Abcsess formed on my Leopard Gecko's leg, help please?

[SamanthaFernandez]

Okay so I have a leopard gecko, named Geico. I've had him for about 3 1/2 years, and he's my baby. About a month and a half ago, he jumped out of my hand and hit the floor. Couple of days later, he was dragging his leg, and it was swollen, even his foot was swollen too. I took him to the vet and they took X rays, it was badly bruised. Long story short, it healed, but an abscess formed on his thigh. It seemed like it was pushing out of his skin, and it was rock hard. The Vet was doing all this bullshit, the only thing that seemed to work was that he had stopped eating for that month and dropped alot of weight. She gave him some 3 antibiotic shots every three days, and he now is back to eating like a pig again. But I noticed he cant get up to the 75 grams I had him at before. Hes maintaining his weight and gains alittle bit, but not much.

So today I decided to try and pop the abscess since the vet wasnt really helping me. I sterilized the needle, then drowned it in some alcohol. I put the needle in just deep enough to pop the skin layer. Puss started coming out, and I was squeezing as much as I could out. Around the wound its now a dark red, but he let me try and squeeze all the puss. I guess it was feeling good in some sort of way. The hardness is not there anymore, but its still big. I put him in some lukewarm water with a solution the vet gave me and let his leg bathe in that. He's now asleep. I was thinking about giving it a day or so, so that the soreness goes away to see if I can go back at it again, if it needs more work.

Any tips? Comments on what I can do?
Like I said, I really do love him. He never had a problem until up to this point.
Help, please.
Thanks

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[geckogirl3]

happend to a gecko of mine, HE bit it and HE pushed it out, but it was a zit that formed from shedding. it healed after a while

nice gecko

 

[M_surinamensis]

So today I decided to try and pop the abscess since the vet wasnt really helping me. I sterilized the needle, then drowned it in some alcohol. I put the needle in just deep enough to pop the skin layer. Puss started coming out, and I was squeezing as much as I could out. Around the wound its now a dark red, but he let me try and squeeze all the puss.

That was a stupid decision. You, as an individual, may be quite bright, but that choice and that action was downright ignorant.

If you are incredibly lucky and you seek veterinary treatment immediately, explaining what you did then your gecko might live.

The immune response reptiles have when suffering localized infections, as with an abscess or many forms of dermatitis, works to insulate the infectious organisms. That little pocket of pus was keeping the disease in one place, limiting its ability to spread to adjacent tissue, layers of skin or through the circulatory system. Puncturing that pocket is an instantaneous exposure explosion, with whatever infection is present suddenly coming into contact with previously isolated tissue and blood vessels in a very very high concentration.

Even when a veterinarian chooses to use a syringe and draw away that material they are weighing the benefits against the risk of immediate systemic infection. The difference between a sterilized syringe plunging into the infected pocket and drawing the material out and you puncturing it and squeezing is enormous- you just shoved a disease causing microorganism in all directions. That usually means that not only does the original abscess return to its original size (or, usually, larger), but secondary pockets will form all over the body, including in areas which cannot be as easily treated or monitored. More often than not they end up dying a fairly nasty, painful, lingering death sometime inside the next couple weeks (sometimes as quickly as a couple days, depending on the strength of their immune response and overall vigor and health), rotting away in pieces from infections all over their body.

Essentially, your impatience and your lack of respect for your veterinary professional have just made your animal's situation substantially more dangerous and probably hastened its death. You might get lucky, but live or die, it was still a phenomenally stupid thing to do.

This is why people, especially those with minimal experience and knowledge, should not substitute home remedies for veterinary care.