Hey everybody. Once again, I'm back and my beardie is having another issue. It's a long post, so bear with me. For the past few months, he has been having the most horrible time moving around. He is unable to walk or run. He has no control over his back end. His back legs slide underneath him and he falls over often. During this time, I just though that maybe his toenails were too long or he needed something more grippy to walk on (I have smooth floors). While carpet and the grass outside seemed to give him more traction to walk on, he still wasn't able to walk normally. Suddenly, I realized that he could have MBD. I didn't know how this could have set in, though, because I had been doing everything right since day one of bringing him home (I've had him since January 2010 and he is close to 5 years old now). I used calcium supplements, multivitamin supplements, MVB lights, regular outside time in the sun, etc. and I still do all of this.
And so, Monday, Jan 27, I took him to the vet. The vet placed him on the floor and he started walking. Immediately upon seeing his back end wobbling, she said he has something called ataxia, which is loss of motor controls. She said it could have been from him eating something too large. Now, back when I brought him home, he was only five or six months old, and the only crickets I had at the time were pretty big ones. I believe I only fed him a few crickets everyday because they were so big. He never had a problem digesting them, however, and after a short amount of time I was able to get some that were the perfect size. Since then, I have always fed him appropriately sized crickets. Also, keep in mind that this ataxia struck a few months ago. Prior to this, he always used to run around like a wild lizard. The vet then suggested that it could have resulted from an old injury or a fracture. So they did an x-ray and, to my relief, it came out excellent. No injuries, fractures, and no MBD, thank God! His bone density was really good.
So the vet told me to soak him everyday and allow him to swim so that he can get his back legs moving more easily. Similar to water therapy. She said she would do some research to find some other causes and possibly find out if there is anything ''degenerative'' that can affect bearded dragons. Now, while I'm very happy that he doesn't have any MBD or any fractures, I'm still heartbroken that this struck him in the first place. He can't walk without flipping over. I'm very upset and I want him to able to walk around and run like he used to.
So has anybody else ever come across ataxia? Is it even curable? What causes it? I need a hug :(
Bookmarks