Hypovitaminosis A in Bearded Dragons

This is nutritional disease and is the result of a diet that is lacking in vitamin A This disease most commonly affects chelonians but I've seen some cases in bearded dragons. Some times reptile owners, gut load their feeder insects (crickets) with a diet that's no adequate to the nutritional needs of a baby or a juvenile dragon also is important to provide adults with foods rich in vitamin A in the veggies diet if not the pathology will be seen

Clinical history
I have a 3 year old bearded female dragon that developed an eye infection or something this morning I came in to work and her eye was swollen shut. She is eating all right and moving around well. My bearded dragon just start to have some problems with the eyes and they haven't been fighting or anything what is happening? I feed my crickets with romaine and potatoes.

Pathognomonic sings
The clinical picture in early stages we can found a mild swelling in the eyelid or the tissue surrounding the eye as the disease progress the swelling will do too, eyes will become red and inflamed ending with the eyes swollen shut. Swollen shut eyes condition contribute to their dietary deficiency because the animals fail to feed themselves

Diagnosis
The early ocular changes of the disease are confirmed to mild eye edema we also can confirm the disease by checking the clinical sings of eye problems and diet history. Histophatologic diagnosis at biopsy should rarely be required.

Treatment
Ok your bearded dragon is suffering something called hypovitaminosis A, this is nutritional disease vitamin A deficiency and I would recommend to gut load your crickets with carrots just in case you still use crickets as part of the diet when juveniles but as adults, they mostly eat veggies give her carrots a lot of them mixed with other veggies of course like dark, leafy greens (e.g., collard greens, kale, red-tipped leaf lettuce, mustard greens, hibiscus flowers) and finely chopped or grated vegetables. Babies dragons are mostly insectivores they start becoming vegetarians gradually as they grow and mature, appropriately-sized crickets (approximately 1/3 the size of the lizard's head, by width or by volume) make up the basis of their diet, with mealworms, wax worms and king mealworm, providing variety for lizards older than one month.

  1. Water soluble vitamin A should be giving weekly by intramuscularly injection until recovery, you must give 5,500UI of vitamin A this is a dose based on a 600 grams body weight if the bearded weight under the 600gr you should give less vitamin A
  2. Food rich in vitamin A should be given: carrots, Broccoli (1 spear has 232 RE of vitamin A) but you would have to eat almost 9 broccoli spears to equal the vitamin A in one carrot corn, peas, lima beans, winter squash
  3. Recovery will take a month
  4. Maybe go to the vet to show you how to do the injections of the 5,500UI of vitamin A weekly until recovery
  5. Fluids may have to be administered in species whose feeding habits are effected by sight in order to maintain proper hydration
  6. Antibiotic ointments to prevent secondary bacterial infections in the eyes (optional)

By Mauricio Flores (Dr. J) vet@reptilerepublic.com