Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello,
I pray that someone can help us. We got our gecko free of cost from our local pet supply where we buy our crickets for our bearded dragon. When we got the gecko she had one limb obviously broken and now both are. She was eating just fine broken but now her tail has shrunk and my husband had to hold her and force her to eat a cricket. She uses her I guess (elbobws) to walk with and we have seen her eat crickets in the past. We are just worried about her. Our pet supply guy said that there is nothing to do about her limbs and she should eat ok. Obviously he is mistaken.It has been about 2 days that her tail has shrunk and also the end of it is a little dry. What do we do? If anyone has advice we would truly appreciate it. Please help us
Thank you,
Ronnie and Tonya
Link

Most likely metabolic bone disease, not enough calcium. An immediate trip to the vet is REQUIRED. If her tail is getting smaller, and she is limping around, then she is suffering and it is dire. Please do not wait any longer, if you want to save her, or at least end her suffering, please find a vet ASAP.

Sorry to be so harsh, but this is clearly an emergency. Good luck.
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0.1 Albino Leo Gecko
0.1 Crested Gecko
1.0 Dear Boyfriend
Departed: Harvey and Spock

I agree, get it to the vet RIGHT AWAY!!!! If they are hurt and stop eating, much less losing weight in their tail it is VERY SERIOUS. It might require IV feeding, unfortunately though I don't know if that will help. Just get it to the Vet ASAP!!! Poor little guy.
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**Kenn**

Thank you for your replies. I went online to find a vet in our area and found one. He will be called tomorrow asap. It is just so strange and very sad to see her like this all of a sudden. My husband and I are hoping something can be done. Is this common among the gecko's? Our friend/supply guy said there was nothing to be done, as if it was ok. Kinda scary!! Anyhow thanks again for getting back to me so fast.
Tonya

>>Thank you for your replies. I went online to find a vet in our area and found one. He will be called tomorrow asap. It is just so strange and very sad to see her like this all of a sudden. My husband and I are hoping something can be done. Is this common among the gecko's? Our friend/supply guy said there was nothing to be done, as if it was ok. Kinda scary!! Anyhow thanks again for getting back to me so fast.
>>Tonya

The problem is most likely Metabolic Bone Disease and the related issues/problems associated with it (like easily broken bones, deformed skeleton structure, etc) doesn't happen overnight -- it's not something that 'suddenly happens'. It takes weeks or months to develop. This is why you got the animal for free. It was a serious condition already well advanced and those people knew it when they gave you the animal 'for free'. They knew it would need expensive vet treatment with no guarantee of survival in the long term. You knew the animal needed a vet's attention ASAP from the moment you took it in. You said you knew the animal already had one broken limb at the time you acquired it - that alone should have tipped you off right then something wasn't right with the animal even if you might not have known what MBD wa or any thing else about what an unhealthy lizard may look like.. broken bones always need medical attention regardless of the cause. Waiting until the animal breaks another limb and starts starving itself from the pain/stress has made the situation that much worse for the animal I'm afraid. It's going to be a hard decision when you take it to the vet and find out you have to decide to either sink a few hundred dollars into a 'free gecko's' vet care/treatment or have it euthanized. And treatment doesn't always guarantee it will survive in the long run I'm afraid. I myself have learned the hard way about caring for suspicious 'free' animals that have pre-existing health conditions. I sunk over $1,000 into an iguana during the first year I had it because it turned out it had long term MBD issues that I didn't find out until a month after I got it and thought it had sprained a muscle in it's shoulder... broken arm is what it turned out to be from the xrays.. the vet was amazed.. you could BARELY see the bones on the xray they were that decalcified. That animal went through 2 more broken limbs before it's skeleton was able to really bounce back from treatment and the bone density strengthend. But even so damage to the kidneys/liver ultimately did the animal in a few years later. Good diet and treatment wasn't able to fix them for the long term.
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PHWyvern