BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

Hi everyone. I am a new member, but a long time lurker of this board. We are the grateful owners of a wonderful Northern "Mr. Skink", and a gorgeous Indonesian "Clara". Clara is almost a year old, and has been the picture of health until a month ago. It started with a bit of a crust/plugged nose, a bit of "mouthrot" and blowing bubbles from her left eye, which progressed to it being sealed shut over night with crusty exudate.
We immediately took her to the vet, and started her on Baytril. After a week of that, things seems to continue to get worse, with crackly, labored breathing, some "twitching" of her head, etc...
So, back to the vet we went. He had us continue Baytril, and added Clavamox, with the addition of antibiotic eye drops. We continued this regimen for 2+ more weeks. The only change there has been, is the improvement of her supposed "pnuemonia". Her eye is almost impossible to clear of all crustiness, and the mouthrot has worsened considerably.
Just a bit of other information on her treatment: Twice a day we would "steam" her (hold her over a vaporizer, wrapped in a towel) which would REALLY help with her breathing, and assisting in cleaning eye. Once she was apparently thru the pnuemonia episode, we stopped that, but commenced taking her out 2X/day to compress bad eye with cotton balls soaked in warm water, and doing the same to the supposed mouthrot, but with a diluted mix of betadine. We even added some silvodene to the routine for her mouth issues.(and obviously giving her the oral antibiotics, and eye drops)
Well, this past weekend, I got onto the board to join so I could possibly post pics and ask for some much needed advice, or anything we might be missing, to be met with a grim discovery that this is appearing to be just like alot of others' issues with their Indonesians.
I have made the VERY disturbing decision to go and have her quietly PTS today. This now appears hopeless, and I would never forgive myself if she had to come to a traumatic end of passing on her own, struggling to breathe, or?
God, I hope i'm making the right decision. She definitely is sick, and today, is a bad day for her. But thru all of this, she has had good days too. She has even continued to eat thru all of this :/
What I could use right now is some support, someone telling me i'm doing the right thing. :'(

I personally think you shouldn't give up just yet! Some of the meraukes that exhibited very similar symptoms to your indo made full recoveries with humidity. Specifically, Susann added a Mist King system to her setup, and that seemed to do the trick. I know it's very hard to make the decision whether to keep her alive in her current state or euthanize her, but I still believe that you can effectively treat the "mystery disease". If you feel that she has progressed too far and her current state necessitates euthanasia, that option may be the way to go.

I read about the Mist King Susann used, but although it seemed to improve his condition, he died anyways :'(

Im very sorry about what is happening to your skink. It must be very hard to deal with. Letting any animal go is always hard. I cant even imagine what it would be like to loose my BTS and i haven't even had her for a whole year yet. Maybe adding humidity can help though. It cant hurt to try. Good luck with your decision and i'm very sorry that this is happening.

http://youtu.be/4TnQCGWQW1c

There is a video I just took minutes ago. She is quite lethargic and weak, as she is generally quite a spitfire. I tried to catch the head twitching episode, but to no avail. I am literally sick to my stomach over all of this :'(

ETA: At 10 seconds on the video, there is a VERY FAINT head twitch...they are usually much more dramatic than that

Susann has used the Mist King on other skinks with success. If your skink it still eating, that is a pretty good sign. The first thing you should do is change the bedding from carefresh to something that holds humidity better, like cypress mulch. Then, you should add a humid hide and try to keep the cage at 60-70% humidity. Your skink does look pretty bad, but I would suggest trying a little bit more before euthanizing. If the humidity doesn't work, euthanasia might be your last resort.

donkeybuff wrote:Susann has used the Mist King on other skinks with success. If your skink it still eating, that is a pretty good sign. The first thing you should do is change the bedding from carefresh to something that holds humidity better, like cypress mulch. Then, you should add a humid hide and try to keep the cage at 60-70% humidity. Your skink does look pretty bad, but I would suggest trying a little bit more before euthanizing. If the humidity doesn't work, euthanasia might be your last resort.

Clara did have repti-bark in her cage previously. Vet suggested i lower humidity to 30% in enclosure to try and inhibit bacteria growth as she combats this infection, hench the recent change to carefresh.

I am so confused!!!!

Respiratory infections can be caused by long periods of very high humidity and cold temperatures. If the respiratory problems have cleared up, I would recommend raising the humidity to 60%+ and changing the bedding again. Low humidity can be pretty hard on indos' scales.

Please let me know if I can help in some way.

donkeybuff wrote:Respiratory infections can be caused by long periods of very high humidity and cold temperatures. If the respiratory problems have cleared up, I would recommend raising the humidity to 60%+ and changing the bedding again. Low humidity can be pretty hard on indos' scales.

The OP has been working with her vet on this... I'd be hesitiant to offed advice thinking that in a case where a vet is recommending euthanization a layperson can offer husbandry advice and fix the situation.

Clara - I'm really sorry that you're going through this. It is awful. You and your vet know best, if you feel that it is time then I'm really sorry that you have to go through this. When we finally decided to have our little guy euthanized it was terrible but definitely the right decision. If you have followed up with the posts that Susann, myself and others have made on this topic then I'm not sure we can offer anything else.

donkeybuff wrote:Respiratory infections can be caused by long periods of very high humidity and cold temperatures. If the respiratory problems have cleared up, I would recommend raising the humidity to 60%+ and changing the bedding again. Low humidity can be pretty hard on indos' scales.

