Reptile & Amphibian Forums

months ago my water dragon became ill with a repsritory infection, at the vets he got an injection of meds. seconds after the shot a long dark mark formed on his leg and is still there. why is it still there and will it ever go away?

That picture is so blurry that I really can't tell what I'm looking at. I'm going to venture a guess, though from the info you provided. My guess you be that your vet used Enrofloxacin (Baytril) Injectible for the respiratory infection. Baytril is well known to cause sterile ulcers at the injection site. If you keep it clean and keep some antibiotic ointment on it until it heals over, it should get better over time.

baytril is the meds that was injected. i was more worried if its any thing bad for his skin or in his leg.

Would agree that enrofloxacin can cause sterile tissue scar/tissue necrosis. However I've seen more with higher concentration Baytril (100 mgs/ml vs 22.7 mgs/ml injectable soultion. Also solution is acidic pH - I usually dilute with sterile LRS or 0.9% saline before injecting....minimizes tissue irritation. Tissue should heal, may leave a scar.

I do the same thing. I use injectible sterile saline and dilute 4:1, then give multiple injections at different sites to spread out absorption over a larger tissue mass and I never have problems with it. I have seen some pretty nasty ulcers in Pythons that were injected with undiluted 100 mg/ml enrofloxacin, plus the injection itself appears to be pretty uncomfortable for the animal.

Since it happened immediately, I'd say it's just a hematoma.

I would disagree - by definition a hematoma is localized blood in a compartment. If it was under the skin - it would be difficult to visualize in a reptile with non-transparent skin. The enroflaoxacin solutions acidic pH - causes a sterile necrosis/damage to the local cell membranes -no different than injecting dilute acid into tissue. Effects would be immediate.