Please give me advice

[Mantis]

Hello,
I was visiting my friend’s house who recently took in this Leo and I noticed that he was bleeding. I looked under his tail and saw a lot of hardened puss, blood, and swelling. My friend works 12 hour days 6 days a week and doesn’t have time to care for this dude atm so I’m going to take him into my care until he is better.

I believe this animal belonged to her cousin who recently passed and my friend who doesn’t have a lot of reptile care experience took the animal in about a month ago. Her house is supposed to be a temporary solution until she can find a more long term solution. So there isn’t a lot known about this little guy’s care in the past apart from the last 3 weeks.

I believe he was store bought by the cousin, is young not sure on age but I don’t think he is more than a year old, hasn’t been eating but is usually fed mealworms and doesn’t take any supplements, his substrate is papertowels, heating is a heat pad with thermostat.

the little guy has stuck shed, not sure if that’s what caused the clogs, I’m not super well versed in this area.

According to the internet: I basically soaked him in water last night,
Then this morning I took everyone out of his tank and soaked him again, while doing that I cleaned and disinfected his entire tank with vinegar and baking soda, then put down damp paper towels in his tank- I will keep all other items out except a water bowl.

Then I took a QTip and dislodged all of the puss and whatever build up was underneath his tail while he was soaking and removed what I could of his stuck shed.

he is back in his tank now, but I need to know if there is more i can do or if this infection is too bad and we should consider putting him down?
We are about 4.5 hours from a reptile vet, and with the cold front and snow we cannot make it through the mountain pass safely.

it looks so bad, I feel so sorry for this little guy is there anything more I can do for him, and at what point do I tell the owner there isn’t more we can do and to end his suffering?

the pictures are after I got the gunk dislodged and he is back in his tank, the water bowl shows all the stuff I dislodged from his underside.

 

[Mr. Leopard gecko]

I'm not a proffesional but eventually an expert will arrive.

 

[acpart]

There are 2 possibilities of what's happened:
1. male geckos can accumulate "sperm plugs" in their vents. It's essentially some sperm that comes out of the hemipenis (they have 2 --those two bulges are not testicles like in human males, each bulge is actually a penis that's inside the body, just like a dog or a cat's is inside the body unless it's "in use"). Sometimes this sperm sits around just inside the vent. Sometimes it accumulates to a point where the whole area looks swollen. If this is what's happening, it may be possible to gently squeeze the bulge and see if some stuff (it will look like rubbery white stuff) will come out

2. This is a more serious situation: sometimes the male's hemipenis "prolapses" -- it comes out of the vent and swells and can't get back in. As long as the tissue is pink or red, it may be treatable, but if it gets black and hard, it may be getting necrotic (i.e. tissue dying) and will need to be treated by a vet. The home treatment (if the situation isn't too far gone) is to clean the area and then to apply a substance that will shrink the tissues. This includes human Preparation H (the stuff for hemorroids to shrink them down), karo syrup (it comes in a bottle at the supermarket and is essentially corn syrup) or a sugar/water paste (lots of sugar, not too much water). Apply some with a q-tip and see if it works to shrink that red bulge

You might want to see if a non-exotic vet would be willing to look at the gecko and let you know if it's a prolapse or not. They may or may not be willing to do that.

Good luck with him.

Aliza

 

[Mantis]

Thank you for your explanation. His wound seems to be improving and the swelling has gone down, but he started vomiting. I will call our more local vet tomorrow and see if there is anything they can do for him.