Ivyna J. Spyder
New Member
- Messages
- 18
- Location
- USA
Haha, I don't mean to scare-monger. But this just goes to show that nothing is 100% without risk!
For over a month my little snow gecko had been having eye problems. It started with her right eye being squinty and full of gunk, then the left eye started having problems too. I took her to the vet twice but he had no clear answer for me (lots of guesses but no way to prove them)
I cleaned her eyes with saline every day, otherwise they'd be sealed shut. I gave her medicated eyedrops in case it was an infection. I tried everything I could think of to figure out the cause and how to fix it, but nothing seemed to work. She started eating less and less, either because she couldn't see or because of the stress from being handled to get her eyes cleaned.
Then I happened to mentioned the problems to my father and he asked if it could be sand in her eyes- but I told him I never used sand, just paper towels. He then pointed out that they had started to buy a different brand of paper towels from usual about a month ago- when the symptoms first started. Normally we get the 'cheap' brand but my parents had splurged and bought something more expensive, some super-soft absorbent sort.
Yeah. See what this is getting at?
He suggested maybe, just maybe there was some additive in the paper towels that was irritating her eyes. So of course I immediately went out and buy a different, cheap brand- and some 'hypo-allergenic' ones just in case- and cleaned out her viv and replaced the fancy ones...
Aaaand pretty much overnight, her eyes looked better than they had in weeks and she's much more active. Several days later and her eyes look almost normal.
Coincidence- or were the fancy paper towels really to blame? (For the record they were the Bounty Super-Soft brand, and the cheap ones I replaced them with are just grocery store bargain brand.)
Could it have been an allergy only she has (the vet says he's never seen a reptile with an allergy) or is it something that could harm ANY of our leos? (I use the same towels with my crestie and my ball python, but they haven't had a problem) I don't think a lot of people ever think about what kinds of dyes or chemicals could be added to paper towels.
The vet says if I really want to test it, I'd need to put the fancy towels back in and see if the problem comes back- but I'm really not sure if I want to inflict that on her! So maybe I'll just warn everyone else to be careful of what brands you use so this doesn't happen to anyone else.
For over a month my little snow gecko had been having eye problems. It started with her right eye being squinty and full of gunk, then the left eye started having problems too. I took her to the vet twice but he had no clear answer for me (lots of guesses but no way to prove them)
I cleaned her eyes with saline every day, otherwise they'd be sealed shut. I gave her medicated eyedrops in case it was an infection. I tried everything I could think of to figure out the cause and how to fix it, but nothing seemed to work. She started eating less and less, either because she couldn't see or because of the stress from being handled to get her eyes cleaned.
Then I happened to mentioned the problems to my father and he asked if it could be sand in her eyes- but I told him I never used sand, just paper towels. He then pointed out that they had started to buy a different brand of paper towels from usual about a month ago- when the symptoms first started. Normally we get the 'cheap' brand but my parents had splurged and bought something more expensive, some super-soft absorbent sort.
Yeah. See what this is getting at?
He suggested maybe, just maybe there was some additive in the paper towels that was irritating her eyes. So of course I immediately went out and buy a different, cheap brand- and some 'hypo-allergenic' ones just in case- and cleaned out her viv and replaced the fancy ones...
Aaaand pretty much overnight, her eyes looked better than they had in weeks and she's much more active. Several days later and her eyes look almost normal.
Coincidence- or were the fancy paper towels really to blame? (For the record they were the Bounty Super-Soft brand, and the cheap ones I replaced them with are just grocery store bargain brand.)
Could it have been an allergy only she has (the vet says he's never seen a reptile with an allergy) or is it something that could harm ANY of our leos? (I use the same towels with my crestie and my ball python, but they haven't had a problem) I don't think a lot of people ever think about what kinds of dyes or chemicals could be added to paper towels.
The vet says if I really want to test it, I'd need to put the fancy towels back in and see if the problem comes back- but I'm really not sure if I want to inflict that on her! So maybe I'll just warn everyone else to be careful of what brands you use so this doesn't happen to anyone else.
