Hemipene Removal - a tad graphic

[DrCarrotTail]

Well, Studly's a bit less Studly today

When I checked on my geckos last night I noticed my big Studly guy had a prolapsed hemipene. It must have happened sometime the night before or that morning as he was fine when I checked him on Saturday. He had been lying in his moist hide and had some ecoearth caked on the icky thing so I soaked him for 10 minutes to clean him off and be able to better assess how bad it actually was. It was big and ugly - purpleish and about a 1/2 inch in diameter. I cleaned out his cage, made a new moist hide with paper towels instead of dirt, and decided not to feed him until after he saw the vet the next day.

He got rushed to the vet first thing this morning and after 10 minutes of pouring sugar on it and trying to squeeze it back in (while getting repeatedly bitten and pooped on by a super ticked off gecko) the vet felt the best course of action would be to remove it. He tied a couple sutures around the base of the hemipene and cut part of it off. He told me the rest would slough off in a day or two and the sutures would fall off when it did. He gave me some salve to put on it a couple times a day and said to keep his cage clean and probably not feed him for a week or so (he's a super chunky 95g so a week shouldn't hurt him).

I feel bad for the little guy now. Recovering from a super traumatic morning and shedding his gecko skin with sutures sticking out of unmentionable places. Not knowing a 10 hour drive to NJ awaits him on Thursday :/ Glad it happened while I was still here and not next week while he was being watched by the gecko-sitter.

I was wondering if anyone had experience with anything like this? If so, do you think recovery will be as quick and easy as the vet believes? Anything I should watch out for?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Lindz0518]

I don't have experience with this but I am always amazed by how resilient leopard geckos are, hope he has a speedy recovery! He will probably bounce back like nothing happened.

 

[DrCarrotTail]

Thanks!! I hope so. The vet asked if I wanted to hold him during the mini "surgery" and I was thoroughly amazed at how still he stayed while the vet was doing unspeakable things to him without pain killers. He said he was scared to use them on an open wound as reptiles don't have as powerful a barrier to prevent drugs like lidocaine going straight to their brains and killing them.

On another note...The appointment after mine was a chick from a major chain pet store bringing in three leopard geckos and a corn snake to get checked out. Not sure if they were sick or if it was preventative but either way I was impressed to see them taking such good care of their sale animals!

 

[Ghostoftangerine17]

Best of luck with this! Hope everything goes well and you can give us some positive updates in the future!!

 

[Lindz0518]

Yeah you don't see hardly any pet store reptiles getting any type of vet care and when they do it's normally to late

 

[DrCarrotTail]

Happy to report that everything healed up exactly as the vet said it would. Stitches and dead tissue fell off after about a week and everything is situation normal - minus one hemipene and a trip to NJ. The pretty gal Studly overexerted himself with appears to be gravid! It's her first breeding season so I'm crossing my fingers that I'll at least get a few nice studly SHTCTB babies from the two of them this season!

Pictures of the lucky mom and dad if you're interested

Studly - Dad

Callie - Mom (a couple months ago - she needs a new picture!)

 

[Ghostoftangerine17]

Veeeeeeeery good to hear the trooper is doing OK! Those are BEAUTIFUL geckos so I'm anticipating some great babies!!

I hope I never get a prolapsed hemipene though.