I would like to hear from anyone who has an older iguana (8 years or more) and has successfully dealt with kidney disease.

My girl is very sick and I need you advise as to what has worked.

We have been working with a vet for four months on this and are having a biopsy done on Monday.

Regards,
Bertrice's Mom

I myself have not but just did some searching to see if I could find anything for ya.

This is from Melissa Kaplan's site and has her 'personal perspectives' on dealing with this disease. http://www.anapsid.org/aboutmk/wally2.html

Good luck, and please keep us updated.

Of all the people here I would imagine Rich or Dominick could be of the most help to you. They should be along soon.

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

Hi Bertice's Mom-

So sorry to hear about your Iguanas illness. Kidney disease is a very serious, life-threatening illness, as you already know.

Rather than re-iterate what I know from reading and learning, I would point you to the Advanced Iguana Mailing List for answers. The AIML contains some of the top Iguana people in the country as well as the most current view on treatment for these types of illnesses.

I strongly suggest you subscribe and post your question there.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AdvancedIML/

Good luck to you and your iguana. I hope that the help you get is useful in extending your iguanas life (which it oftentimes does) and helps her to feel better.

__________________
Regards,
Dominick
_____________________________________________
"Do you watch too much television? Did you do so as a toddler? Evidence tonight that it could be the cause of learning disorders, like attention deficit and hyperact-Ooooh, a kitty!" - Keith Olbermann

Without a vet trip:

Water, lots of water, and a diet naturally high in calcium. Everything that goes into the animal filters through both the liver and the kidneys so you need to make their job easy. And good access to UV.

This is how my vet and Dom told me to treat Bob until I can get into the vet in mid Oct, but from Bob's last blood panel most of my problem seems to be from the liver.

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~ Mark

That's correct Mark-

Lots of water and High Calcium/low phosphorous diet with good, strong UVB. All this will help the iguana's internal system to operate efficiently. It has also been suggested that Vitamin B-12 could be beneficial to the internal organs, but I'll leave that to the experts at AIML.

__________________
Regards,
Dominick
_____________________________________________
"Do you watch too much television? Did you do so as a toddler? Evidence tonight that it could be the cause of learning disorders, like attention deficit and hyperact-Ooooh, a kitty!" - Keith Olbermann

To toss in my own opinion, well that of many others also, I would not use suppliments to elevate the Ca. By doing that you are adding another thing that the kidneys have to filter and another thing that could go wrong for him. Use foods like collards and winter squash that have nice ratios to them.

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~ Mark