Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was just curious, and I'm not trying to start a fight, but I'm wondering about a post I saw from you yesterday. It was about a twitchy dragon that vomitted and had runny stool. You said it was a calcium deficiency. I've done some research and I'm just wondering where you get your facts. I've read that twitching can be a sign of deficiency, but not vomitting. That would indicate more a digestive problem.

I'm just curious.
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Jenny
www.happy-dragons.com

A question is far from a fight, and to tell you the truth I'm not the fighting type All I can say is I help people with problems I have experience with. Yes, I have dealt with calcium deficiency quite a few times. Once in one of my animals a uromastyx 2 years ago, and few times at the rescue. The first thing that caught my attention and coming up with calcium deficiency is the twitching, and flipping over backwards. This is a classic sign of deficiency. This symptom by itself would have made me come to my conclusion. Calcium deficiency has devastating effects on the body, these coupled with improper temps, diet heavy in live foods without supplements of calcium sure will cause it fast. The vomiting can be from the acid in the stomach not for sure but when calcium is low acid levels in our fluids go up. This and the improper temps under 100 can cause the dragon not to digest. Acid and undigested food sitting in the stomach would make me hurl for sure. The runny stools God know why that was like that. Food disagreement, the acid and undigested food, parasites, so many things can cause that there is just no telling for sure. I did tell him though to get that dragon to a vet cause we could not properly diagnose his dragon over the forum, and to become a vet I need another 8 years of school so I'm not qualified. I'm almost positive from what came out in that post that calcium levels were not right in that dragon. The vet would be able to give fluids and calcium, and get them right into the blood stream. Hope this cleared things up a bit for you.
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Mystical Dragons

Sorry, forgot to answer you question. I get my facts from personal experience, either with my own animals, through working next to a veterinarian who donated time at the rescue, and through people who I have helped here who have came back and shared treatments that worked, and symptoms it had. I guess if you needed me to pull pages off the web that I read, or quote books I could do that for you too. You are right about it being a digestive problem. Vomiting or soft stool I would say is surely a digestive problem. The twitching and flipping well in my experience strongly points to the calcium deficiency. Most illnesses go straight back to the husbandry. Why was this dragon twitching and showing signs of calcium deficiency? Well, after reading and asking questions it was rather easy to tell. No supplementing of calcium, Not hot enough temp to digest food. Even if supplemented the body is not reaching optimal temps for digestion and is not using it. Lastly feeding it foods high in phosphorus without calcium supplementation every other day. Vomiting could have been caused by the improper husbandry by itself, or tied in with the calcium deficiancy. Temps not being hot enough to digest, and food sitting in the stomach for to long, with the added acid from not having enough calcium. Soft stool could have been dehydration, parasites, a number of different things. Not sure why you picked me to explain myself. Three other people came to the same conclusion as me, but you picked me to explain it. Why? Just curious.
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Mystical Dragons

Not sure why you picked me to explain myself. Three other people came to the same conclusion as me, but you picked me to explain it. Why? Just curious.
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>>Mystical Dragons

Your's was the first post I saw, the others seemed like they were just agreeing. I wasn't trying to "single you out", just that your post was the most confident sounding.

To be blatantly honest, I was worried about people giving false advice. I see alot of people on here tell new owners how to take care of dragons in ways that I would not agree with, and other people post things that are just plain wrong. If I were new to dragons, and took some of the advice I've seen lately on the forums, I wouldn't have healthy dragons today. There has been alot of talk recently on the boards of calc def, and I didn't agree that this was the problem with this particular post. Vomitting says to me that 1. temps aren't high enough, 2. too much or too large of food was consumed, or 3. parasites. Since twitching is also a sign of too much or too large prey items, calcium didn't cross my mind. I have, however, heard of hypervitaminization (not sure of the spelling?), and I would imagine this can happen with calcium as well. Too much calcium can cause calcification of items in the digestive tract (kidney stones and the like), or even bones spurs, and it seems that lately too many people are telling new owners to run out the vet and get a shot of calcium.

I know when I started out 3 years ago, this forum helped me a great deal to learn from other's experiences. I was honestly just concerned about jumping to calc def as the end all answer to every problem.

Again, no hostility here, just another opinion.
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Jenny
www.happy-dragons.com

I agree with most of what you said, but this dragon did have a bowel movement, not impacted. I clearly said I agreed with you that vomiting and the soft stool would be digestive and that clearly came out with his temps being not hot enough, but not giving calcium supplements, and the feeding live foods every other day. Surely you can see from that that the calcium deficiency was playing a role in the twitching and rolling over. Can't you? I said to give calcium, and take it to a vet. Calcium 1 time since he owned the dragon would not cause a calcification. Actually that dragon really needed in his blood fast. Those seizures are no joke. I never would have suggested doing anything or even gave my 2 cents if I didn't know the sittuation. This same person two days before I was trieing to tell him to up the temps, and pretty much told him the pet store he bought from was not giving the right info. Never heard of feeding a baby every other day without calcium. Have you? I don't know I give calcium daily for babies every other meal, and adults every other day. I never had calcification. There blood work is always right were it sould be. Food for thought. I think you would have to give a cup of the stuff daily to be perfectly honest with you to cause what you say.
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Mystical Dragons

I wasn't meaning to imply that you are a novice, only that some answers given in these forums leave new owners in more of a quandry than when they first came here. I was only trying to understanding how you came to your conclusion about calcium, because it was so far from my own thinking. As any good dragon owner, I'm always looking for more knowledge on the subject to benefit my herd. Since I've never had problems with supplements (they're not hard to understand), and because of the vomitting, I would have assumed the temps were off. I had never heard of vomitting being a symptom of calcium problems, so I was curious as to why that was a possibility.

Nice to see it's possible to have a freindly, intelligent debate on here without someone getting called names or feigning profanity.
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Jenny
www.happy-dragons.com

Your right about that. If you second guess someone's idea or opinion some people would chew your head off I got involved in a debate like that and it just was like a lose lose situation. That person was set in his ways and there was just know telling him, or pointing things out that would change his mind, or make him value my opinion. So I handle things differently now. I'll be here when they disagree with me, and I'll be here when they come back for help I very rarely get involved in topics I don't know for sure, and I'll definitely never tell them to take my advice without other opinions or a vet, especially when it's an illness. Don't want to be the reason someone loses a beloved pet. Actually calcium deficiency causes acid to develop in the body fluids. It very well could cause stomach problems, not to mention the known bone problems. Not sure if this was what was going on in this case, cause of the added husbandry problems he was having on top of the calcium. Calcium and d3 are the most important supplements for reptiles, and people think if they don't take vitamins and minerals themselves and are healthy then a dragon sure can live without them. That's far from the truth. Talk to you later
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Mystical Dragons