Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hey,
this xmas I went to my gmas house for xmas, I brought all of my geckos with because they needed the most care and I didnt trust anybody with them! I came back home and the leo started acting sick. for a couple of days it walked around with one eye shut and always sleeping halfway between both of the hides. the one with the heat matt, and the one on the cool end. she was never on the heat pad.today I found her laying in the same spot she had been sleeping for nearly 1 1/2 weeks with both eyes shut. picked her up to see how she was doing and noticed,
she lost weight
she seemed dehydrated
and her eyes didnt open!
I had her walk around the table and she walked with both eyes closed. I didnt no what to do so I came here. can anyone tell me whats wrong with my leopard gecko?!
thanks,
Craig Condon

video of walking/w eyes closed

here is a photo of her the day before I left to wisconsin.
Craig Condon

Have you been dusting your feeder prey???In that pic of her the day before you left it looks as if she is dragging her back legs.To me looks like MBD! MBD if you dont know is lack of calcium.Tell us about ur set up.Ur temps, substrate etc!Then we maybe able to help a bit more.Thx Gilbery007

lol,
i put her in that position for a web site I was building (didnt really turn out) I wanted her to have a slant to her body and look up. I assure you that I dust my crickets once a week. I also gut load them with healthy vegetables. the leos do not have MBD. right now I have a temporary cage for the leopard geckos. a medium sized 20 gallon aquarium with 2 hides at an end. 1 hide over a heat matt, other end is has a hide with a humidity chamber so the leos have a place to go when they are shedding. in the middle of the cage, I have a water dish for the leos to drink. when crix go in the cage, there is always food for them so they dont nibble at the leos. I do not have any substrate in the cage, only paper towels.
my permanent cage has 2 hides. one on the left side that is HUGE. and the one on the other side that fits about 2. I plan to put moist spagnum moss in there and a humidifier so the geckos have a place to shed their skin. on the top of the left hide, I have a heat lamp, but its not going to be that color. I am going to take the filter out, mix a little bit of polly acrylic finish in with some red dye, and paint the filter so the white light will become a red light, making it less irritating for the leos. same thing will be applied for the right one.

rock wall

She needs to get to a vet immediately. Please dont delay. she's very sick.

my guess is extreme dehydration coupled with all that nasty skin left on the top of her head? is that what that is? get her to a vet!
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1.0 Blizzard Bill
1.0 Hypo stripe 100% het Rainwater from JL (BJ)
1.0 HypoTang from Crested (Apricot)
1.0 Tremper Albino Hypo (Cloud)
0.3 Normal/Hi-Yellow Leopard gecko (Beatrice, Goldie (now w/SD), Freckles, Pepper)
0.1 SHCT Leopard Gecko (Brite)
0.1 Tangy Mutt Leopard Gecko (Rainbow)
0.0.2 Corn Snakes (MIA)
RIP Peaches, Ghost

get the shed off the leo first, i wonder if thats whats holding the eyes shut, if it isnt that it may have gotting an eye problem from being taken to where ever they went for the holidays? it needs to go to the vet for a eye cream

thanks for the suggestions everyone,
I will put her in a humid ICU tonight and hopefully that will help get the skin off. If nothing changes by the time I get homw from school tomorrow, she will go to the vet.
thanks much,
Craig Condon

id recommend a warm soak even, nice and humid to get some vapor on that nose! you may have to peel it off by head too, which will stress her out quite a bit
good luck
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1.0 Blizzard Bill
1.0 Hypo stripe 100% het Rainwater from JL (BJ)
1.0 HypoTang from Crested (Apricot)
1.0 Tremper Albino Hypo (Cloud)
0.3 Normal/Hi-Yellow Leopard gecko (Beatrice, Goldie (now w/SD), Freckles, Pepper)
0.1 SHCT Leopard Gecko (Brite)
0.1 Tangy Mutt Leopard Gecko (Rainbow)
0.0.2 Corn Snakes (MIA)
RIP Peaches, Ghost

ok, I will do this now while im here at the computer
does anyone here have aim they can talk to me on? tell me what steps I can do?
thanks geckogirl,
Craig Condon

i have yahoo IM
gex419
ive done it plenty of times
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1.0 Blizzard Bill
1.0 Hypo stripe 100% het Rainwater from JL (BJ)
1.0 HypoTang from Crested (Apricot)
1.0 Tremper Albino Hypo (Cloud)
0.3 Normal/Hi-Yellow Leopard gecko (Beatrice, Goldie (now w/SD), Freckles, Pepper)
0.1 SHCT Leopard Gecko (Brite)
0.1 Tangy Mutt Leopard Gecko (Rainbow)
0.0.2 Corn Snakes (MIA)
RIP Peaches, Ghost

wow!
yur suggestiong REALLY worked! took a moist paper towl and wiped her eyes. I found this goopy clear liquid stuff that when whipped it away, she opened her eyes.
thanks a lot, and I will let you all know if her behavior changes.
thanks,
Craig Condon

then it sounds like she has an eye infection, but I bet its in her body too. Maybe drinking strange water away from home has given her an infection, or maybe she got cold on her trip somehow. Either way she's probably got an internal bacterial infection. See the vet for sure ok?

if it is still that serious, I will.
but if she starts acting normal tomorrow, what should I do?
thanks,
Craig Condon

well if she acts normal then i guess it was just her eyes bugging her. if they close up with gunk again, tho, then she has an eye infection. she at least would need antibiotic eye drops from th evet.

