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Bearded Dragon lizards symptoms of dying

22 14:33:21

Question
I have two bearded dragon lizards that are just short of four years old.  I keep a diary of daily eating habits, defecation, water drinking, etc.  The male is 4x the size of the female (they were not being fed properly when I took them in at 8 months old) and eats and just finished shedding again.  However the past week, the female will not eat crickets, just 1 or 2 meal worms.  From Tues. through Friday she ate nothing and then Sat. had two meal worms.  She never eats the lettuce, carrots and greens I provide any more.  Today she ate one worm and, as is my usual habit besides spritzing her with water, put her in the sink and she drank up a storm. Then usually she defecates and I put her back in her tank.  Today she drank a lot and then wanted out immediately.  As I was drying her off, she was panting and then a viscuous fluid was coming out of her mouth.  When I put her back in the tank, she ran to the male and hugged on to him and did what I thought a lizard was impossible to do - threw up more of this phlegm and the one worm she ate whole.  She the preceded to pant for several hours and then had what can only be called seizure like symptoms where she flopped around about four times.  I took her out and held her a bit and put her back.  Now she is back to the wide open mouth mode and her eyes are not alert plus when I opened her mouth there was more of this sticky clear fluid.  The nearest pet store to my rural area is over 100 mile round trip so I know there are no vets that specialize in lizards here - it is farm country. Do you know what I can do to make her comfortable or treat her - I am afraid she won't last through the night.  Just last week she was eating and seemed perfectly alert.  The male is fine. I know most in captivity last 4 - 7 years.  If she is dying, is she contagious to him?

Answer
You need a vet, because you aren't going to solve this by back and forth consultation by internet before she runs out of time.

Any kind of vet is better that no vet. Don't make excuses until you have talked to one and asked if they would be willing to help.

The regurgitation and labored breathing is a sign of serious illness. Could be gastric impaction due to something ingested, egg binding, or infection such as adenovirus. You need a vet to narrow down which, because treatments are different. Nobody can tell you whether she is contagious without having more details, but isolation is always recommended during illness.