Summary in case you don't remember me/my beardie: we found Oolong on the side of the street this past April. He was fighting a cat at the time, & sustained a small scratch above his right eye. Over several months, we spent over $850, innumerable vet visits, two surgeries, & a number of courses of different antibiotics to treat pinworms, coccidia, an infected/grossly swollen eye (as a result of the cat scratch), and (most importantly... or possibly just most persistently/expensively) three abscesses on his head (we assume as a result of the cat scratch infection).
After all that, the parasites seemed to be under control, Oolong's eye was back to normal, & one of the three abscesses seemed to have mostly subsided. Since he was now big & fat & continuted to be active & eat & poop like a normal lizard, we decided to leave him be for awhile.
Then recently, he started growing yet another lump on his face, coupled with a decrease in activity & apetite. If he'd been a normal beardie, we would've chalked it all up to brumation, but since Oolong's a "special needs" lizard, we took him to the vet.
We tried a new vet, this time: Dr. Ivan Alfonso of the Kirkman Area Animal Clinic in Orlando, FL.
He seemed mystified by Oolong's past medical history, talked to us about nutrition, then prescribed some oral SMZ-TMP (Trimethoprim/Sulfadiazine). He says he's had very good luck w/ this in the past treating strange lumps in other reptiles. Has anyone used it w/ their beardies? In the few days since we've started Oolong on it, his newest lump does seem to be smaller, & 2 of the 3 old lumps seem a little softer (I think the third lump is mostly scar tissue at this point). We are treating Oolong w/ Acidophiliz+ as well.
Overally, Dr. Ivan said he wasn't terribly concerned about Oolong's condition, since the lizard in question has gained over 4" in length & several hundred grams in weight since we found him, & is still relatively alert ("relatively", taking into consideration that 'tis the season to brumate... Oolong was still pretty darned chipper at the vet's office, & objected pretty strenuously to parts of the medical examination ;} ).
Has anyone else treated persistant abscesses in their beardies? I think at this point, we've tried a *lot* of Amicacin, some Fortaz, and now the SMZ-TMP. I *think* we had Oolong on something else, too, but I can't for the life of me remember what, now. He's also had the two surgeries to lance the abscesses (and after the second surgery, we were soaking the wounds open & flushing them with Novalsan twice daily). All in all, the poor dear has been through quite a lot, & we'd really like to get him comfortable, if not completely normal. Overall, his lumpiness hasn't seemed to bother him, except that now that he has a lump by both nostrils, he does seem to have minor difficulties breathing, sometimes.
My other questions: although Oolong hasn't eaten much of anything for a couple of weeks, now, he's still rather active. He doesn't run around like a complete maniac, head-bobbing & rearranging his cage "furniture" like he used to do, but he still changes location around his cage several times a day (including basking in the hot spot, which is between 100 & 107 degrees throughout the day). I'm not completely convinced that this isn't just part of his getting more mature and/or used to his surroundings (we figured he was probably about 8 months old when we found him, which means he'd be a little over a year, now). Is it normal for beardies to not eat during the fall/winter, but still move around their cages & bask a little?
Finally, has anyone used oat bran as a substrate? Our local healthfood store was out of bulk wheat bran, so we got oat bran, instead. I actually like the look of it better than wheat bran (it's lighter in colour, and a little finer-ground), & Oolong seems to like it. He hasn't pooped in it, yet (that whole "not eating" thing), so I don't know how easy it is to clean up. Wheat isn't toxic to beardies, is it? o_O
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~Alice
1.0 Bearded Dragon (Oolong)
1.2 ferrets (Fairy, Noodles, Zilla)
8.4 cats (Angel, Goblin, Hush, Jesse, Kirin, Sammy, Squee, Toes, Feets, Gypsy, Kana, Raisen)
