Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello all,
I have written quite a bit about a import female that I picked up in Ohio around Thanks Giving. She had a retained eye cap that every one said to leave alone until she shed again. Well, I had her out just looking her over when I looked at her eye and it really started to bother me so I got out some false tears and used them to soften the old skin.. That is when I figured out that the eye cap was so thick that repeated wetting with the fluid was doing nothing to soften it.. I got out some clear tape and tried to use that to pull of the old skin with little success. As worked on her eye with the tape all the time she was sitting still in the palm of my hand letting me poke at her eye I used the corner of the rolled tape to get under her skin a bit and find the edge of the cap; with that exposed I grabbed a pair of tweezers and slowly removed a cap that was about as thick as a fingernail and the same color. The strange part and my question is, around the cap was a bunch of dead mite that were layered into the retained cap. Is this the cause of why she retained the caps?

She is free of mites and was so when I got her never the less I still treated her container while she was in quarantine. She looks much more comfortable with a very good looking exposed eye.

Thanks
A.

From what you descrbed it sounds like there were a lot more than one retained eye cap. The mites you saw were probably between all the different eye caps. I'm sure she feels much better. Good luck with her. Clay

beautiful looking!
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Greg Holland
G&M HERPS
www.imageevent.com/gmherps
gmherps@sbcglobal.net

Thanks!

Now, I wish I could get her to eat for me.. I am going to give her a few weeks with her new sight before I offer her food..

...mite infestation and dehydration coupled with poor humidity often leads to retained eye-caps. It bears repeating to be cautious when attempting the removal of a retained eyecap. Several years ago a client brought me a BP with a destroyed eye after another vet attempted removal of what he/she thought was a retained cap. They went just a bit too far and removed the spectacle (= cornea)!! Not a good thing! Better to wait for the next shed. Scott J. Michaels DVM