Need some help please

[hermeticcharm]

Need some help please Updated w/vet visit

I am a new leo owner although I am a herp enthusiast all around. I decided the newest addition to family was going to be a leopard gecko so I went to an unnamed chain pet store and picked one up, unfortunately I think that may have been a mistake.

I have had her for about 2 weeks now and she is just so skinny, but she has been eating regularly. Her first few stool were normal looking, tiny little dark ones, but I haven't seen one since. Just mostly a liquid with a white substance which may be urate or possibly an abnormality in her stool.

I am currently feeding her gut load cricket every other day. I also keep some super worms in a dish for her but she hates the things, won't go near them. She always has fresh water and a calc-vita powder dish. Two hides, dry on warm side, moist on cool side. Temps are all set up and monitored. Her substrate is slate tile with some paper towels in the corner she made her bathroom.

On top of the fact that she has been skinny ever since we got her, and that her stool has been rather strange, we also found black on her belly. I have read that it could be pretty much anything from just her organs showing through to crypto and everything in between. I am hoping the pictures I am including might help some one identify if what's going on with her belly. On top of all that she seems to have become lethargic the past day and just now as I was typing this she began opening her mouth really wide, possible dry heaving?

The unnamed chain pet store told me if there were any problems I could bring her back in and they would send her to a vet but to be honest I really don't trust them to do it any more.

Here is a picture of her belly with the aid of an overhead light for extra visibility:

And a picture of a recent stool, its hard to see on the paper towel but its a very small white chunk with liquid all around absorbed by the paper towel:

 

[Eric1969]

Maybe inpaction. I know alot of pet stores keep them on sand, which I dont get since its like the number 1 rule not to keep them on. I had that happen with mine, found out thru and xray... I had to give her warm soaks every day on her belly for about 2 weeks, they also say you can put a drop of veg oil on their nose and they will lick it off, may help pass if something is stuck. You can try that or take to a vet...

 

[hermeticcharm]

Thank you eric for the reply. I have considered this diagnosis and the home treatment I have just been weary about introducing her to any more stress because she is so tiny but I am going to start this right away. I would love any more replies and opinions, especially if anyone could help me identify if her belly is normal looking or if there are some signs of impaction or internal hemorrhaging.

Also the pet store did in fact have her on a terrible substrate so it is very possible it may be impaction. It was some sort of sand substrate but it seemed very coarse and the pieces varied in size from semi-fine to small pebble looking pieces.

Edit: Another little update, she seems a lot more active today. I gave her a warm soak and dabbed a tiny bit of veggie oil on her nose and she licked it right up. Because she is so skinny I have been thinking about making some of the gecko soup for her. Should I stop putting in worms and crickets if she is impacted? If she continues to eat them with blockage will it cause her to regurgitate or possibly even cause more blockage/problems?

 

[hermeticcharm]

So I decided to take her to the vet. The first one I called said 2 weeks till their exotics doctor would be back but then I found another that got me an appointment for 20 mins after the phone call, they even had a coupon for a free first exam.

Because of her size he said he really couldn't run any diagnostics. He did a "leopard gecko x-ray" as he called it (turned off the lights and held a flash light up to her). From this he gathered that it looked inflamed, possible internal bleeding and found a larger, darker spot that he said could be an organ or possibly a foreign object. He suggested a flush through the mouth and the vent to either try to dislodge what may be in there or possibly figure out if it had nothing to do with the gi tract at all.

After doing this he found that the only thing that came out was the white substance I mentioned to him as well as earlier in this post. He concluded that the problem is most likely NOT in the GI tract.

I mentioned the gecko soup found here on the forums and he said because of her size it would be better to get her on Carnivore Care (I believe its a sub product of Critical Care) by Oxbow. So we are starting her on that and hopefully we will get some feces soon so we can do a fecal float/smear. He said that it is still hard to say what the problem is, could be parasites, or some kind of organ disease. He told me to continue with the warm soaks and hopefully the supplement will put some weight back on her and produce some feces. He also sent a prescription to a compound pharmacy to make a custom anti-biotic for her in case theres infection, should be able to pick it up tomorrow.

I really hope she makes it through this, it saddens me even more to know that most likely the other dozen or so geckos at the unnamed pet store are in similar conditions. The doctor told me if it ends up being something contagious he will get in contact with the pet store and try to trace it back to the breeder.

Wish us luck.