Infection on my female gecko.

[yarrick2k5]

*edit* Sorry my male gecko.

Hey there, an infection has developed on the underside/

I noticed it was red a day ago but since the skin was white and loose and soon to shed i was going to wait until then for a closer inspection. Today he shed and it doesn't look good, a little a bit of secretion of some kind was coming out too. I gave a little bath just to clean up the area gently as well as to get rid of the excess skin on her toes.

Here are some photos of what it looks like. Tomorrow i'm going to see the vet but though i'll post this here to see if i can get any info before hand.

Just some extra info now. I've had him for nearly 4 years now, he's been healthy since then and this is the first time anything like this has appeared. 2 weeks before this, my other gecko developed an eye infection, which is now almost healed due to some eye drops given to me from my vet. About a week in front of that I did clean out the entire vivarium with some some general soapy water and a clean substrate which is these wood chippings which i get from the pet shop. I've used this stuff all before and never had any problems with it so i doubt it has something to do with the substrate but again i'm not ruling out that possibility.

Anyway, thanks in advance and hope someone can give a few words to help.

Yarrick

 

[4mb3r]

im not sure what it is. but your female appears to be male

 

[4mb3r]

and I would recommend getting the wood chips out.....

 

[fl_orchidslave]

Got to get that one to a vet, yesterday!!! It needs to be alone to rehabilitate, on clean paper towel, changed whenever soiled.

Wood chips are not a good substrate for leopard geckos. Floor tiles are a safe, good looking substrate that many members here are using. There are other options too.

Also, she looks like a he.

 

[yarrick2k5]

Well the two i got back then were sold to me as male and female. From a pet store too. How can you tell the different between then? Becuase i had to seperate my two geckos as the male was always trying to mate but they ended up fighting.

The wood chip packaging says it's fine for reptiles and the herp vet said the stuff was fine when i enquired about the stuff with the eye infection. But it could be a bad batch so you're probably right.

 

[yarrick2k5]

Lol, disregard the female/male bit. I just got the two of them mixed up. The female is in the other viv. >.<

 

[4mb3r]

You cant always go by labels.. They will tell you anything so you buy it.. Same with sand.. Use Tile or paper towels

 

[reps4life]

It might be a good idea to find a different vet if he told you wood chips are safe for leopard geckos.

 

[yarrick2k5]

Sorry but i'm taking my vets word over you guys and girls.

That's the vets which my geckos are registered too. I'm sure you all mean well but he is far more qualified for all i know. But i will raise the issue again so thanks for the imput on the substrate. But last time i did bring it up he said the stuff I had (which i had shown him before) was fine.

http://www.trinityvetcentre.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&Itemid=4

 

[DierdreDreamwalker626]

You cant always go by labels.. They will tell you anything so you buy it.. Same with sand.. Use Tile or paper towels

I'm going with you guys on this one. When we got our first leo we had sand in his cage. It was pretty and purple and I was in hog heaven. (Purple's my favorite color. lol) the label said it was fine for him and the vet actually told us that it was the best substrate for him. Turns out it almost killed him b/c he accidently ate some of it and something happened with the dye used to color it. Needless to say it was scary. The vet also told me that our Savannah monitor was supposed to be eating an all meat diet when in acutality they're incectivores and feeding him all that meat was actually what costed us $700 for emergency stomach surgery. Needless to say vets don't know all that they make you think they know. Wood chips are horrible for bedding in almost any reptile. If they eat some of it it will clog everything up and you may not have a lizard nemore if that happens, so I would probably listen to the people that have first hand experience and knowledge on the subject.

 

[yarrick2k5]

Yea, just been reading some more up on it. Even my guide to gekkos says the kind of wood chip i have is safe but online it's being argued that it's not. So tommorow after the vets i think i'll go change it.

I'm still unsure as i have a number of leopard geckos and and have used this stuff for so many years now if this infection is caused by the wood chips then this is the first time. Still, would rather keep them safe.

Thanks guys. I'll see what my vet has to say tommorow and probe him on the issue. Especially since the vets is suppose to be a more specialist in this kind of thing I would expect them to know whats best

 

[kizzer182]

Outch that poor guy, has he tried mating with any thing or tried to drop his tail? Hope his vet trip goes well.

 

[DierdreDreamwalker626]

Yea, just been reading some more up on it. Even my guide to gekkos says the kind of wood chip i have is safe but online it's being argued that it's not. So tommorow after the vets i think i'll go change it.

I'm still unsure as i have a number of leopard geckos and and have used this stuff for so many years now if this infection is caused by the wood chips then this is the first time. Still, would rather keep them safe.

Thanks guys. I'll see what my vet has to say tommorow and probe him on the issue. Especially since the vets is suppose to be a more specialist in this kind of thing I would expect them to know whats best

I would expect vets to be an expert on all of this to, and it's honestly kind of disappointing that they're not. Idk if the infection was caused by the wood chips or not b/c honestly I'm not anywhere near an expert on that kind of thing. Mine was more of a future warning than anything. (lol) I would seriously change it though, just to be safe. We have about 22 adults and nearly 12 babies, and we use coco-fiber for our adults and paper towels for our babies. I think that most people I have seen on here actually use tile and love it, so we're even thinking on switching to that as well. But to warn you on paper towel (and y we're about to not use it as well.) there's been a few instances where the geckos area accidently eating it as well. There's one on here from the other day actually and this lady was scared out of her mind that her gecko was gonna have prolapse. Paper towel just does not digest well.