Death of a Gecko and process to move on

[Spots]

So if you have read my thread about Spots getting sick, you would know that she passed away yesterday.

One morning she was just different...latharigic and swollen joints. She stopped eating a few weeks before but she's done that in the past. I took her to the vet and the vet said she had arthirtis and I was given antibiotics. Spots got worse and I took her back only to get more antibiotics. After 3 days on the antibiotics, Spots passed away. I'm completely broken and I miss her so much. She would have turned two years old in 10 days.

I'm not ready to be a gecko owner yet, nor do I think I will be for a few months but as it would be Spots birthday on Sept 5th, I thought if I got another gecko on her birthday, it would keep Spots' spirit going. (I know that may seem weird lol).

What does everyone think about that?

And does anyone have advice as to how to cope with her death? Or what I should do to prepare for the new gecko? Like I said, Spots didn't pass away from malnutrition or anything that I could have prevented, so at least I know that I did everything I could to keep her with me. She also didn't pass from MBD or Crypo. With that said, I assume that I can use the tank again?

Any help please

 

[Kristi23]

I'm so sorry for your loss.

 

[Mel&Keith]

I think your plan sounds like a good one. Losing any pet is really hard and it's a good idea to grieve before you run out and get a new one. No gecko will ever replace Spot but that doesn't mean that you don't have room in your life for another gecko down the road. Since she didn't have a communicable disease or parasite you should be fine with disinfecting the tank and washable cage furnishings with a bleach solution and letting them air out for a while. I'm sorry for your loss.

 

[Spots]

Thanks

On a side note...I posted this in Leopard Gecko General Discussion so I'm not sure how it got here instead but can an admin move it for me if possible?

 

[gothra]

I'm very sorry for your loss.

 

[bromide]

D: thats sad. im sorry, and wats crypto?

 

[geckos7]

i am sorry that your gecko died but trust me u get stronger after some thing like that happens you just have to deal with that. do not think of her, i know it sounds wired but that is the way you get stronger i lost my bearded dragon and i was so so sad and was down in the dumps for at least 2 weeks but then when my friend told me that you have to let it go i said that he was right and ya i hope you fell better after some things i told you i hope i helped good luck

 

[blizzard]

i don't understand how your gecko only lives less than two years. no offense but you may want to check your care management. these things can live up to 22 years and living less than two sounds suspicious. they say they should live between 7-22 years and i think the average is about 8-10 years.

 

[Spots]

i don't understand how your gecko only lives less than two years. no offense but you may want to check your care management. these things can live up to 22 years and living less than two sounds suspicious. they say they should live between 7-22 years and i think the average is about 8-10 years.

I know. It was devastating. First of all, I bought her at pet smart...so that may or may not have an effect?

Secondly, I took all the information from this site to create her cage and care. She had both the cool and warm sites, moist and dry hides, a laying box if she didn't absorb her eggs, two different calcium dishes, a two level 20 gallon tank, repti-carpet, a climbing wall, her water was filtered using those water filter chemical things, an under the tank heater as well as a UV heater when the temperatures got too cold in the winter, even the crickets had their own keeper and was guttloaded and had water pellets, ......and this is coming from someone who only has one gecko. I spent about $600 dollars in total setting up her tank and ensuring she had all the proper materials. and her tank was cleaned almost every weekend. She was fed everyday and dusted until about a year when she wouldn't eat everyday. She was on crickets for a year then she decided she liked mealworms better..and wax worms were given as a treat. As soon as she got sick, I took her to the vet...spent another 150 and now that she passed...i'm spending 200 to get her cremated.

So honestly, I'm not trying to take offense....but if you can tell me what happened, I'd like to know because I really want another one but I can't take the heartbreak if something goes wrong again. Having Spots made me realize how much I can't live without her and it was devastating to wake up and say good morning to her and realizing that she wasn't saying it back. She got sick pretty much over night and the next next day she was already on antibiotics for it. (vet said it was arthritis and she passed about a week or so after the visit and about 5 days into the meds) Prior to this, she was a happy camper who ran around and climbed everywhere all night as I tried to sleep and could just hear her feet climbing. Her sickness wasn't supposed to get to this extreme but she didn't pull through and I don't know why. I wish she was with me for 20 years...but it didn't happen that way and I have been a wreck since she's passed so if you can help me make my next one last for 20 years, be my guest please...

 

[Spots]

p.s the only thing i couldn't control was the humidity..which has been a little high over the summer...

