Saturday, January 15, 2011

The iguana's tail has finally healed

It took a long while, I must say. Then, iguanas take longer to heal than a human being or dogs and cats. Stitches for example should only be removed after three weeks. My vet doesn't remove them at all and lets the shedding-skin-process take care of it.
So I spoke about the long-lasting tail problems previously. For those who haven't read it, here a long story cut short:
Zorro's tip of the tail was necrotic. I took him to the vet and it got amputated. A while later, it showed he had traumatised it another time and it started to die off again. Which meant another GA for the big boy. Luckily, he's a healthy chap in general and came round perfectly fine. Which I can't say for me, I fell from one faint into the next, for the costs of a vet in London are exorbitant.
The tail didn't heal and he whipped it around a lot. I bathed it daily in diluted Chlorhexidin and put Iodin onto it, then a bandage to keep it from further injuries. About three weeks later, the wound still wasn't healing, he whipped hard and the bandage came off, with it the crust and what was underneath, was not for the faint hearted:


I bathed it again, put on a bandage which he managed to get rid off the same evening. I left it, since he slept. And oh wonder, next day, it was covered with a soft skin. Wonderful, I thought. From then on, I only put some Iodine on it. It healed. So I thought.

Recently, which means months later, after another shedding, I saw his tip was a little too dark and it looked like there was still some old skin sitting on it. I peeled it off and I was a bit in shock, since I peeled off what looked like a crust when we humans bled, but it was all right. Underneath was soft skin, wax-white, I would describe it and after a few more days it was all completely healed. Iguana happy, I'm happy.

I never had such problems before, but he didn't seem to be affected by it in any way. Eats more than well, looks well and behaves, often not so well. Here are two pictures I took a few days ago.





 

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