Egg-Bound Monitor Lizard

The following story was sent to us from Dr. Deepa Katyal in Mumbai, India.

A monitor lizard was found by some passersby in the scorching heat of the city of Thane, in a corner of a pathway. It was almost dead due to dehydration and a huge belly.

The case was presented to the Thane SPCA and directed to my practice for medical help. Exotic animal medicine is still in the beginning stages in India, and not every veterinarian handles these cases.

After correcting the dehydration and taking X-rays, we discovered the huge abdominal bulge was due to her being egg bound. She was extremely listless and was in chronic pain with her eyes shut for almost two weeks. As days went by, painkillers daily, calcium intake, and other supportive treatment kept being given. The hope was that the lizard would slowly gain the strength to get the eggs out.

It took the lizard mom a total of four weeks to respond, which is when she finally protested her injections and opened her eyes. With the right knowledge, pain medication, and a full course of treatment, Lizzy graced us with her first egg, and this made us witness a beauty in labor. After one week she was a mom to 21 infertile eggs. Totally exhausted, Lizzy would not accept food, so she was tube-fed with EmerAid Intensive Care Carnivore.

She was still consistently motionless, but now her eyes were open when awake. We saw this as a great sign of recovery, but one week after delivering her eggs, her intestine prolapsed; the gut and stool content showed the presence of roundworms and tapeworms. After a safe sedation, we got the intestines where they belonged and dewormed her. We continue our feeding with the life-saving EmerAid Intensive Care Carnivore.

After three weeks of being unresponsive, Lizzy surprised us with her graceful and fantastic “catwalk.” This was possible after a total of two months of tube feeding and recovery from egg binding and intestinal prolapse due to worm load.

I kept her under a few more weeks of observation. Once she began eating and became active, she was released by the forest department into the wild after three months of total recovery time.

I’m now left wondering how the universe in its intelligence puts help at the right place, at the right time. How it connects with the right people, instrumental to save a life. I’m simply speechless after this experience. Thank you to EmerAid for the food supply, without which it would have been very difficult to get Lizzy back to being strong enough to go through all this.

Dr. Deepa Katyal
Companion Animal Veterinary Practitioner
M.V.Sc (Mumbai), M.V.St (Aus)
Board of Director (International Veterinary Academy of Pain Management) USA. ivapm.org,
Website: www.deepakatyal.com