Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well, both my beautiful Squirt and Tack have semed ot suddenly come down with an infection. I took them to the Emergency vet. He gave us the option of leaving my lizards in thier tank there or bring them home, both with a course of antibiotics. I opted to bring them home-- the vet said that they'd do just as well in my worm tank as in his. They received their first dose at the ER, and then my husband and I gave them their second dose about an hour ago. Taco looked a little bit bettr than last ngiht, Squirt was a bit worse. Both of them are gasping and last niht they had discharge around thir mouths, although there wasn't much discharge this morning.

We also gave them just a bit of liquid nutrition with their antiboitics (Flukers brand maybe? It's a powder that you mix with water and drip into their mouths).

Anyway, we're holding our breaths around here. If anyone has any advice, I'd lve to hear it.

Thanks for letting me vent. i'm really so sad about this!

Hi Star, sorry the kids are sick, one major thing I would do is to leave their heat on round the clock while sick. It helps them to heal.

Did you have them brumating, or did they just get this nasty resp/bacterial infection?

Sure hope they respond well to meds, also keep them well hydrated, the antibiotics dehydrate them fast. Keep us updated.

*** I understand you feeling sad , they may be lizards, but they are family memebers
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Eve
Suncharmers

Thanks for the suggestions, Eve! I will make sure that they are plenty warm during this hard time. I'll also keep them hydrated; do you suggest giving them water from a syrenge or having if avaliable or what?

They just managed to get sick on their own accord, I didn't make any changes in their living situation.

And sorry for the poor spelling, this keyboard is just awful and I didn't reread my first post for spelling errors.
Thanks!

Hey Star, whatever way they like to drink best, if they like to drink from a dropper do that. I always have a shallow saucer available anyway.

I hope they will be okay!
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Eve
Suncharmers

What I will do at times is either spray water on them and/or soak them in shallow dish with room warm water.

I took Squirt and Taco into see the vet today for a fallow up. She said that the situation really looks bad and rarely do collards some back from being so sick.

She reccommended that I keep on with the antibiotics and the Flukers for feeding. She gave me some calcium drops and reccommended and new UV light.

She also recommended soaking them for a few minutes, which I did (nice warm water!) and now my babies look worse than ever. I hope it was just the stress from going to the vet.

I wish I could make them feel better. They are just sitting there, gasping. Poor babies!

i always esud tetrocycolin and i just put it in there water. it's a great thing because they can't overdose... and it seemed to have done it's job on some of my wild caught lizards