Supportive care for a Merauke being treated for a Respiratory Infection

[squamata]

Hello, I wasn't sure if this post belongs in general or advanced so I will post it here in general. My apologies if this topic has been discussed before but I could not find the answers to my questions in the search feature, so here it goes.

My poor 4 year old Merauke has yet another RI and it is my fault. I left the window open one night and it got really cold. The next day his breathing was clicking, a sure sign of RI for my guy. He has come down with RI two times before, and those times it was because of humidity being too low; I've found that his humidity needs to be 60%+ to keep him healthy.

I do have him under the care of an amazing exotics vet, she has been fantastic with all my herps. I'm lucky in that regard. For this most recent RI we did injections but it would appear that the infection has not cleared up. In the past it has taken several treatments of some combination of oral and injection medicines. The worst case took 4-5 months to clear up. I don't want that to happen again.

So my question for you guys who perhaps have more experience than me with Indonesian blueys, what is the best thing I can do for my Merauke to support his recovery, set up wise?

I currently have him on a humid particulate substrate that he can burrow in (basically an ABG mix), with a hot side and a cool side hide, and a big water dish. I use a 150 watt incandescent during the day and a CHE at night. The temperature on the hot side is 85F on the substrate under the hide, and 96F on the basking platform. The cool side on the substrate is about 77F. The CHE is not as powerful, so at night the basking platform is about 80 and the substrate is cooler, about 74 I think. I measure these with an infrared temp gun. He spends most of his time hiding under the hides burrowed in the substrate. Humidity is 60%-80%.

I am not sure if I should switch him from his particulate substrate to paper towels while treating him with the antibiotics. If I switch to paper towels should I provide a humid hide since the overall enclosure humidity will suffer? Am I keeping him hot enough? Should I keep the humidity high or should it be lower while treating the RI?

Please let me know if you have had experience with this and have some suggestions for me. Thanks so much for your time.

[kingofnobbys]

Hello, I wasn't sure if this post belongs in general or advanced so I will post it here in general. My apologies if this topic has been discussed before but I could not find the answers to my questions in the search feature, so here it goes.

My poor 4 year old Merauke has yet another RI and it is my fault. I left the window open one night and it got really cold. The next day his breathing was clicking, a sure sign of RI for my guy. He has come down with RI two times before, and those times it was because of humidity being too low; I've found that his humidity needs to be 60%+ to keep him healthy.

I do have him under the care of an amazing exotics vet, she has been fantastic with all my herps. I'm lucky in that regard. For this most recent RI we did injections but it would appear that the infection has not cleared up. In the past it has taken several treatments of some combination of oral and injection medicines. The worst case took 4-5 months to clear up. I don't want that to happen again.

So my question for you guys who perhaps have more experience than me with Indonesian blueys, what is the best thing I can do for my Merauke to support his recovery, set up wise?

I currently have him on a humid particulate substrate that he can burrow in (basically an ABG mix), with a hot side and a cool side hide, and a big water dish. I use a 150 watt incandescent during the day and a CHE at night. The temperature on the hot side is 85F on the substrate under the hide, and 96F on the basking platform. The cool side on the substrate is about 77F. The CHE is not as powerful, so at night the basking platform is about 80 and the substrate is cooler, about 74 I think. I measure these with an infrared temp gun. He spends most of his time hiding under the hides burrowed in the substrate. Humidity is 60%-80%.

I am not sure if I should switch him from his particulate substrate to paper towels while treating him with the antibiotics. If I switch to paper towels should I provide a humid hide since the overall enclosure humidity will suffer? Am I keeping him hot enough? Should I keep the humidity high or should it be lower while treating the RI? <<< good idea to go to very easy to replace and keep germ free paper towels until the RI has been cured.

Please let me know if you have had experience with this and have some suggestions for me. Thanks so much for your time.

I think nebulization using F10 as outlined here https://www.beardeddragon.org/forums/vi ... 0#p1805129 , will be beneficial and help clear up the RI.

