. So I am to keep doing the antibiotics and once I am through with that, to bring him back for a recheck. She wants to monitor the mouth sore as well, she said it looks more like a tiny growth. She swabbed his mouth too. He also has some black spots on his scale she said we could biopsy but she wants to see how he responds to current treatment.
Sorry for the book. I am very worried for my little guy. Anybody been through something like this? Any thoughts about what might be the underlying issue? I just want some answers for him and I want to see him happy again.
