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Thread: DIY Tegu enema

  1. #1
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    Default DIY Tegu enema

    Hi everyone. Someone on youtube pm me and asked me on how to do a DIY enema on a Tegu. Her Tegu is impacted. I have never done one before and wanted to ask if someone of you has done it before and how. She already took her Tegu to the vet before and they couldn't find anything ( X-ray ). But he has a very hard time pooping. I told her I don't recommend doing the enema her self and to upper the temps, give him some pedialyte, take him outside to get some natural sun light ( UVB ), keep giving him baths and to take him to a different vet. Thank you for your help.
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  2. #2
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    Unless you really know what you're doing (and I mean seriously, more than just "I've got experience giving myself an enema"), this is something NO ONE should attempt without proper training. You can cause serious damage internally, and even if you don't cause serious damage, it is very easy to do something like cause a small abrasion, which, considering this is the end of the GI tract and therefore full of dirty nastiness and bacteria, can very easily get infected. If the vet couldn't find anything, and there's no sign of a hard bolus, then there can easily be a number of issues at play that would cause constipation. As has often been said, an improper diet, low calcium, excessive rodents with other husbandry issues, can all be problematic. Captive tegus are notorious for GI tract issues, and I believe this is usually related to diet and husbandry. Gut motility intrinsically relies upon smooth muscle contraction, which relies upon calcium, and calcium uptake and metabolism rely upon vitamin D3, which relies upon good temperatures, diet, and UVB exposure - beginning to see a pattern? The other factor is motility of the gut contents. Aside from relative abundance of items in nature, I believe this is one of the primary reasons wild tegus have such a large intake of plant matter - plant fibre is fantastic at moving material through the guts.

  3. #3
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    Thank you tupinambis for your reply. I told her the same things about the husbandry issues. But I'm so glad you explained the rest of it ( about the GI tract ).
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    Everyone when they think of hypocalcemia tends to jump to ideas of MBD, but if you're familiar with physiology you know just about everything comes down to calcium, hence why the skeleton is so important - it apparently originally evolved as a calcium storage organ that later became a structural support organ. Calcium is involved in practically all physiological processes, but in reference to this scenario, particularly smooth muscle contraction and therefore gut motility. So if the tegu is hypocalcemic, then this is one of the ways it can manifest.

  5. #5
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    Thank you for your help.
    Rich is not how much you have, or where you are going, or what you are.Rich is who you have beside you.

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  6. #6
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    I know this doesn't belong in this thread. But did you see the thread I made about our Leonidas calcium build up ? Our vets and my self have never seen this before.

    http://www.thetegu.com/showthread.ph...-Leonidas-foot
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  7. #7
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    Well, you may not see it as related, but I think there's a very good chance it actually is. No, I'm not saying Leonidas is hypocalcemic. I have actually seen this before (although, thankfully, not first-hand).

