Good info from the vet, maybe, it may be common knowledge lol

[ebuch]

I took Zamora to the vet today because of a problem with her eye. As you can see in the picture taken Sunday it had some nasty on it. I'd been flushing it with saline and it cleared up the nastiness but was still swollen so I made an appointment and got her to see my herp vet this morning. He said that she has an ulcer and that it could have been a freak accident from one of the other geckos crawling on her. There were three things that he mentioned that I felt worth sharing.

1) Sand causes eye infections. Even if your gecko is not eating the sand it can still get in their eyes, scrape their eyes, and cause infections. I keep my geckos on paper towels but he brought up the sand situation and I know most people's argument for continuing to use sand other than aesthetics is that their gecko doesn't eat it so impaction isn't a concern. Well infection should be.

2) UV lights can cause eye problems. Their eyes aren't supposed to be exposed to that much direct UV, they are cave dwellers, and using UV can also lead to infected eyes. The first thing he asked before anything was if I was using UV. I'm not sure what they do exactly but apparently they're bad.

3) Don't under estimate the importance of Vitamin A. I told him I was feeding meal worms and even though my geckos are all fat and healthy looking without Vitamin A their diet just isn't complete enough and he said the lack of it can lead to problems in their eyes as well. He said if you use meal worms then replace the flakes that come with them with fish flakes that have Vitamin A in them, dust with Vitamin A, or to use crickets or roaches and gut load them with sweet potato because A lot of owners underestimate this vitamin's significance to their diet.


I'm sorry if you've all heard this before, I just thought it was interesting and maybe someone could benefit from the wisdom. As for Zamora? She's fine, just needs antibiotics 3-5 times a day for the next 7 days and it should clear right up.

 

[Olympus]

Glad to hear about Zamora's prognosis! Her eye looks uncomfortable, poor thing.

Just a note to correct the vet (or, at least to clarify what she probably meant), you don't ever want to gut load your feeders 24/7 with fish food. It is TOO high in protein and will lead to gout in reptiles, so just a pinch now and then is fine but not much more than that. As of right now we know that reptiles absorb vitamin A from animal sources (like fish flakes, cod liver oil, etc.) better than they do from plant sources, like beta carotenoids. So gut loading with carrots and that kind of thing is great for general health but we don't know yet how much of that they're actually converting into the vitamin A they need for eye and immune system health. I usually wipe a drop of mercury-free liver oil on a cricket for each gecko/chameleon once every month or two to keep their levels where they should be.

But yes, a varied gut load with a varied diet of feeders will keep the body and all its systems working properly.

 

[ebuch]

Good to know. I think he was mainly concerned that I have no vitamin A supplement like. At all! So I'm glad he told me to increase the diet. I was really interested in the bit about sand and after learning this will never even consider going back to it seeing how dangerous eye infections are for them.

 

[ebuch]

Progress

After one day of antibiotics.

All I did was wash it with Saline, take her to the vet, and then put the antibiotics on it. If she didn't get the medicine the infection could have killed her or at least destroyed her eye. The wonders of medicine.

 

[Dinosaur!]

congratulations! that eye is looking really good!

 

[ebuch]

Thanks I'm expecting a full recovery.

 

[ebuch]

Looking better and better. Will keep posting progress.

 

[Dinosaur!]

wow! it almost looks normal now! thats pretty awesome!

 

[ebuch]

wow! it almost looks normal now! thats pretty awesome!

As you know it pays to get them to the vet as quickly as you can when noticing a problem.

 

[Dinosaur!]

i agree one hundred percent! when my bell had eye problems with skin, i took him to the vet and hey fixed it!

he went from this shortly after i rescued him

to this in one vet trip! sadly he died just a few weeks later (he was over ten years old), and was born blind...

 

[ebuch]

i agree one hundred percent! when my bell had eye problems with skin, i took him to the vet and hey fixed it!

he went from this shortly after i rescued him

(picture)

to this in one vet trip! sadly he died just a few weeks later (he was over ten years old), and was born blind...

(picture)

I'm glad he had a chance to be comfortable for the last few weeks that first picture looks absolutely miserable. Are eye problems more prominent in Bells? I know Zamora s at least partially Bell Albino, perhaps has another morph tucked away in her genes but I'll never know because I don't want to put her through the stress of breeding. Without knowing for sure what her genes are it's just not worth it.

 

[Dinosaur!]

yeah i have no clue if bells are prone to eye problems or not, but that would be an interesting thread to ask! I think it is usually poor husbandry, or the geckos are just no good at shedding sometimes that causes eye issues My boys eyes were like that for months before i got him too. he was kept in a tank with a (no heat) aquarium light, a faulty hot rock, a waterbowl so dry there was a dead cockroach (not a feeder one!) stuck to it, an inch deep of poop inside the rim of his hide, a dirty dish towel, and fifty+ dead crickets under the towel. oh and there was no lid so a cat jumped in and ripped his tail off. the poor guy was lucky to be alive! but i cleaned him and fattened him up, and the vet fixed his health! thanks to her he had a good while with me i am so glad that your gecko improved so much! hopefully he will just keep getting better from here

 

[ebuch]

All better!!!

 

[Olympus]

Great to hear! Definitely looks much more comfortable.