Bit of MBD advice please..

[jamesdrew]

Hello all,

An exhausted subject i'm sure, but i have recently noticed that my 4 month old leo has what i believe to be metabolic bone disease.

The symptoms are as follows: 2 front legs look slightly deformed, she tends to lie on them 'awkwardly' and when she walks, the two front legs shake a bit.

I don't think it is the worst case, but i am very worried it will get worse, and really don't want her to be in any pain.
I am dusting her food at least once a week (though usually more),
she has a beautiful tank that abides by all the various care sheet rules (though due to it being her 1st winter here, perhaps the temperature has dropped 3-4 degrees, but still remains between 82-88f),
she has not appeared to have lots any weight (yet) but i have also noticed she has eaten alot less but mainly due to a lack of effort when hunting...

Also, this has only just been happening very recently, a week and a half ago she was fine, eating lots, and didn't appear to have dodgy front legs.

Is there any chance of full recovery?
Any advice would be a great help. And i can also post pictures of her front legs if it might help?

Thanks guys :main_thumbsup:

- James

 

[peppered...leopard]

I have a baby that is the same way, one day he was fine, the next well, he wouldn't eat, couldn't really walk, his mouth was gapping open, he couldn't eat without forcing him to, I thought it was the end for him. I don't know tons about the subject, but what I did and it seems to be working well, is I use Calcium everyday, I have a little bowl in his cage with some powder. It seemed to help, he has not made a full recovery, but he is eating again and looks a ton better.

 

[Pepper]

I agree, start giving calcium with D3 more often.

My baby gets it almost every feeding, the crickets are dusted and the meal worms are not.

 

[OSUgecko]

You can also give liquid calcium in addition to the calcium powders (look at the other thread in Health and Medications about calcium supplements). Sounds like you've caught this fairly early, which is great. You might still get your vet to check her out and make sure she's not dealing with more than early MBD. Good luck!

 

[lytlesnake]

As I mentioned in the liquid calcium thread, waxworms dusted with Calicum (with D3) powder has worked well for me. I drop the worms in front of the gecko one at a time until they don't want any more. If they eat 10 or more then they're not usually hungry the next night, so I do this every other night. I also dust with Miner-All once a week instead of plain calcium so they get a full range of vitamins and minerals.

Dusting once a week may not be enough for your gecko, and/or the gecko is just not eating enough. Like Pepper said above, I pretty much dust every meal when I'm feeding crickets, but I don't dust mealworms.

 

[jamesdrew]

thanks very much for the advice guys, i will keep you posted on her situation :main_thumbsup:

 

[fallen_angel]

We had a female with the beginning stages of MBD and so we ordered the liquid calcium (Calcionate Syrup) which can be found on eBay. We gave her 1 ml everyday until she started showing noticeable signs of improvement (about a month). It worked out great, the stuff is really sweet and the geckos really just lap it up like no other. I still give her 1 ml every so often to make sure she continues to do well, because her problem was that she never licked calcium from the dish to begin with. Best of luck to you and your girl!

 

[proguide]

caged geckos

can other geckos get this from others in same cage??

 

[lizardlove]

I'm pretty sure they can't. MBD is a calcium deficiency. However, if you're giving any other geckos you have the same amount of calcium as the 4 month old, and she got MBD, there's a chance the others will get it, too. But it's not contagious (sp?) or anything.