    If you think back, there was once (maybe a few times) a rather heated debate about UVB and vitamin D3 supplementation, principally between myself and Bobby Hill (although others were involved). At the time, Bobby and others had said vitamin D3 supplementation was basically poisoning your tegus, however giving them massive quantities of fish liver oil was fine as it was natural. This, like practically everything that man said, is pure bs and really only reflects a huge ignorance of biology. I've done more digging into the issues of UVB, vitamin D3 and calcium metabolism, and while I think I was basically on the right track to begin with, I now have much better understanding. Whether it is vitamin D3 supplementation or fish oil (or other sources), they are all vitamin D3 (really, it doesn't make any difference whether it is derived by some chemical reaction or putting a poor fish through a grinder, same basic compound). Thing about vitamin D3 (and vitamin A), is unlike nearly all the other vitamins, it is lipid soluble. What this means is for those vitamins that are water soluble, it is very difficult to overdose with them, you (and other animals) will just urinate them out. Lipid soluble vitamins, however, can be "stored" in the tissues, and therefore can build up to toxic levels. Right away, one should realize that then giving your tegus massive quantities of fish oil can lead to health problems. The body can't tell the difference between a chemically derived vitamin D3 and a "natural" source of D3, it just stores it. Now here is where it gets a little weird: for most needed substances in our bodies, we have some sort of regulation to keep it from getting toxic; like I said with water soluble vitamins, we'll just pee them out, however, vitamin D3 is kind of strange because we DO need it for calcium metabolism (and possibly other physiological processes), it is crucial to our health - but it appears we do not have an intrinsic way of regulating its levels in our system. If you ingest more than you use, under certain circumstances, this just gets stored, and stored, and stored.....and can reach toxic levels. There is a caveat here (remember under certain circumstances.....), there is a "regulatory" mechanism and its from outside the body and it is ......UVB. We know that UVB photoactivates the vitamin D3 to a more biologically active form (from provitamin D3 to previtamin D3), but what few people realize is that once sufficient levels of previtamin D3 are reached (ie. a certain concentration is reached within the blood plasma), the UVB further photoreacts with the previtamin D3 to convert it to inert tachysterol and lumisterol (which are non-toxic). I haven't been able to find any research on it yet, but if you understand basic chemistry and physics, then it should be apparent that the amount of conversion from previtamin D3 to tachysterol/lumisterol is not only going to be a function of previtamin D3 concentration, but also UVB intensity. The higher the concentration of vitamin D3 in the plasma, the higher the intensity of UVB will be needed to keep it regulated (and we should be well aware that too high of UVB can also be a dangerous thing). So now we see that not only do we need UVB to produce vitamin D3 intrinsically, but that it is a highly important part of REGULATING that vitamin D3.

    Here's where Leonidas' situation possibly comes into play. There is a lot of evidence to indicate that when too much vitamin D3 is in the system, along with sufficient calcium levels, it promotes calcification of soft tissues. Now, I'll be frank, THIS process I haven't investigated yet to see what are the most likely outcomes or if certain organisms show it differently, but I can't help but think in the few cases I've seen of this, this is a good possibility what is taking place. That being said, don't take it as I'm saying you're overdoing some supplementing, because it could very well be that certain conditions could possibly predispose some tegus to this disease, I don't think anyone knows enough to really say one way or another. However, if you're one of those people that has listened to the "advice" of giving plenty of fish oil to your tegus, you may wish to cut back on the fish oil, and increase the UVB exposure.

  8. #8
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    Wow. Thank you so much for the great information. To be honest with you I haven't given our Tegus any calcium powder or fish oil for a long time. I rather get the calcium from the bones for the feeder rodents. Instead of the fish oil I give them fresh fish filets or whole fish. Maybe I have been giving them to much fish. I will cut back on that. I feel so bad now that I did this to Leonidas. I'm just surprised that our other four Tegus and our black throat monitor doesn't have this.
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  9. #9
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    Now, that's not quite what I said. It probably has nothing to do with the fish, and you may not have done anything wrong at all. Tegus are the same as people: they each have their own genetic quirks and traits. Just as some people are genetically predisposed to breast cancer, arthritis, heart disease, mental disorders.....well, so too can tegus. Leonidas may be predisposed to something, and certain dietary items may lead to this outcome. You wouldn't know about this to do anything about it. Heck, no one would. Fish fillets and whole fish (assuming they're fresh and good quality) are probably excellent for your tegu. I wouldn't stop giving them, and unless fish make up the vast majority of their diet, I don't think there's anything in there to worry about. It's more the concentrated vitamin D3 that some people have been advocating that I have an issue with (ie. fish oil). If you're going to take any message from my long-winded post, I direct you to the UVB - UVB is how they regulate their vitamin D3 levels, and vitamin D3 is what they need for calcium metabolism, so the best advice is to make sure you're using sufficient UVB in your tegu husbandry.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by tupinambis View Post
    so the best advice is to make sure you're using sufficient UVB in your tegu husbandry.
    All that for that lol, not that I disagree with anything said or that it wasn't important. Just thought it was funny that it all came down to enough UVB which seems to always be the problem.

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