[Angcious]

I dealt with this in Jan with my older bts, also Merauke. I didn't hear noises from his lungs but his breathing just seemed off to me. He also looked like he was a little winded and needed to catch his breath after he'd been active.
With a stethoscope, the vet said his lungs sounded a little raspy and the xrays revealed slightly distended lungs but he was pretty confident that we caught it early.
I was told to feed him a little bit every day to make sure he kept up his appetite, as well as keeping him warm and not allowing his temperature to fluctuate...which meant limiting his time out of the cage which he was not happy with! But I would let him come out on the bed and cuddle up with me and a heating blanket for a little bit.
We started out with injections but it was awful, the skin on his arm was so tough...even with a lot of pressure from me, I could barely get the needle to break the skin...and when I finally did, it hurt him and I'd wind up pushing it in too far when he struggled! The last time, the needle literally BROKE before I could even penetrate the skin...I called up the vet and told him I wanted to switch to oral.
I chose to do paper towels for about a week because I got paranoid and disinfected all of my lizard supplies and wanted to try to keep his cage as clean as I could. I did put a bunch of moist moss under his basking light to try to help with the humidity but it didn't do much overall. After a week or so, his scales were visibly drier but he had shown major improvement with his breathing so I stopped with the paper towels and put his substrate back in.
I don't usually give mine che lights for night heat because the temps stay above 70 at night but I did use the night che for him while he recovered.
Other than that, I didn't really do much else different for him. I was very lucky that he responded well with the meds and he's doing great now fortunately. Good luck with your little one!

[kingofnobbys]

I dealt with this in Jan with my older bts, also Merauke. I didn't hear noises from his lungs but his breathing just seemed off to me. He also looked like he was a little winded and needed to catch his breath after he'd been active.
With a stethoscope, the vet said his lungs sounded a little raspy and the xrays revealed slightly distended lungs but he was pretty confident that we caught it early.
I was told to feed him a little bit every day to make sure he kept up his appetite, as well as keeping him warm and not allowing his temperature to fluctuate...which meant limiting his time out of the cage which he was not happy with! But I would let him come out on the bed and cuddle up with me and a heating blanket for a little bit.
We started out with injections but it was awful, the skin on his arm was so tough...even with a lot of pressure from me, I could barely get the needle to break the skin...and when I finally did, it hurt him and I'd wind up pushing it in too far when he struggled! The last time, the needle literally BROKE before I could even penetrate the skin...I called up the vet and told him I wanted to switch to oral.
I chose to do paper towels for about a week because I got paranoid and disinfected all of my lizard supplies and wanted to try to keep his cage as clean as I could. I did put a bunch of moist moss under his basking light to try to help with the humidity but it didn't do much overall. After a week or so, his scales were visibly drier but he had shown major improvement with his breathing so I stopped with the paper towels and put his substrate back in.
I don't usually give mine che lights for night heat because the temps stay above 70 at night but I did use the night che for him while he recovered.
Other than that, I didn't really do much else different for him. I was very lucky that he responded well with the meds and he's doing great now fortunately. Good luck with your little one!

Giving injections to a reptile is no fun for either the reptile or the carer.... didn't the vet explain that you need find the interface between two scales and slip the needle in there , that way you are not trying to force it through a tough scale but just skin .

[Angcious]

Yes that's what I was doing! The technician even said his skin was tougher than she expected. I took a video of her showing me how to give him the injections:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/163739215@N05/41185753872/in/dateposted-public/#
Back when he was a 100 gram baby, he needed shots in his back legs. I was terrified because his legs were so tiny but it was easy then!