 

[blizzard]

i have had mine for five years strong and they're horses and have never taken the humidity into account. i wouldn't clean the tank so much especially if you're using antibacterial or anything like that. just clean the glass every month with soap and water and dish towel or paper towels. and i use artificial turf for flooring and change that every four to six months. if you have rocks and logs, about every three to four months you may want to put them in the oven at 325 or so for about 10-15 minutes to kill anything. she/he made have had pre-existing conditions if you got it from p*t sm*rt. just be careful when you choose another one if you're going to a pet store. make sure they're fat in the belly and tail but slender too. the fatness could be mbd (metabolic bone disease) or arthritis.

make sure you are feeding your worms too. most pet stores now are pretty attentive to the fact that people just feed their crickets straight to their pets so the stores are getting a lot better at gut loading crickets. but for the worms they leave in dust. i use to use worms and would use a thick plastic tuperware to store them. i used oatmeal for their bedding and cut up carrots and potatoes and placed them in around the oatmeal. i keep them in the fridge but would take the tuperware out every so often in-between feeds for about two or three hours. the worms will be sluggish in the fridge and taking them out to warm up will keep them highly active and eating good-don't forget to put them back in the fridge though. i've had worm eat through the plastic!! and pay attention to the carrots and potatoes and the surrounding oatmeal because they will mold, and it doesn't take long to.

 

[T-ReXx]

In all honesty, I would find another vet. Antibiotics aren't used to treat Arthritis, and in fact I've never heard of arthritis being fatal in dogs and cats, let alone reptiles. Antibiotics are used to treat infections. Arthritis is a condition that is treated by pain meds and physical therapy. There is no cure, only management. Antibiotics would have done absolutely nothing for Arthritis.

Did you have a fecal done? Seeing as this is a pet store gecko, parasites would be my first suspect, possibly Crypto. How about blood tests? If the vet just looked at the gecko, claimed it was Arthritis(and I HIGHLY doubt it was) and wrote you out a script for some antibiotics(I'm guessing Baytril, it's pretty commonly prescribed by vets who know nothing about reptiles yet want to claim that they do) then a) you were medicating for a condition completely different from what was going on. and b) antibiotics are often very harsh on reptiles, and should only be used in short duration and for specific kinds of infections.

It sounds like you're husbandry was on point. Seems to me like there was an underlying problem going on from the start. I also agree that pet store feeders aren't all that safe, most are likely to be completely un-gutloaded, and many carry parasites themselves.

I'm sorry for your loss. In order to make your next gecko experience a more positive one I'd get an animal from a reputable breeder, not a pet store. And be sure to sterilize everything before using it again, a 10% bleach solution works well, I'd consider doing it at least twice, and letting everything dry in the sun.

Good luck with your next gecko. Leopard geckos are hardy animals, and unless exposed to completely unsuitable environments or infected/infested with parasites or disease, they are pretty much bulletproof most of the time.

 

[Spots]

To Ted:

Yes...I am definately not going to that vet again. My vet went on vacation and all the patients were to be referred to this vet until my vet came back...(which by then Spots had already passed).

I thought the antibiotics were odd too and I mentioned it in another post on here and someone mentioned that arthritis was just a term to describe like swelling around joints and that antibiotics might be a proper treatment..(this is the problem of forums, there's too many opinions and information...lol) She was supposed to be on it for a full month everday....

I did all the reading I could about husbandry on here but symptoms for different illnesses are usually the same so it was hard to ask others for help when Spots got sick. She was sick so quickly too and she hadn't pooped in a week or so, so no stool test could be done. the vet thought she was perfectly fine except the one arm but I knew it had to be more than that. She barely examined Spots fully (how does a full examination work? The vet basically just picked her up and touched her belly, weighed her, and that was it) I wanted an xray done because I noticed Spots' breathing was slowing down so I wanted to make sure like...her lung didn't collapse or something lol but it wasn't necessary. The vet didn't suggest a blood test and I was unaware that it even was possible for reptiles. When Spots passed, she had bumps around her heart and her heart was really dark and huge (just wanted to know if any living gecko's heart is like that?)

I think it might have been an underlying problem. Spots has been perfectly happy and active until the 2 weeks before she passed. But there were times when I thought something odd was going on. Last summer she stopped eating for a while (gravid? and absorbing eggs) then spots under her belly started to appear...they eventually faded. Then her legs would shake when she walked. I went to the vet before and I was told to keep an eye out for any decline in her behaviour and switch to mealworms. Spots started eating again when I switched to meal worms and her behaviour was the same. I gave her more calcium and the shaking stopped. But yea...I guess there might have been signs of a bigger problem all along.

Lastly, thanks about the information on the cleaning. I was going to ask lol If Spots had passed from Crypto...(which I doubt because Spots' tail was still thick and there was no vomiting or anything), would the bleach kill the bacteria? Also, I plan on throwing out everything that I can easily replace like carpeting...but the hides (which are not tupperware...they are actual hides from pet stores) can I bleach them too or will they lose their colour? Her second level was created from wood...if I bleach that will the bleach soak into the wood and harm the next gecko? Sorry for all the questions, but I want to ensure everything is perfect.

