Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi, my 3 yr. old male iguana recently had a bump on his lower jaw... i waited to see if it would just go away, but after 3 weeks it didn't and then it got a little larger. I took him to the vet and he said that it is prob. an abcess and would have to put him to sleep to be able to open his mouth large enough to dig all of the puss (that is why the bump is hard, it forms puss, but in an iguana the puss turns hard and therefore causing the lump)... well, fortunatly i did not have enough money with me that day for the surgery so the vet gave me the antibiotic (enrofloaxin). i have been giving him .5 milliliters a day for 4 days now and you will not believe it, but I was cleaning his mouth with a q-tip to get the saliva out and i saw something white inside... I used the q-tip to get it out and it was some of the hard puss. Unbelievable! It was about an inch long, very hard. So now my iguanas mouth doesn't look as swollen, so much better, but seems to be another piece in there... hopefully the antibiotic will work and push the other piece out before the day of surgery..
just thought it was funny that the antibiotic seems to be working very well, and the vet was all ready to do surgery on him... I don't see why he didn't just offer to give the antibiotic first to see if it would help before offering the other option of surgery which is more dangerous to my lizzy and much more expensive! So just incase your ig. has this problem try to ask for the antibiotic first, it just might work.
Hope this helps someone.
Nicole
ps. I was going to put a picture of my lizzy, but i don't know how to... if you know how please let me know.
thanks

That's cause all vets/doctors care about is money unfortionately..

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thanks for your help!

We had a similar problem with our female iguana, Iggi. She had part of her intestine in a loop, with stopped the food moving through her stomach. Gas built up, and she threw up her food. We took her to our herp vet, who wanted to cut her open, and straighten out the loop. I asked him if this could happen again, and he said "Yes". I then asked if there were medication I could give, and he recommended Children's Mylacon drops. We used those, and It worked. No surgery required. On the next visit, he wanted to have her spayed, even though she has had no problems with gravidity. We later changed vets. I think he was too money hungry, wanting us to do expensive surgery needlessly.
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Lamar, Debbie, Nathaniel and Iggi :>~