Resp Infection getting worse

[lailasmum218]

Greetings (first post and all), I've been looking up things on this site and forum for the last 2 years that i've been with my husband and his lovely little skink Laila.

Unfortunately, about 3 weeks ago, she started sneezing a lot, and to be sure it wasn't anything bad, we brought her to a vet up here in Maine ASAP. They confirmed it was a respiratory infection ( after doing more research, i felt even more horrible, as I had just maybe a week before moved her from next to a window, to closer to a heater we had in the same room, and that drastically changed her light exposure in a short time, i didn't know... )
Thankfully, the vet we saw said it was pretty early onset, although he said there was a lot of bacteria in her mouth too, so we started her on antibiotics that day. Every 3 days for 7 shots. (admittedly, i could not bear to stab her in those cute puddgy little legs so i've been driving her 20min north to this vet every 3 days).
She was doing very well with the meds, she was being more active, she wasn't sneazing or coughing, she seemed fine. so after the 7th dose, they took her off of the antibiotics and had a follow up appointment for the following monday (so 7 days). 5 days after her last antibiotic shot she started showing symptoms again, and a bit worse than before.
Prior to getting off of the meds, she wasn't clicking when she was breathing at all, there was a little wheezing but not much. We brought her in asap monday morning for the followup and got her back on the meds at a higher dosage. Since then it seems to be working, abit slower, and currently im not sure if im paranoid that she is doing worse or if its just taking longer.

We have another appointment with her original vet down in MA Thursday AM for a second opinion and to make sure everything is going to plan, but I wanted to see if anyone has had this issue before.

From what I've read, it seems this stuff usually clears up pretty fast. My husband did, however, say that she had a bit of a respiratory infection a few years back, and it lasted about a month, with antibiotics..

She is reaching on 8 or 9 years old i believe. and is also actually a male. she is a northern. we feed her regularly and keep her humidity low and her temp around 90.

Thanks for reading. I am mainly hoping for some sort of reassuring that she will be ok, and if its not normal for it to get worse before it gets better, what i can do to help. I feel pretty helpless right now about this, i just want the little laila to be alright.

cheers
-k

[kingofnobbys]

Is the substrate dusty ? this can cause sneezing in a skink ….

Worth discussing with the vet nebulization of the meds and adding nebulization of F10 to the RI treatment regime , see this for more info : https://www.beardeddragon.org/forums/vi ... 5&t=232783

[splashy07]

Northerns can do with a bit higher temps, they seldom get RIs unless extremely dry substrate and low temps. I'd raise the basking temp to 95+, and if you are using aspen, switch to something that produces less dust. I keep mine on a repti-bark coco husk mixture and they do fine. A good indication if conditions are a bit too dry is shedding issues also. Can you post a picture?

[lailasmum218]

thanks yall.

since she got sick, we changed out her sub for paper-towels, as i've been cleaning the tank a lot to make sure there isn't any bacteria hanging around, i'll up the temp a bit more and see if that helps as well.

We do have two appointments tomorrow, one with the vet up here in maine where she has been going for her injections, and then another down in boston with her "primary" vet who specializes in skinks and reptiles a bit more than they do up here, so i will post an update.

i think what has mostly got me worried is her sleeping and hanging out with her mouth open a little. and im just trying to get more opinions of what might be up. The guy we see has been awesome up here, but also hasn't really given me too much info on like.... how he thinks she is doing or ... yeah. the people down in MA have had her there a lot for checkups and boarding, etc. and they always give me a better idea of what to do.

#parinoidmomproblems

one of my dogs just got past having cancer after a year of surgery and chemo, another is blind as of the last month (poor old guy is about 18) and both of our beta fish passed recently (one b/c he was maybe 5 and im fairly sure our ex psycho roomate put something bad in his tank... the other because he managed to get himself out of his tank... and i came home to find him on the floor) so.. im in that over protective yet "i have no idea what the I'm a wimpy baby im doing" states.

So thank you both for the input. checking out those sites now. <3

[Janella]

I was going to reply to this post as well, but I pretty much was going to say what already was said. I pray for your skink and bless you for trying to do all you can do with her. I also wish all your pets the best of luck. It is never easy losing any pet. Big or little, we love them all. Keep us posted on what they say tomorrow.