Yeah, she was my only one. I still have to keep the lights on to keep the plants alive though so I have an excuse to keep it running.
I had a long conversation with Dr. Driggers about that exact subject. He's treated thousands of lizards for MBD, usually successfully, so he has the experience to recognize this stuff. Anyway, he said that when lizards are in their first year, their bones are constantly growing and expanding, and that any interruption in nutrition causes osteoblastic activity to come to halt or slow while osteoclastic activity increases because of increased hormone output by the thyroid. This is typical MBD, but when it occurs in babies, osteocytes are more difficult to regulate and the MBD becomes uncontrollable. What's different about tegus is that they're unresponsive or hyporesponsive to salmon calcitonin, an "MBD miracle drug" that stops osteoclasts from destroying bone. So once we start the ball rolling with them, especially as babies, it's difficult to control. Sorry to ramble but that's it in a nutshell.
Zzyzx was also a weird case because she would not respond to anything we did. I brought her with me to the vet clinic once every week so she was getting constant treatment, she just continued in a downward spiral since she prolapsed.
I had a long conversation with Dr. Driggers about that exact subject. He's treated thousands of lizards for MBD, usually successfully, so he has the experience to recognize this stuff. Anyway, he said that when lizards are in their first year, their bones are constantly growing and expanding, and that any interruption in nutrition causes osteoblastic activity to come to halt or slow while osteoclastic activity increases because of increased hormone output by the thyroid. This is typical MBD, but when it occurs in babies, osteocytes are more difficult to regulate and the MBD becomes uncontrollable. What's different about tegus is that they're unresponsive or hyporesponsive to salmon calcitonin, an "MBD miracle drug" that stops osteoclasts from destroying bone. So once we start the ball rolling with them, especially as babies, it's difficult to control. Sorry to ramble but that's it in a nutshell.
Zzyzx was also a weird case because she would not respond to anything we did. I brought her with me to the vet clinic once every week so she was getting constant treatment, she just continued in a downward spiral since she prolapsed.