[squamata]

Hey, thanks for the replys everyone. Sorry I am getting back a bit late. I wanted to provide an update: my skink is healthy again! It only took two weeks. It was a total of 5 injections of medicine every three days. I kept the humidity high and his daytime temperature elevated an extra 5 degrees, and his nighttime temps up with a CHE for three weeks total.

kingofnobbys: That is interesting. I have never heard of nebulization before. I asked my vet about it to see what she had to say and I want to share her reply here with you all. She said nebulization with F10 is certainly helpful and effective, provided you get the product specifically made for nebulization. She warned that the F10 sold on Amazon is the disinfectant version and to go through the F10 website to ensure you get the proper product made to nebulize. She also warned to ensure you use the right dose.

An alternative solution to nebulize and provide relief is a saline solution she suggested, that way you do not have to worry about dosages. Another way to help relieve the RI symptoms in the animal is to put them in the bathroom with you while you take a hot shower, because the steam can provide some relief.

Hopefully my skink will stay healthy and I won't need to use these techniques in the future but posting it here in case it may be of use to others.

Angcious: Thanks for sharing your experience. Your bluey is lucky you are so observant. I think catching the RI early is huge for getting them to recover in a timely manner. Once the bubbles start coming out of their mouths then it is going to be an uphill battle. I was lucky to catch the symptoms early this time, and had a vet appointment for the very next day. Giving injections is definitely tricky, you're so right about the armored skin.. when the needle finally gets through under the scale it seems to 'pop' almost. Creeps me out. I'm lucky to live right up the street from my vet so I drove my skink down every few days to have the vet techs give him the injections for me. :S

I asked my vet's opinion on whether to lower the humidity(<40%) for the Indonesian species of skinks or to keep it high(>60%) while they recover from RI--she didn't have a good answer unfortunately, since there are too many factors. In my case I chose to keep the humidity high since my skink has had issues from low humidity in the past. In your case the low humidity for a week seemed to help. I suppose as keepers we just have to use our best judgement!

[Angcious]

Oh that's wonderful news, thanks for updating us!
Yes, the pop was disgusting!! After the injection was over, my guy was having a heaving/huffing tantrum and I would be light headed and shaking from the ordeal lol. Truly a not fun experience.
Did they charge a lot each time they gave the shot? The whole thing caused me to have a falling out with my vet. I asked if I could bring him in so they can give him the injections, they said they'd have to charge an exam fee ($70) each time which I felt was ridiculous...I thought/hoped they'd charge half that. So then I told them I wanted to try the oral med, explained that he was supposed to get his injection that day but the needle broke. It took them 3 days to get back to me! I kept calling them telling them I was so happy my guy was doing well but he had only gotten halfway through his antibiotic treatment and now is overdue for his next dose. I was livid and went off on them when I finally got to pick up his meds!
However when it came time for my younger to get his checkup several weeks later, I wanted to get his lungs checked also. Took him to a different animal hospital. They were extremely nice and so happy to meet a bts for the first time, but didn't have the reptile knowledge that the other vet has. So in the end, I'll still be using the original vet but I feel a lot differently toward him than I once did

[squamata]

Wow, that sounds like a bad time. I would certainly be put off too from an experience like that. Too bad you're stuck going there if that's the only vet with the more specialized reptile knowledge in your area (Maybe there is another one around--perhaps further away but still a reasonable driving distance?). I know exactly what you mean about the heaving and shaking. I've seen my skink do the same thing, tongue sticking out and all. That was caused from having to wrestle oral medicine into him before. I think it must have taste bad because it looked like he was trying to work it back up, like gagging. Really terrible to watch, made me feel really guilty but it was that or no medicine and he might not get better. :/

I'm really surprised that your vet wanted to charge an exam fee for those injections. I wonder if he does not trust his vet techs? In my case, I just paid for the initial exam, the medicine, and then a small needle disposal fee and that's it. I suppose they did not charge an exam fee since my vet was not spending time with him in an exam room, instead I would show up and the vet techs would take him and give him a shot while I waited in the lobby and done, in and out in a few minutes. They even took his weight each time just to keep track. I feel like I must never move away from this area because I'm not sure I will ever find another exotic vet clinic as amazing as that one.