If your frog is bloated, it is almost certainly due to edema. There are two distinct types of edema. One is caused by a bacterial infection, while the other is caused by vitamin toxicity-induced kidney failure. Clean your frog’s cage monthly and change its water frequently to avoid edema.
If your frog is infected with the bacterial type, inadequate care is frequently to a fault. Avoid recurrent infections by keeping your frog’s water clean — use a three-stage filtration system and make regular water changes to help prevent a hazardous bacteria accumulation. Avoid metabolic-related dropsy by providing your frog with a diversified diet that includes both high-quality commercial pellets and small insects. The specific mechanism of frog dropsy is unknown, although the lymphatic system causes the edema. Frog dropsy causes edema when lymph, a fluid that circulates in the lymphatic system, clogs the lymph nodes and fails to drain adequately.
Naturally, never presume your frog is dropsy without consulting an exotics veterinarian first. Another possibility is that your frog is bloated for another reason. Occasionally, frogs consume items that should not be included in their diet, like gravel and boulders from the enclosure, and get impacted, rather than swollen from dropsy.
Typically, a frog with dropsy seems to be bloated. While an x-ray may rule out foreign item ingestion, probing and injection of a needle into the frog’s abdomen typically suffice to determine if the frog has it or not.
We cannot precisely cure dropsy since we do not know what causes it. However, we can certainly treat the symptoms. This frequently involves your exotics veterinarian emptying the abdomen of your African dwarf frog of extra fluid. This will relieve strain on the organs and will almost immediately make your frog feel better. While some propose adding salt to your freshwater habitat to aid a frog suffering from dropsy, this is an extremely dangerous practice. Almost always, the salt will kill your frog. The purpose of the salt is to aid in the removal of excess fluid from your frog, but because African dwarf frogs are not saltwater amphibians, they frequently perish as a result of the salt addition.
A frog with dropsy can’t be helped at home. If you salt their enclosure, you risk torturing them to death. If you attempt to remove the fluid on your own, you risk causing irreversible damage.
As a result, this is a sickness that necessitates some level of competence. Unfortunately, euthanasia may be addressed with your veterinarian if they believe there is little hope for your frog.