alright,
so I should take her anyway, correct? Because I really do not want to spend $70.00 to get a check up on the leo and find out that it is nothing.
thanks,
Craig Condon

wait til tommorw then see what her eyes are doing and her behavior. If nothings wrong any more then you cured her and dont need vet.

thats a load of me,
I was hoping this wouldnt be serious and turns out she is getting better, FAST. right now i am in the process of taking all her dead skin off, and it seems that the more I take off, the more active she becomes.
thanks again everyone,
Craig Condon

...

lol, yet ANOTHER problem!
Im pealing off the dead skin with a damp towel and her skin is sticky? is it supposed to be like that??
oh and, while I types this message she pooped on my lap.
Craig Condon

the pooping is natural

the sticky skin means that shed's not fully ready to come off. why dont you leave her be for now. you could damage her skin if I'm right.

ok. check the poop for worms. I always do this when they are nice enough to give me the chance!
the eye closing is most likely skin shed left ON THE EYELID if you are a newbie (and it sounds like you are, i would have the vet do this. you really dont want to hurt her eye and blood tests for infection may be in order. leave her alone for the rest of the night to de-stress from your skinning. i would bet $100 fake bucks that her eyes will be closed again in the morning and gunked up again. that is a short fix. you prob want to take her in. sorry
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1.0 Blizzard Bill
1.0 Hypo stripe 100% het Rainwater from JL (BJ)
1.0 HypoTang from Crested (Apricot)
1.0 Tremper Albino Hypo (Cloud)
0.3 Normal/Hi-Yellow Leopard gecko (Beatrice, Goldie (now w/SD), Freckles, Pepper)
0.1 SHCT Leopard Gecko (Brite)
0.1 Tangy Mutt Leopard Gecko (Rainbow)
0.0.2 Corn Snakes (MIA)
RIP Peaches, Ghost

its thursday the 6th and she is doing better!
her eyeys are not closed up anymore and se seems more active than she was. what would the works look like in her poop?
thanks,
Craig Condon

you'll need to either get a microscope...or take a fecal sample to a vet to have it properly diagnosed as it is impossible to actually see the worms in the poop with your eyes
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Dan Quinn

but I have in fact seen them once. My oldest and biggest female pooped on me once as I assisted with a shed. Thank goodness I had a towel on my lap, b/c she was so loaded w/pinworms I saw them crawling all over the poop! I had NO indication she had a problem, was in fact my best eater! So now I always take a look when I get the chance.
-----

1.0 Blizzard Bill
1.0 Hypo stripe 100% het Rainwater from JL (BJ)
1.0 HypoTang from Crested (Apricot)
1.0 Tremper Albino Hypo (Cloud)
0.3 Normal/Hi-Yellow Leopard gecko (Beatrice, Goldie (now w/SD), Freckles, Pepper)
0.1 SHCT Leopard Gecko (Brite)
0.1 Tangy Mutt Leopard Gecko (Rainbow)
0.0.2 Corn Snakes (MIA)
RIP Peaches, Ghost

h
-----

1.0 Blizzard Bill
1.0 Hypo stripe 100% het Rainwater from JL (BJ)
1.0 HypoTang from Crested (Apricot)
1.0 Tremper Albino Hypo (Cloud)
0.3 Normal/Hi-Yellow Leopard gecko (Beatrice, Goldie (now w/SD), Freckles, Pepper)
0.1 SHCT Leopard Gecko (Brite)
0.1 Tangy Mutt Leopard Gecko (Rainbow)
0.0.2 Corn Snakes (MIA)
RIP Peaches, Ghost

the worms themselves are rarely seen by human eyes, how big of a pinworn load did she have? usually when they start coming out and poop and you could actually see them without a microscope it means there was a pretty big load, could be wrong though, i think i meant to say larvae though.... people often mistake cricket larvae that turn up in feces for parasitic larvae
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Dan Quinn

do they really poop cricket larvae? thats a new one for me! in one plop (a big one!) I visually saw about a half dozen opaque white skinny 1/4 in wriggly things. my vet, now that i think about it, did not bother to culture it, but took me @ my word they were pins. I ended up dosing my whole collection on the assumption that I had gotten a bad batch of crix. The one I saw it come from was an older female (past breeding age), so she could have been harboring them for years! What do cricket larvae look like? I dont breed crix (stinky!)
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1.0 Blizzard Bill
1.0 Hypo stripe 100% het Rainwater from JL (BJ)
1.0 HypoTang from Crested (Apricot)
1.0 Tremper Albino Hypo (Cloud)
0.3 Normal/Hi-Yellow Leopard gecko (Beatrice, Goldie (now w/SD), Freckles, Pepper)
0.1 SHCT Leopard Gecko (Brite)
0.1 Tangy Mutt Leopard Gecko (Rainbow)
0.0.2 Corn Snakes (MIA)
RIP Peaches, Ghost

hey,
i breed crickets last year and I found no larvae. as soon as the eggs hatch, they're crickets, no larvae.
craig condon

they sure do, if a pregnant cricket is eaten, somehow the larvae manages to survive if you will...back when i used crickets, the first time i saw it in one of my favorite geckos i almost died..braught it to a vet and he said they where cricket larvae..after that i started breeding crickets and the larva looked exactly the same
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Dan Quinn