Spyro, rescue 130-- Graphic Pictures!!!

Spyro, a 5 to 6 year old female beardie, suffered a nasty prolapse today. It's one of the worst I've ever seen. Her owners surrendered her to me so I could take over her care. A prolapse is when part of their intestines get pushed outside of their body through their vent. 

This was the picture I saw-- 

I told the owners to immediately soak the end of the beardie in warm sugar water. Sugar water causes the tissues to shrink. Do NOT let it get dry or dirty. Keep soaking and get to a vet ASAP. 

When I arrived at the vet, this is what it actually looked like-- 

Horrible! She was in SO much pain!!! It was much bigger than I thought. 

I had to force her into a warm water dish to clean her off. And then I had to hold a gauze soaked with sugar water to her prolapsed for about an hour. 

Dr Echols, my second favorite vet, really struggled to get the tissue back in. He almost wasn't successful. 

Look at her eyes and beard. If she could scream, she probably would have. After about 10 minutes, the tissue went in. There was quite a lot of blood. 

Let me educate you for a minute--- 

Vets have two goals in treating prolapses:  1st, fix the prolapse and 2nd, find the cause & fix it. 

Dr Echols is pretty sure he feels retained eggs in her belly. That can easily be a cause for a beardie to push so hard in an attempt to get out eggs that she ends up pushing out her guts. :( 

Other common causes of prolapses in beardies are parasite infestations or impacted guts. Coccidia can overload the guts of beardies and, in an attempt to get the full feeling out, a beardie will push and strain until the guts fall out. 

It's the same effect with an impaction (constipation). Instinct makes a beardie push and push and push to empty its bowels-- even if it causes a prolapse. This is why it's so critical to test for parasites if your beardie strains to poop or has nasty poop. And to make sure they are not on a loose substrate (sand, walnut she'll, etc). 

Time is CRITICAL with a prolapse. The vent squeezes the intestines and cuts off the blood flow. A long prolapse will actually kill the intestional tissue and the dead tissue will have to be surgical removed and the bowel rebuilt. As you can guess, most beardies do NOT survive that process. A red prolapse still has some blood flow; a purple or grey prolapse is very bad. 

YOU MUST GET VET CARE ASAP!!!! 

Spyro came home and got some pain meds. For awhile, I wasn't even sure she'd make it through the night. I put her in a warm sick tank and let her sleep. She already looks a little better. 

Tomorrow morning she will go back to the vet for an ultrasound. We need to figure out if she does have eggs and then we'll decide what to do. Preventing a prolapse was one of the goals for having Skye's surgery last month.

I'll post more tomorrow. I'm pretty sure she'll make it through the night. I'm sure a good night's sleep in a soft & warm tank will help a lot.