Leo's eyes, eating habits......HELP

[RawrBabee]

Heres a little run down on my Leo Ellie and the timeline over the past month or so.....

Ellie is 2 years of age.....

About a month ago, Ellie was doing her normal shedding procedure and I noticed that she was having a little problem removing the skin from her body. So I decided to help her by pulling the skin off. All was coming off perfectly fine but a small piece of skin actually got trapped on her eye ball, blocking her eye site or at least blurring it. so I gave it a few more days to see if maybe she could remove it herself with her toungue, since I saw her licking at it. Well , after a couple days I saw a small piece of the skin sticking out of her eye, so we were able to pull it out by hand and all was well.

About 3-4 weeks went by and she began sheeding like normal. Again, she had a hard time removing the skin, but I let her work at it this time. I didnt want to chance getting more skin in her eye. She removed all the skin this time EXCEPT a small piece inside the eye, same eye.

So after a few days of her not opening her eye due to this skin, or atleast slightly opening it, I figured I better get my tail to the store and pick up some saline......which I did.

We rinsed the eye out, and the other eye seems to be fine but now the eye that has the skin, seems to be the issue still. She wont open it, or if she does its only for a few seconds. Then she closes it and occasionally I will see her lick at it. So as of now, she wont open her eye. The one eye that is open has what looks to be "very small white bubbles" on the actual eye ball. I tried getting a picture but it comes out blurry cause its so small. She may have these bubbles on the other eyeball too, but we can't get her to open it.

Now I think this one eye being an issue, is causing her to stop eating all together and makes her very lathargic. She doesn't come out at night anymore and her tail has slimmed down a good amount. I first thought about brumation but the weather has not been cold and this lack of eating has only been since her one eye went disfunctional. I could be wrong but I really dont know what it could be.

I am attaching an overall picture of her. Does she look starved? She does look thinner than before......

I was going to see if I can get her in the vet tomorrow unless you guys have a "solution" to whats going on.

please help

 

[RawrBabee]

took her to the vet this morning.....looks like she has a ruptured cornea. she will lose her eye in a month or so , hopefully she doesnt ban eating all together

 

[Spots]

oh no! I don't know what to say but I thought I would post to say good luck. Keep us posted. I would like to know what happens to the actual eye and how she will deal with not being able to see out of the one side.

 

[sausage]

awww did they say how this would have happend?
i would think she should be ok but might have to assist feed her till she gets the hang of it i guess :S

 

[smsararas2]

My one leo has become blind in one eye and very hard of seeing in the other. We have had to work with him to make sure that he could catch his food. To start off with we wake him up with a very light tap on his hide so he knows it is feeding time. Then, we feed him supers right on his doorstep so that he knows the area they are going to be in. It still takes him a couple tries but he does get it. I see him cocking his head when the worm hits the floor and I think that he is learning to listen for the feet scrapping on the floor. With this work and constant routine with him he is a very healthy boy(can't be bred though, because all the ladies scare him) and one of my friendliest. I think that because he has gotten so used to us ensuring his food and such that he really is a big suck with us. He will sit here and "watch" TV with us for hours. He is a little more skitterish though if there is a surprising noise.

 

[RawrBabee]

We put the food in front of her face and she wont take it, She just walks away. Weve tried many times to see if she will eat.

What else can we do to get her to eat food? Please help!

 

[Spots]

It will probably be awhile before she understands what you are doing. Sometimes I put worms down in front of my girls but they walk on by concentrating on something else. Lol. Of ahe really stops eating there is a slurry recipe sticky on the forum that you could try

 

[RawrBabee]

we tried once again to feed Ellie.......this time we finally had success

although its more of a "treat" than it is a staple, we gave her a wax worm. she wanted that in a hurry!! as i watched her try to catch it, she is having a hard time adjusting to the distance of the food from her face. so she took about 5 stabs at it, had it a couple times but only by a small portion of her mouth. then she gave up and walked away.

since i saw her stab at it, i figured at least she WANTS it, she just needs to work at it. so i brought the worm back over to her and she was looking at it with the left side of her head cocked since it was the good eye, she took a couple stabs and SUCCESS!!! she got it!! I am so happy.

she didnt want another one but i figured if she atleast got the one, thats a baby step.

so now i will atempt to give her meal worms in hopes that she "tries". once she is back to controlling how to work with one eye, i will bring the crickets in....i'll just ahve to deleg them so they dont run fast.........

i hope this is a green light for more to come!!

 

[RawrBabee]

it has been about 2 weeks since the vet trip and we have gotten her to eat maybe one waxworm but nothing more.

i have tried, waxworms and mealworms. i can get her to take anything. she looks at them with her one good eye and walks away. i place them in plain site of her good eye but she cares less. she sleeps in her humid hide 24/7. she doesnt come out anymore.

the vet said she looked healthy and there was nothing to worry about. we just need to hand feed her food till she gets used to having one eye.

as i mentioned, i cant get her to eat or drink. i have placed her in the food bowl as well as the water bowl and she wants no part of it and races back to her humid hide to sleep.

i dont know what else to do......

how can i get her to drink/eat on a normal basis? are the only symptoms of dehydration, just a limp tail and bones showing? as of now, none of these signs are existing but her tail has decreased in size......not worrying about that YET.....

 

[sausage]

well its a ig thing to get used to so i dont know how long it will take. she shouldnt have problems getting water as it dosnt move but you colud try giving her droplets of water on the mouth to lick off either from your finger or a syringe