My wife says that she believes our water dragon, Draco (appx 12 months) lost a front tooth this afternoon. Is that even possible? I admit, my knowledge of WD dentistry is limited. I do in fact see what might be a tiny spot of blood... I'd think that perhaps he bit something, except that he has been hanging on the curtain sunning himself nearly all day. If it happened, it must have happened last night. We had the "tooth" or whatever the object might have been, but dropped it before I could take a pic to post it. It sure did look like a tooth, so maybe she's not a kook after all. Anyone have any experience with this sort of thing? I assumed that they just had rigid gums, but again, I've never really thought about this before. Will it grow back, if it was in fact a tooth?

It seems as though my question here was a sign of fairly advanced mouth rot; I only just put the pieces together today with the help of my wife. After loosing the teeth, no other signs were present. Behavior was normal, appetite was fine, and there was no discoloration of the teeth, gums, or saliva. Things progressed normally the rest of the month, until the last week of May, when some discoloration showed in the surrounding teeth, with an instant loss of appetite. I have never had a lizard with mouth rot, and I am ashamed I didn't take the teeth coming out sign as a reason to take him to the vet. I could have headed this problem off an entire month ago, but my lack of knowledge on the subject has caused him to get into the danger zone of no appetie, and lethargy. I am taking him to the vet on Tuesday, and am currently trying to force feed him pedalyte, as well as soaking him in a bowl of it, to keep him hanging in there until we can get him on the anti-biotics he needs.

I am updating this post, because I believe that since it was never answered, no one else here recognized this as a sign of trouble either. I hope this helps someone not make the same mistake as I did... I'll update again when I find out what the vet has to say.

Mouthrot is a tough one, without the visible signs it can be impossible to diagnose, I lost a snake to it a while back that never showed any signs of having it except the loss of appetite. My vet diagnosed the problem but unfortunately the treatments came too late. You can't always know what is wrong, and one tooth being lost wouldn't have alerted most of us to the condition. Don't beat yourself up, now that you know what is wrong you can get help.

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I'm soo sorry....I never seen the post.

I'm glad you found out what was wrong with him....hopefully you've caught it in time and he'll make a complete recovery.

Ours too suffered mouth rot in a big way before we realized what was happening. Now we have been to the vet 6 times! The center part of the jaw rotted and is no longer connected. He continues to eat and be active so we can't give up on him. The vet lets us give him the antibiotic injections to save $ and trips but he is slowly cutting away the debrided tissue and protruding jaw bone/teeth. Its awful but he wants to eat and we are searching for the best possible liquid formula anyone might have used. Right now we are mixing up cricket gut load, vitimins, calcium powder and moistening w/ diluted gatorade. Any better ideas from anyone? We think he's the toughest little dragon ever and deserves all we can do!!!

Sounds like a pretty good diet, but it looks like it needs more protein in it, and possibly more phosphorous, depending on how much is in the gutload, if any. Although it sounds nasty, the best thing I could think of would be to puree some crickets, mealworms, and fish, and add that to his current diet.

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"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines." - John Benfield

Oxbow Critical Care is one of the best...if not the best...feeding formula for those animals that need assisted eating. Many vets do not carry, but if you're lucky your vet might. If not, see if they can order some for you. The Obbow company does not sell to individuals.

Oxbow Hay Company

I need to purchase some for the WD I'm rehabbing, too. They make one for carnivorous animals, too. It's called "Carnivore Care". This AND the herbivorous type has been used in reptiles with good success. This will be my first time using it, but I personally know several people who use it with good results.

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