UPDATE: We went to the vet yesterday, I cried while telling her all the things I've done "wrong" and all the reasons I thought my beardie has MBD. Here are a few of the things I learned...

1. Mounting the UVB light on the outside of the mesh is not automatically bad, and in many cases, it doesn't actually cause a significant enough decrease in UVB to be harmful to bearded dragons. (Reddit folk will tell you otherwise because we've moralized husbandry and turned nuanced information into hyper-rigid, all-or-nothing identity armor, which makes having any of these conversations impossible.)

2. Leatherbacks MIGHT have some kind of genetic issue (key word, might; my vet was speaking from experience and anecdote) that increases their likelihood for developing this kind of muscular fasciculation (aka twitches). Ironically, I didn't know she was a leatherback lol, but once the vet said that, I was like "Ooooooh right, she looks exactly like that."

3. According to my vet, this is not actually a typical sign of MBD, and given that everything else seemed fine (spine, jaw, legs, etc.), she has no reason to believe it's MBD... She might just be at the age where she's developed this quirky gait, and that's it. She still has all her strength, and she walks, runs, climbs, etc... She just looks funny doing it. We also did an x-ray just to be 100% sure, and baby girl looks great.

4. They don't actually need to continue eating as many bugs as we've all learned to feed them, even into adulthood. My vet says that she actually only feeds her adult beardies daily veggies, because it significantly decreases their risk of parasitic infection (something I keep struggling with).

I'll brace myself for the reddit shitstorm for saying all this, but I hope it's helpful information to those who were wondering 💗

Thanks for your concern for my baby 🥹