Humidity was neverly truly that high with reptibark (the substrate she was on when she got ill)
It was at a pretty consistant 45%. Her warm side of her enclosure is always kept at 95-98°.

Also, the rest of her bodys' scales look beautiful, including belly :/

Katrina wrote:

donkeybuff wrote:Respiratory infections can be caused by long periods of very high humidity and cold temperatures. If the respiratory problems have cleared up, I would recommend raising the humidity to 60%+ and changing the bedding again. Low humidity can be pretty hard on indos' scales.

The OP has been working with her vet on this... I'd be hesitiant to offed advice thinking that in a case where a vet is recommending euthanization a layperson can offer husbandry advice and fix the situation.

Clara - I'm really sorry that you're going through this. It is awful. You and your vet know best, if you feel that it is time then I'm really sorry that you have to go through this. When we finally decided to have our little guy euthanized it was terrible but definitely the right decision. If you have followed up with the posts that Susann, myself and others have made on this topic then I'm not sure we can offer anything else.

Thank you for understanding Katrina...:'(

I sent you a PM, but not sure if you've seen it.
There is a shot combination that my vet has given some of my skinks who got really bad with this, and they greatly improved. I'd like to point out that since I've been using the MistKing, every skink with this affliction has improved. My IJ Joey unfortunately lost his battle (I decided to euthanize him) before I figured out the humidity solution. Back then I was just spraying the enclosure with a spray bottle.

I have talked to the OP on the phone, and she is making some decisions with her vet right now and will keep us posted.

Good luck to you both we're here for you, however it turns out.

Katrina wrote:

donkeybuff wrote:Respiratory infections can be caused by long periods of very high humidity and cold temperatures. If the respiratory problems have cleared up, I would recommend raising the humidity to 60%+ and changing the bedding again. Low humidity can be pretty hard on indos' scales.

The OP has been working with her vet on this... I'd be hesitiant to offed advice thinking that in a case where a vet is recommending euthanization a layperson can offer husbandry advice and fix the situation.

I realize that the vet is definitely more knowledgeable than me and that my advice should not be regarded as highly as the advice of a good vet, but I'm just trying to make sure that everything has been tried before resorting to euthanasia. OP, I wish you the best of luck with whatever happens with you and Clara.

donkeybuff wrote:I realize that the vet is definitely more knowledgeable than me and that my advice should not be regarded as highly as the advice of a good vet, but I'm just trying to make sure that everything has been tried before resorting to euthanasia. OP, I wish you the best of luck with whatever happens with you and Clara.

I guess you probably haven't been around long enough to know the history then... Gigas BTS seem to get these symptoms that the OP is describing and slowly die - it often ends in euthanasia. I first described it ad nauseum with Nemo... I spent thousand and thousands of dollars at the vet and tried everything and he had to be euthanized after only 3 years with me. Susann went through the same thing, as did many, many others on the forum. No vet could figure it out; many times our vets were in contact to determine what had been tried (Baytril doesn't work!) and so they could look into new areas. It isn't allergies, fungal, bacterial, etc. etc. Many of us have spent tens of thousands of dollars on vet care and sadly, it didn't help any of them. Not many know because I didn't post it publically, but I had a second Merauke, Simon, die of this last fall. I partially didn't post about it because I didn't want people questioning euthanasia, questioning my care or giving advice about husbandry or humidity when many vets and many, many tests and treatments haven't helped.

I know that you likely haven't been around long enough to know any of this, I just wanted to explain this a bit. The OP has contacted me about other options and to see if there is something they are missing. I wish I could help her.

Sorry about your loss Kat, it must have been very tough.

@Katrina...I am SO sorry about Simon. :'( This "mystery illness" is a very hard blow on us BTS owners. At least with dogs and cats, they can always ultimately find out what is wrong, so you can try and treat them successfully.

Well, an update on Clara. She was scheduled to be euthanized at 2:50 pm CT. Susann made an attempt to contact me thru PM, so it came thru as an email literally as I was walking out the door with my dear Clara. I got in the car and decided I had to try and get in with touch with her, even if it was only for some closure, so PM'd her back my phone #. She called me as I pulled into the vet clinic. She gave me some wonderful advice, and I went in to discuss it with my vet, and we all decided it was worth a shot (of course Clara was feisty and more active than she was earlier)....so I took it as an omen, and decided to try the things Susann suggested. Unfortunately the vet didn't have one of the injections of the "trio" that Susann has been successful with, but I bought some better, more bioavailable D3 for Clara, that I hope will be sufficient, for now. I also got an actual ointment for her eye, vs. the drops, so hopefully that will help keep her eyes from forming so much crust that has to be removed. I have stripped her enclosure of all substrate, replaced with paper towels, and added a humid hide. I also added a dish full of soaked cotton balls in one corner, and a pile of soaked moss in another. I have also commenced "steaming" her for 15 minutes (3X/day).
Susann said she saw improvement fairly soon (@3 days or so)...the vet says to give her a good solid 2-3 weeks before a recheck, so I am praying like heck that this works. He of course said if she worsens at all, to bring her in for a peaceful end.
All in all, i am "guardedly optimistic." If this doesn't work, at least we can say we tried, and I will have no regrets, just an empty spot in my heart But if it does work, I will be a very happy skink mom!!!!!

Thanks to all for the advice, suggestions, and most of all, the support! I will keep you all updated regularly on Claras' progress!!

Good luck, and congrats on being a great skink mom! Many people would have never even gone to the vet in the first place, let alone gone through all of this effort. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Clara makes a full recovery.