Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Approx. a month ago I wrote here saying that my daughter's Leopard Gecko (approx.1 1/2 years old) was not coming out at night, yet looked healthy, is eating normally, etc. Today I noticed that he is not moving his back legs at all. He slithers away, using only his front legs. Whats wrong with him. I saw on a search on the web that could mean impactation in Bearded Dragons, but nothing I did could cause this in the Gecko. His crickets are small, gets fed approx. 3 times a week.
tank is in the 80's, under tank heater, plus heat rock.
Paper towels as substrate.
Small water bowl and capful of calcium in tank.
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1 wood turtle
5 adult box turtles
2 baby box turtles
1 red ear slider
1 red eye tree frog
2 Dumpys
1 green tree frog
1 Grey Tree Frog
2 peepers
1 Veiled chameleon
1 Ring Necked Snake
1 gecko, 4 rabbits, 2 fish,2 hermit crabs, 2 kids, 1 husband
2 Weimaraners

Heat rocks are a big no, some of them get up to 120 degrees. It could possibly be paralysis? Any way your gecko coudl have fallen?

its not those kind of heat rocks. I bought this one several years ago, it hits a low temp, in fact, I think it was made for Geckos.
He hasn't fallen, he stays in his "hide" cave.
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1 wood turtle
7 Eastern box turtles
1 Three Toed box turtle
1 red ear slider
3 red eye tree frog
2 Dumpys
1 Veiled chameleon
2 geckos, 3 rabbits,3 hermit crabs, 2 kids, 1 husband
2 Weimaraners

Do you give him a bowl with mealworms and calciu,m or dust the with calcium?

There is a little dish of calcium in the tank. Right now he is getting fed with crickets, (changes every other week), but they too get dusted with calcium or vitamin.
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1 wood turtle
7 Eastern box turtles
1 Three Toed box turtle
1 red ear slider
3 red eye tree frog
2 Dumpys
1 Veiled chameleon
2 geckos, 3 rabbits,3 hermit crabs, 2 kids, 1 husband
2 Weimaraners

Im stumped, anybody else got any ideas?

Maybe the heat rock burnt his back feet if its not that then im not sure either

if he's getting enough calcium with vitamin d3 it can't be metabolic bone disease. i suspect your daughter isn't telling you everything and something happened to cause this.

Your gecko is likely in pain, and is suffering. It is not using it's back legs and likely cannot. It is probably not eating, and thus losing weight. It's hiding behavior indicates illness or injury. To avoid an increasing larger amount of symptoms leading to it's untimely death, this critter needs to be taken to a vet so the problem can be diagnosed, and a course of treatment be started to alieviate suffering, and restore a normal quality of life.

Ian

paralysis of back legs is a sign of MBD. even with dusting, your gecko may not be getting the right balance of phos, calcium, D3 and other goodies. I would recommend a vet trip to get xrays which should determine if there is a broken spine or something else, and will give you an idea of how solid the bones are (calcium issues). Find a good herp vet, tho.
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1.0 Hypo stripe, Het Rainwater from JL (BJ)
1.0 HypoTang from Crested (Apricot)
1.0 Tremper Albino (Cloud)
0.2 Hi-Yellow Leopard gecko (Beatrice, Pepper)
0.1 Normal (Freckles)
0.1 SHCT Leopard Gecko (Brite)
0.1 Tangy Mutt Leopard Gecko (Rainbow)
0.1 Tremper Albino (Leucy)
RIP Peaches, Ghost, Bill
Hatched: ~25
Holdbacks: 1.0 SHCTB- nice surprise! and 0.1 jungle
Available:
1.0 SHCT, 0.0.1 aberrant m?, 0.0.1 pastel F?, 7 month male circleback tang

>>paralysis of back legs is a sign of MBD.

Agreed though it seem more common for lizards with (MBD) to have this problem with there frount legs it can and dose happen with there back.A nother way to tell if maybe (MBD) is the lower jaw is it floppy/very easy to open.Just use your forth finger and thumb and carefuly try to open it.If it open very easy with no resistance i'd say with out a doubt you have a leo with (MBD).

But what ever the problem my be seek vet help.

At least we all have the general consensus on a vet trip now

While paralysis is not the only reason for not using the backlegs, it is a likely one.
While paraylsis is not a symptom of MBD can be from the results of related pathological fractures. It is not always present, nor does it always indicate MBD.

To answer all these questions, and more importantly, to get this gecko feeling better, a vet will do a much better examination than is available online by even the most proffesional respondents. This will be followed by the appropriate diagnostics of course

Ian

Are you dusting every single meal and theres still a bowl of calcium or are you dusting weekly? There is a chance that your over dosing the calcium but i've never heard of that effecting the back legs. I don't know about that jaw thing being a sure sign of MBD, someone said something like that on a different forum and they got mixed results when they tested all their geckos. You should probably boost the temps up for now to about 90.