 

[Spots]

. i wouldn't clean the tank so much especially if you're using antibacterial or anything like that. just clean the glass every month with soap and water and dish towel or paper towels. and i use artificial turf for flooring and change that every four to six months. if you have rocks and logs, about every three to four months you may want to put them in the oven at 325 or so for about 10-15 minutes to kill anything.

I just emptied the moss and stool every week. I wipe down the glass with treated water (the same water as the one Spots drank) no chemical Every few months is when I would totally clean out the hides and other climbing features. She had no real rocks or logs to bake but her second level was made from wood from a hard ware store (should I bake those too?)

.she/he made have had pre-existing conditions if you got it from p*t sm*rt. just be careful when you choose another one if you're going to a pet store. make sure they're fat in the belly and tail but slender too. the fatness could be mbd (metabolic bone disease) or arthritis.

I'm going to the reptile expo in september. No longer supporting pet smart

. make sure you are feeding your worms too. .

THANK YOU! I gut loaded my crickets but I did not realize I need to keep the meal worms out to be gut loaded too and I definately did not know what to gut load meal worms with so thank youuuuuu for the info

 

[blizzard]

dark spots could be internal bleeding. this experience shouldn't deter you from getting another one. and don't believe the threads about worms eating through gecko's stomach. you were probably just really unlucky with the pick of the draw at the store. but lucky for the little guy you probably let him live months longer than he was suppose to. or her whatever.

 

[mango+cola]

Hey,

This is my first post, ive been reading alot on the forums for abit, but i never found a thread where i felt i should add things too until now. My girlfriend and I had a leopard gecko (mango) and a pictus gecko (cola), both of which we got from a big name petstore at different times. Cola died roughly two months ago, and it was hard to get over him even though we had only got him a couple months before he died. He had been very weak since we got him, and we did our best to keep him alive...but it was an uphill battle which we lost. My girlfriend took it particularily hard and went into a deep depression for about a month.

I thought of different things to make it better, but what made it easyest for us was a candle that we always kept running near his terranium while we were home, with his picture beside it. After my girlfriend started feeling better i started researching breeding (her sister has a male leopard gecko) and we decided to try it for ourselves...its been working out well so far and mango will be laying in under a week. We decided to do this because my girlfriend felt that if we got another gecko it would be replacing him but this helped both of us feel better.

Hope this helps!

 

[ProGeckoServices]

If the gecko died after two years, then I highly doubt the cause of its death was from negligent treatment by petsmart. In fact I am willing to bet there is a 99.9 percent chance it has nothing to do with Petsmart or the breeders they order the reptiles from. The people on this board sitting here blaming Petsmart for the death of a 2 year old lizard is nothing short of retarded. If there were no issues with husbandry then it likely died from a virus/parasite carried by the meal worms. i say virus/parasite because the vet put him on antibiotics which would help fight off any bacterial infections. I would be more concerned with where your getting your feeders from, rather than what place you buy your gecko. I had the unfortunate situation of having five geckos wiped out by a meal worm virus a couple of years ago. The only other non rare cause I can think of is if it took a hard fall and damaged its insides.

Your vet likely gave your lizard antibiotics to be on the safe side in case it had some kind of infection. I think its pretty common knowledge arthritis is not a bacterial infection.

 

[Adinar]

Sorry to hear of your loss, but when the time is right look into getting another gecko from a good breeder at the show you had mentioned. You won't be replacing Spots by any means. When we had out crypto outbreak and lost 4, it was extremly difficult because we did everything for them, but you know you get through it. You'll find another that may remind you of Spots, or find one that is totally different. You never know. I found one that reminds me of my girl Loki, doesn't look like her in appearance one bit but their personalities are so similar it's border line weird. It's comforting in a way. I also named one of our cresties whom we as a hatchling shortly before her death (sadly, we knew it was coming because she was the last) a slight varation of her name, his name is Loken. You'll find different ways to cope.

But definetally don't let this stop you from giving another gecko a good home. It's unfortunate the way things worked out, but you did what you could. You got Spots vet care, which is more than what some people would do. You followed vets orders, regardless of why they perscribed what they did. Who knows, maybe they noticed something that you didn't, or wasn't mentioned in the post. Can't jump to conclusions.

That's at least one way to look at it.

Maybe you could call your vet and have him/her review Spots file? Maybe the vet who was filling in for them could them your vet know what was going on? Possibly go over the file if they took notes from the visit, which most generally do. They may be able to give you a more clear answer as to what went on.