Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I went to a vet with for my gecko, and he showed me how to force feed it. So that takes care of the feeding problem. But after coming back from the vet, I noticed that its leg was bent in 2 places. It surprised the hell out of me, cause I didn't see it before. I think it happened when the vet was handling it while examining it. I don't know what to do to fix it. Or if it can even be fixed. Also, going the vet was more expensive than I thought, so I can't afford to do that. It's really sad to watch it walking in circles with that leg. I really am questioning if it's worth it, suffering, money, and time-wise to keep it alive. Like, it's going through alot. First in the brain, now in the legs.

Something more makes me think of MBD.Metabolic Bone Disease which is usually caused by a lack of Calcium.
Particularly since you said in an earlier post that the powder would run off before your leo ate the crix.

The picture here is of a leo that I treated for MBD. Does it look like this?

Yeah. That looks like it. Like, I watch her (I'll just give her a sex) walk, and when she takes a step with that leg, it crumples under the weight. It's really painful to watch. I put the calcium in a dish, so she can eat it at her own leisure, but I don't even know if she recognises it. I put mealworms in there, but she doesn't eat them. I've only now finally gotten her to eat a mealworm, by force feeding. I'm also putting some calium and water in her mouth, too.

You can keep treating her with the calcium and water trick. If you could get her to drink a few drops twice a day for about a week she should have some noticable improvement soon. Then you could cut her back to once a day until she's eating dusted mealies or crix on her own again.

If you try running a search for MBD you'll probablt find a few posts on it. I know one that was probablt better than this info here was posted not long ago. Maybe you could find it

In MBD the bones are bent but don't "crumple". Also in the geckos I've treated for MBD the skeletal deformities were symetrical (present on both sides). That isn't to say that MBD couldn't be the underlying cause as geckos with MBD are more likely to suffer fractures.

I once had a little leo who's hind limb would become dislocated at the knee. I losely wrapped the limb, except the knee, with two layers of masking tape. Then I added a second strip to keep the limb in the proper bent position. I removed it when she shed about a month later and the limb had healed. Perhaps something like this would work for you. If your gecko is large or the masking tape is not rigid enough to keep the limb straight you could try placing a piece of tooth pick between the two layers.

-Alice

Did you just mix some calcium powder into the water that you gave her? If so, great idea

One of my geckos has a bendy leg like the pic of the back leg in the other post. I've given her a dish of calcium, dust her mealworms/crickets in it and put calcium enriched water conditioner in her water. Her walking has improved greatly over the past 2 weeks.

Red
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Crested Gecko Zeek:1.0
LEOS: Boo: 1.0 normal , Bronx & Nala: 1.1 blizzard,
Lily: 0.1 patternless, Abby: 0.1 albino, Zoe: 0.1 reduced pattern, Dot: 0.1 hypo
Chip: 1.0 papillion (small dog)
2.0 bettas