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For MBD discussions... Meet Frankie! (With X-rays!)

Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2016 11:45 am
by Meeper
I know she's not a skink, but I've seen tons of topics about MBD, so I figured I'd show you guys one of the residents at the clinic I work at. Meet Frankie! Frankie wa surrendered to us by an owner that didn't really... Well, let's just say she was in pretty bad shape when we got her. With a lot of love and some tender care, little miss leopard is now fully mobile and one crazy cricket demolisher!

(I plan on taking some x-rays at some point this week, I'll post those when I get them :) )

Re: For MBD discussions... Meet Frankie!

Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2016 8:14 am
by Susann
I know you work as a vet tech, is it by chance an exotic, or reptile, vet?
Do you think you could explain to us what exactly MBD is, what causes it, and why animals with it tend to develop "lumps"? :D

Happy to hear Frankie is being taken care of. Would love to see some x-rays on him.

Re: For MBD discussions... Meet Frankie!

Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2016 2:47 am
by alichamp
Poor little thing. At least the previous owner did one good thing by surrending it. Thanks for this thread.
So any vertebrate can get MBD?

Re: For MBD discussions... Meet Frankie!

Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2016 5:47 am
by Meeper
Unfortunately it is not an exotics vet, but the Dr
that owns the practice does occasionally do some exotics, more so in the past than now. Mbd, as I understand it, has to do with a lack of calcium, to put it bluntly. Sometimes, the animal will have enough calcium in their diet, but without proper lighting it can still be unavailable for the body to metabolize. (Not saying that every animal needs uvb lighting, sometimes they can metabolize the calcium either completely without uvb or using the ambient lighting that's available, I'm not sure on that one.) What happens when you start seeing the swelling is that the body is scrambling to grab as much bioavailable calcium as possible, as calcium is nessissary for quite a few systems to operate, including the neurological system. So it starts stealing it from bone. It does it in a smart way though- by pulling a bit here, a bit there, until the bone becomes soft and almost spongey. This is very uncomfortable, and the rest of the body starts panicking and causes swelling all around the spongey bone to try and compensate. Hopefully at this point, a good owner will catch on to the issue and rectify the calcium situation, thus the spongey bone starts to fill the holes back in. Sometimes the bones have already migrated in shape, thus we get the lovely lady lumps, as illustrated by Miss Frankie! Thankfully in her case, the migration of the bones didn't close off any of the small holes in the bone that allow the nerves to run through, so she can still move all of her little extremities.

In Frankie's case, she also had been shedding improperly, and was keeping the little "gloves" (can't remember the technical term...) Which cut off circulation to her tiny digets and caused them to become necrotic and slough off. This is unrelated to mbd, just related to neglect.

Mbd is strictly a reptile thing, as far as I know.

Re: For MBD discussions... Meet Frankie!

Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2016 10:26 am
by Meeper
OK! We have radiographs! One thing to note- in her rads you'll notice that her skeletal structure is very finely defined. In an animal that is still calcium deficient, the areas where bone loss is taking place will appear fuzzy- that is going back to where I described the bones as "spongey."

Re: For MBD discussions... Meet Frankie! (With X-rays!)

Posted: Sat Jan 30, 2016 12:16 pm
by Susann
Wow, poor baby. But amazing to see! Thank you for posting that. And for the explanation for all those crazy curves! I think it serves as a good reminder to us all how important proper care and feeding is; I mean, can you imagine how much more uncomfortable life is for Frankie with a spine like that...?

Re: For MBD discussions... Meet Frankie! (With X-rays!)

Posted: Mon Feb 01, 2016 4:44 pm
by splashy07
Oh God the poor little thing. In all my years I have never seen a nocturnal animal with such severe MBD. Thank you for sharing and reminding us that none are exempt from this awful disease.