Reptile & Amphibian Forums

my bearded dragon was my first lizard. I had him for almost a year. i bought him from a local breeder as a full grown adult male beardie. Anyway, about a month and a half ago i noticed that my lizard had the runs and that his food was going through him really fast. I was worried about him so i took him into the vet for a check up and for a stool sample of his to be tested. well the vet looked at his stool sample and told me that my lizard was sick and that what he had was parasites in his poop. he told me that it was curable and he prescribed my lizard 2 different kinds of medicine. The first was to be given to him once a day for 5 days and stored at room temp. (i forgot what it was called) and the second medicine he got was AMOXICILLION! i was to give him his amoxicillion 2 times a day for five days as well. i gave my baby boy his medicine just like the vet told me to and he only seemed to be getting WORSE! a couple of days after he finished his medicine i noticed that he had stopped eating and was constantly tilting his head back and looking up. i called the breeder that hatched my baby and he thought it was strange that the vet gave my lizard amoxicillion in the first place. Another breeder even told me that amoxicillion is TOXIC to reptiles and can cause extensive liver and kidney damamge. The breeder told me that why he was tilting his head back like that was because his kidney's were failing and not flushing out the poisons in his system and that he was slowing poisoning himself to death. well 2 days after he started tilting his head back like that he got really bad. He was flopping around and gasping for breathe so i took him back to the vet where they put my baby down to sleep for me for FREE (maybe because they KNEW they screwed up and poisoned my lizard), i don't know. so if anybody can help me out and let me know if amoxicillion is in fact toxic for beared dragons i would love to know. the vet who saw my lizard actully retired 3 days after seeing him so i don't have the pleasure of talking to him but if i can prove that amoxicillion is what took my lizard from just having diarehha to death i would feel alot better. thanks for the input...

im sorry for your loss. i have never heard of a vet giving ammoxacillin. usually they prescribe albon and theres another drug out there as well but i cannot think of the name of it. there is also a product called parazap which you can buy online and not have to worry about dosage amounts as there is no overdosing with this product. its an herbal medicine which can be used on alot of different animals. ive used it alot and it works great.

anyways, im not sure if ammoxacillan is toxic to dragons but ive never read or heard about anyone giving it to dragons or any animal for that matter
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Beach Beardies

2.2. bearded dragons
1.1. Sugar Gliders
0.2. Felines *queen athena and missy*

Very sorry to hear of your loss.

Was the other drug possibly Amakacin? Amoxicillin can be used on reptiles to treat infections but is ineffective unless used in combination with Amakacin. So your vet may or may not have screwed up, depending on what drug combination he prescribed.

Don't know if this helps any or not :|

K

Amoxicillin is an antibiotic, not all that effective against internal parasites.

Typical parasite treatment is albon or panacur.

If you feel your doctor wrongly treated your dragon, then you will have to seek legal counsellings to find out you can do for retribution for your loss.
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PHLdyPayne

Oh my god,
I'm so very sorry to hear that. I used to breed my beardies and I still have many myself and go throu MANY vet visits. that is heartbreaking, i'm very sorry.

I know I used to have a "vet" who was just a reg. vet.. but not certified in herpetology they don't usually know what they're talking about... they guess and have to look stuff up.. where I live there is only ONE cert. herpatologist in a tri state area so I drive out of state for my lizards b/c i love them.

Was the vet a herpatologist? i bet he/she wasn't. They DO make mistakes! even human docs! everyone knows this. Are you going to take legal action?

my apologies,
Kris

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5.2 Bearded dragons (Kunja,Mango,Lee,Stumpy,Blackie,Lily,O.C.)
1.0 Mali Uromastyx (Uri)
( Momma Beardie Julia, and Uros Max and Jacques have since passed, we love you)

Thank you for your advice!

thanks for the advice and help everyone. the vet said they are going to do some more research themselves to find out if they screwed up. they are suppose to be getting back to me next week i guess.

Hi
the head tilt and other things you told us look like a to much of medicine,overdosis .
to much flagyl can cause it to .

whas the dosis right ??
byeeeeee
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www.dragoncave.nl

Hi
some veterians say they can help reptiles.
but they cant.
if you want a other veterian you can check out this link .
http://www.herpvetconnection.com/
byeeeeee
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www.dragoncave.nl

First of all...sorry for your loss. Its not easy losing a pet.

To begin with, usually an antibiotic won't get rid of parasites. (There are exceptions...sulpha drugs will kill coccidia, for instance. Flagyl works on some like protazoans...but usually its fenbendazole or a parasitic medication that is given.)

You said he was tilting his head back and looking up...if his mouth was open while doing it, that can be an indication of organ damage. Some medications are hard on the kidneys and can cause organ damage if the lizard is not well enough hydrated during the time its being given to it.

Can you find out the name of the second drug or what the parasite was that your dragon was being treated for was?

Amoxicillin is not known to be toxic to reptiles, but only works if given with another drug called Amikacin. Most reptiles have parasites at one time or another, so that may or may not have been making your BD really sick in the first place. What I'm saying is that if you tested the stools of a large group of reptiles, 75% would be parasite positive yet not necessarily have the degree of diarrhea that your lizard had. On the other hand, when that kind of diarrhea is present, parasites are often suspected. Other problems that cause rapid transit of food are Irritable Bowel Syndrome and also Salmonellosis, which is treated with Amoxicillin. Your vet didn't get the aminoglycoside drug to go with it, so the Amoxicillin wasn't effective. My thought is that he/she was trying to cover two bases at the same time: clear the parasite load and give a broad spectrum antibiotic in case their was a concomitant infection going on. Putting your BD to sleep for free was not necessarily an admission of guilt. Many vets will euthanize a pet for free as part of their services to an anguished pet owner. I've had two cats put down at no charge at the end of lengthy treatments by two different vets years apart. I've laso worked in the vet field years ago and it is a common practice. It's their way of trying to be sensitive at a sensitive time.

Email can sound really cold and I know you're really hurting. Take a deep breath. Try to be non-emotional. If you did not take your BD to a herp vet, then you can't expect them to treat them like a herp vet. When you talk to them, don't be nasty or mean (not saying you would), and they will be much more willing to work with you and give you answers. Trust me on this one! Much of the world works better when you can be non-accusatory and ask objective questions. Then they can leave their defenses down and work with you on a higher level of mutual respect. Then you can ask for what you want (your money back, etc), and best of all, they can learn from the experience and be better exotic vets.

I'm sorry for your loss. I lost my favorite momma BD 4 years ago on Christmas Eve to calcium deficiency and then organ failure. I cried more than the kids did! I still have her original mate and two of her kids. The mistakes made with that one were mine and I learned so much and became a much better herp owner because of it.