Help with eye issue

Hey guys I have a little 3 month old beardie female and I'm a little worried about a possible eye issue. She keeps her left eye closed most of the time and almost never opens it. The breeder I got her from said she may have scratched it during shipping or something of the sort. I left her alone to see if it would heal up on it's own but so far she still keeps it shut. The eye itself looks ok but her eyelids look a little crusty and a little swollen. I very gently wiped it with a soft wet rag and it looked a little better but I'm still a little nervous. The breeder also told me the vet can get me some eye drops for infection but I just wanted to see if anyone had any advice on it. I've tried to explain it as good as I can because I don't have any pictures of it right now but I'll be sure to take some and post them. Do I need to take her to a vet or should I just go myself and tell them and see if they can write a perscription for the eye drops? Thanks a bunch guys.

Zach

Oh I also forgot to mention that she acts perfectly normal, she eats her veggies, chases down her crickets, and poops and pees just fine. It's just the eye and I don't want it to get any worse. Thanks.

Zach

What kind of substrate do you have her on? Any type of loose substrate like sand can be very detrimental to the eyes of beardies...if you are using sand, the first thing to do would be to take her off of it. You can use sterile saline solution (just make sure it's saline ONLY, none of that polyquad crap that comes in contact solution. Pure, plain saline) to flush her eye out with daily. If after a few days you feel the eye needs to be medicated, Terramycin is available OTC nowadays...you can find it by a simple google search...apply it two to three times daily...more than likely she ended up with something in her eye at some point, and now may have developed an infection because of it...

Try to stay away from tap water. That will do more harm than good. Use the saline instead. It's good that she's still acting normally, now the goal is to keep it that way.

Oh, and if she's housed with any other dragons, it would be in her best intrest to be separated from her roommate.

Ditto on the advice [ although I use sand for some of my bigger guys] Was the dragon having the problem when it arrived?

I do not use sand yet I've always heard to wait until they are 6 or more months old. They are on reptile carpet. I like it and it doesn't get anything stuck in the eyes like sand. Only real downfall is that they can get their nails stuck but so far that hasn't been an issue. I've been trying to flush it out but I'm going to get some eye drops for her to make sure it does not get infected and if it is it should fix it. She's still eating and gaining weight with no problem and eating her greens so it's just the eye I want to fix. Thanks for the help and hopefully eveything turns out great.

Zach

What type of UV lighting are you using? Coil bulbs can cause dragons to shut one or both eyes. Also, there has been a bad batch of MegaRay MVB bulbs put out recently (last couple of months?). From what I've read, ReptileUV is making a correction and replacing the bulbs out of this batch.

Also wanted to add, you can purchase Terramycin online without a vet prescription.
Here's one place to buy it...
http://www.bug-de-lite.com/Products%20Page.html

To bring this back up...this little girls eye got better and now it seems like she keeps it closed almost all the time. It doesn't look infected or swollen at all. I have bought some Terrimyacin but it hasn't come in yet. Again it doesn't affect her eating or anything I just want to make sure she's happy and healthy. Any other advice?

Last update I'll need here. I have been treating the eye with Terrimyacin like suggested and her eye is SOOOO much better. She keeps it open like all the time now and I couldn't be happier. Thanks guys and gals.

Zach