Indy's eye infection

[jlambert]

Hello y'all. I'm new to the forum and I have concerns about my leopard gecko's eye infection. Here name is Indy and I've had her for 8 years. I found her walking around the mall 8 years ago and she looked lost so I took her home with me. She had lost her tail and regrown her second tail by the time I found her. She's very small, weighs 30 grams but her tail is plump and she's active and healthy except for the eyes. Back in December her eyes begun to look swollen and stopped opening. She stopped eating so I started force feeding her. She lives in a 10x30" terrarium. I've always used coconut husk bedding except now that she's ill I've been using paper towels. The temperature in her house is 105 in the hot end and 85 in the cold end. She has a hide, some rocks and fake plats, and a wide shallow water dish. She poops consistently and it looks healthy (solid with the white and the brown section).
To feed her, I grind up dry mealworms and mix in reptacal and fluker's reptaboost so that she gets a lot of protein, fat, calcium and vitamins. I mix that with purified water or sometimes apple sauce and feed her 1-2ml of that every day so she doesn't lose weight. I monitor her weight daily and give her warm baths. I took her to see a vet recently, he said her organs look healthy and he prescribed baytril injections for the infection. She took that for 2 weeks and her eyes don't look much better. Do you guys have any suggestions as to what else I should try? I want to take her to see the doctor again but the vet is 2 hours away from my town and it's very expensive.

 

[Jayme]

Definitely take her back to a vet. Do you know if they're particularly experienced with reptiles? Because if not, you may want to consider finding another more specialized vet. Here is a good resource for finding herp vets if this is the case.

And have you tried feeding her whole worms instead of force feeding? You mentioned she's still active despite the eye troubles, so maybe if you held the worm up to her mouth, the scent might be enough to provoke a feeding response? If that doesn't work, Marcia from Golden Gate Geckos created a slurry recipe that has been used by a lot of people with good results for temporarily feeding to sick and rehabilitating geckos.

Also what are you using to heat your tank? 105 is really quite hot for leos, 89-94 range is most ideal. What are you using to measure your temps? Good move changing the substrate to paper towel. I suspect the coco husk substrate might have caused the eye issues to begin with, since it seems to be a material made for holding moisture and whatnot, more suitable for moist hides but not the whole enclosure. But I'm not too familiar with it. For future reference, solid substrates like paper towel, shelf liner, and tile are very good for leos due to being very easy to keep clean and no risk for impaction. (and they're cheap!)

Welcome to the forums by the way! I really hope her infection clears up soon. I know vets are expensive but if you want her to get better, that's really the best way to do it, along with keeping the enclosure as clean as possible. Let us know how things turn out, and if you have more questions feel free to ask and also use the search function, there's tons of information to be found on this site.

 

[jlambert]

Definitely take her back to a vet. Do you know if they're particularly experienced with reptiles? Because if not, you may want to consider finding another more specialized vet. Here is a good resource for finding herp vets if this is the case.

And have you tried feeding her whole worms instead of force feeding? You mentioned she's still active despite the eye troubles, so maybe if you held the worm up to her mouth, the scent might be enough to provoke a feeding response? If that doesn't work, Marcia from Golden Gate Geckos created a slurry recipe that has been used by a lot of people with good results for temporarily feeding to sick and rehabilitating geckos.

Also what are you using to heat your tank? 105 is really quite hot for leos, 89-94 range is most ideal. What are you using to measure your temps? Good move changing the substrate to paper towel. I suspect the coco husk substrate might have caused the eye issues to begin with, since it seems to be a material made for holding moisture and whatnot, more suitable for moist hides but not the whole enclosure. But I'm not too familiar with it. For future reference, solid substrates like paper towel, shelf liner, and tile are very good for leos due to being very easy to keep clean and no risk for impaction. (and they're cheap!)

Welcome to the forums by the way! I really hope her infection clears up soon. I know vets are expensive but if you want her to get better, that's really the best way to do it, along with keeping the enclosure as clean as possible. Let us know how things turn out, and if you have more questions feel free to ask and also use the search function, there's tons of information to be found on this site.

Thank you so much for the advice. Of the 3 herp vet clinics listed for my state only one of them takes in leopard geckos. I know this because I called all of them to try to schedule an appointment and only succeeded with one. I'm using a heat pad and a 100 Watt infrared light as heat sources. Ya, I notices she like to mostly hang out towards the middle where it's not too hot but not too cold but I can adjust the height of the lamp to bring the temperature down, so I'll do that. I'll also permanently change the bedding. I use the coconut husk for my snakes too but they're from a tropical region so they like the moisture. I have great news though! She started shedding today and when she was done I took her out to look at her eyes. They were open but filled with mucus so I put her in her little plastic travel tank and put the lid on. Then I put her in the bathroom and turned on the shower and closed the door to let it get steamy and left her in there for 30 minutes. That helped clear up her eyes so they're not filled with mucus anymore. She's probably hungry now after all that work. Lets see if she's ready to eat on her own!
Again, thanks a bunch. I'll probably take her back to the vet anyways for a check up but at least now she's looking better.