Some Troubling Events

[HugeGenes&LoLa]

So, last fall, one of our geckos (Spectre) went through a really bad spell of eye problems and stopped eating. We took him to the vet, applied the eye ointment she gave us, gave him antibiotics through shots we had to apply ourselves, but to no avail. After a couple months of battling eye infection and no appetite, Spectre passed away. To have these events happen to one gecko was enough, especially when we never learned what the cause was.

One gecko apparently wasn't enough. About a month ago, one of our females stopped eating. We didn't think much of it at first, because it's breeding season. But then she started to lose a fair amount of weight, and we began to panic. A couple weeks ago, she started squinting her eyes shut, just like Spectre did. And then she was *really* thin, and still not eating, despite our desperate attempts to get something, anything, into her system. A couple days ago, we realized she was bleeding somewhere in her pelvic area. She passed away today.

The reason I am posting this is to inform you of the pattern of symptoms, in hopes that someone may know what is happening.

Symptoms (in order of occurance):
-Decreased appetite
-Lethargy
-Squinting of the eyes/swollen eyes (sometimes eyes are milky, or have a film)
-rapid weight loss
-appetite ceases completely
-sitting on cold side of tank
-runny white discharge/blood instead of fecal matter

What we tried:
-Feeding baby food, force feeding mealworms/waxworms (desperate measures)
-warm water soaks
-Saline solution + Q-tips
-antibiotic eye ointment (for Spectre)
-antibiotic shots (for Spectre)

Both geckos were above the 50g mark before this started, both lost between 10-15 grams in a matter of weeks. The vet even commented on how healthy Spectre looked despite his eyes (this was before he lost so much weight). Also, our other 5 geckos show no signs or symptoms of this at the present time. Our female didn't show any signs until 6 months after the first passed away, so I can't imagine that she contracted it from him.

Thanks in advance for any help, it is really appreciated.

 

[acpart]

Does the vet have any other ideas now that the whole picture is clearer (this is different from a gecko that only has an eye infection)?

Could there be an issue with supplementation or husbandry?

I have lost quite a few coleonyx geckos over a 3 year period to different set of symptoms. The most recent bout wiped out my last 5. I'm bringing this up because the only theory that fits is that one of the original 3 I brought in had a communicable disease (one was sick). Since i didn't do an extensive "decontamination" job, others gradually got sick; there was sometimes a gap of months between geckos getting sick so I'm thinking that either the disease is slow to develop, or the geckos succumb when they are stressed. Consider doing a really thorough decontamination. I took all the coleonyx stuff, soaked it in an ammonia solution, let it sun-dry for awhile and then baked it in the oven.

Aliza

 

[BrilliantEraser]

This exact set of symptoms happened to my poor Wrex, who just passed away last week. All symptoms developed within 48 hours after his last meal, which was actually the first time I had ever given him superworms. The only symptom I can add to this list is regurgitation of food, and sudden death. Wrex lost little to no weight in the two days he was sick, and he died within the half hour that I stepped out to get some repat-aid to try on him. If anyone can shed any light at all on this, I would greatly appreciate it.