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Posted by jeldridge on May 02, 2003 at 05:32:59:
I thought you all might like to hear how this ordeal turned out since it could happen to anyone...
Bobo (a 2 to 3 year old male Mali) finally passed his obstruction yesterday. If not for persistance he would definitely have died. His suffering got to be so great that twice I was considering euthanizing him. At one point he was vomiting froth and writhing around on his back, unable to get up. After that he would lie motionless, face buried in the sand exhausted. The fact that he has lived through this is amazing to me and (as strange as it sounds)I think he is a heroic and dignified little lizard.
Cure:
Massage! Warm baths and belly massage seems to be what saved him. I gave him deep abdomen massages for about 1/2 hour twice a day along with water from a syringe and a few drops of mineral oil. Near the end, I felt as though it was pointless, but 15 minutes after the last treatment, he passed it.
Cause: After examining the stool, it turned out to be a clump of sand. Being that he lives in sand, the best thing I think I can do to prevent it in the future to stop being lazy about where I put his, and all my Uros' greens. I got to a point where I was just putting their greens on the ground in thier enclosures and not on a dish. I stopped putting them on a dish because they usually walk all over it and sand got all over it, anyway. From now on I am going to try to keep thier food as clean as possible. I'm also going to make water available a little more often. Probably about two times a week.
Other points:
Use caution when administering mineral oil. Early on, I think I may have given him too much, and perhaps I even made things worse. I few drops is probably enough. Prune juice in small amounts is a recommendation I didn't try, but will consider if this happens again. It's fairly food-like and is a laxative.
