Help.. My Iguana broke its arm!!!

Hi,

My pet iguana has broken its arm, i have had him around 8 months and i am absolutley panic sticken and desperatley need someone with a similar experience to help me understand how to go about getting him back on his feet as painlessly as possible.
It happened 2 days ago when he was walking, he got stuck right at the top of my curtains. Although i thought i was as carefull as i usually am during getting him down from somewhere he seems stuck, i evidently must have twisted his arm in the process. He did try using it at first and it was limp but he seemed to be moving the joints including his claw fine, it did swell up a little and i thought it may have just been sprained so i used some elasticaed guass to support him and to rest the arm.

Let me just say that this Iguana is hard as nails, i was stunned at how little this has effected him, although he is eating a little less than usual he is still somewhat mobile. The courage of this guy amazes me.

Tonight, i removed the guass to see if teh swelling had went down and can now clearly see there is a break in his upper left arm. This has left me absolutley gutted as i try my best to care for my Iguana's properly, and feel that getting his arm fixed is my number 1 priorty.

Jake is the bigger one of the two pictured and is the one suffering the broken arm.

As you can see, they are both happy healthy Iguana's that mean the world to me and my partner.

First thing tomorow, i am going to search my local area for a vet that can treat his arm, and am really trying to find answers to a couple of questions regarding his care.

First off, apart from the obvious asking the vet if he has any experience are there any other things i should ask specificaly?

How long on average would a brake take to heal?

Is there anything i can do to make him comfortable in the mean time?

Will this hinder his day to day activities after its mended?

Not that i would put a price on my Iguanas health but roughly how much is it likley to cost?

Again please please post any info you may have on this subject as i have been franticly googling but cant find anything specific to Iguanas broken limbs. And please dont think of me as a neglectfull owner, i have tortured myself over this for the past 2 days and believe me when i say, it was a complete accident, i am well aware as to how easily an Iguana's bone can be broken and take the utmost care when getting him unstuck. Unfortunatley this time, apparently not enough.

Originally Posted by Traceymiller

Hi,


Again please please post any info you may have on this subject as i have been franticly googling but cant find anything specific to Iguanas broken limbs.

And you won't find much iguana-specific "broken bone" information. Fundamentally, a broken bone in a iguana is no different then a fracture in a dog, horse, or bird. Most of the questions you posed are unanswerable without physically assessing the injury (exam and x-ray needs to be done ASAP). You also need to rule out a pathologic fracture (a fracture secondary to underlying illness such as MBD). Treatment options might run the gamut of enforced rest and confinement to splintage to surgery depending on what bone is broken and the nature of the fracture. So get him to a veterinarian soon.

Originally Posted by Dr Alan

And you won't find much iguana-specific "broken bone" information. Fundamentally, a broken bone in a iguana is no different then a fracture in a dog, horse, or bird. Most of the questions you posed are unanswerable without physically assessing the injury (exam and x-ray needs to be done ASAP). You also need to rule out a pathologic fracture (a fracture secondary to underlying illness such as MBD). Treatment options might run the gamut of enforced rest and confinement to splintage to surgery depending on what bone is broken and the nature of the fracture. So get him to a veterinarian soon.

Thank you for your responce, before i had checked back to see your responce i had already seeked out a suitable vet, although there were a couple of vets in the area willing to take a look, i managed to find a reptile specialist with 11 years dealing with Iguana's. It wasnt local to me, it was around an hour and halfs drive away from my area but totaly worth the journey. He had a a broken arm in the place i thought it was broken, the break was a clean diaganle break as show by the xray, the vet also sugested a blood test be done to ditermine if he was suffering from lack of calcium or phosforus and unfortunatley they were lower than normal but not too low as to cause any damage. I do spay there food with a suplement of both calcium and phosforus however, since i gave a home to a stray cat recently he has been eating less than usual, thus taking in less suplement. I was advised to give him 1ml of Calcio 20 every 12 hours for 7 days and his arm must remain in the sling for the same amount of time.

Here is jake back at home after his trip to the vets, he dosent look too happy but he has just got home and has had his blood taken and sex determind so needless to say he is best left alone tonight even though apart from extending his beard has has shown no aggresion.

Again thanks for your responce, it does make sense that it would be handled the same way as any other break would, but at the time of posting i was pretty desperate for answers.

Glad you found a veterinarian willing to work with you. That is not always easy. I'm sure things will resolve.

Just a quick update, I know its been a while. Jakes arm recovered perfectly,when we took the banage off he could use his arm abit,so we let him out daily for short periods of time to get a bit of exercise. We took him back to the vets for a check up 2 weeks later and the vet was very happy with the way his arm mended.Now he is back to Jake and seems really happy, tho he is no longer allowed to climb up the curtains!! But is happily climbing and jumping and scaring our other iguana Jeffrey.

If anyone else reading this lives on the costa del sol, I really would recommend the vet we went to, its called mundo animal and is situated next to the bus station in Torremolinos. We were really surprised to how little it cost, for a x ray,blood test and banage it cost 70euros(about 45GBP) and to take him back for a check up where he got a shot of vitamin and 2 worming tables it cost 5euros (3.50GBP) He specialists in reptiles but also treats furry animals!