Gecko weight loss, health advice please

[danieldmcl18]

Hi so i have an Afghan tangeringe from a breeder.
He is 5-6 years old
Max size is probably 50-60grams hes not that big.
Ive never had any issues with him but may he was having really bad shedding issues and seen he was getting a bit skinnier and lying around.

Hes never had a huge tail or anything but he was getting skinnier and his stomach was very rough.
I brought him to the vet and they gave him antibiotics for 10 days, baytril
He was still eating somtimes on his own and then me putting the food in his mouth.
He went from 34 grams up as far as 42 grams in a week which was great but then problems came, his tail died at the very end and start getting cut at sections from dryness.
I brought him back to the vet and they gave him a stronger injection and it gave him a boost off energy and healed his cuts, i was to get this needle once a week for 4 weeks.
After the 3 week he went downhill tail completly shrivelled up and back down to 35 gramms.
Hes been lethargic the whole time. But was eating himself during the injections but not eating the last 2 weeks now on his own.
The vet thinks his body might have went into an immune supressed state and stopped absorbing nutrients or sometting along those lines and hes now on baytril again for 2 weeks and got a steroid injection to help his body start putting on weight.
Its been 3 days now and his tail is filling a little bit but it has a weird bend in it.
He doesnt have mbd, they done an xray and said his bones look great and he has good calcium levels.
Fecal sample came up clear.
His belly skin is all cleared up now but
The vets dont know where to go as he Needs full bloods done or crypto sporidium testing as it wasnt found in 2 fecal tests but the worry is it could be in the liver or stomach or maybe he has like kidney disease or something, problem is he is only 34 grams and taking full bloods would be dangerous and so would crypto testing as its a biopsy and the gecko is already weak.
I am currently making up a slurry of crushed worms water and vitamin drop and vitamin powder to syringe feed him 1-2 times a day to constantly get him hydrated and fed to help recovery.

Just wondeirng if anyone can tell me anything about the colour of his sides or whats going on with his tail.
The last pic is after his first week of recovery when it was going well @42 grams but then his tail issues and it went downhill. Other pics are from today.

 

[danieldmcl18]

Hi so i have an Afghan tangeringe from a breeder.
He is 5-6 years old
Max size is probably 50-60grams hes not that big.
Ive never had any issues with him but may he was having really bad shedding issues and seen he was getting a bit skinnier and lying around.

Hes never had a huge tail or anything but he was getting skinnier and his stomach was very rough.
I brought him to the vet and they gave him antibiotics for 10 days, baytril
He was still eating somtimes on his own and then me putting the food in his mouth.
He went from 34 grams up as far as 42 grams in a week which was great but then problems came, his tail died at the very end and start getting cut at sections from dryness.
I brought him back to the vet and they gave him a stronger injection and it gave him a boost off energy and healed his cuts, i was to get this needle once a week for 4 weeks.
After the 3 week he went downhill tail completly shrivelled up and back down to 35 gramms.
Hes been lethargic the whole time. But was eating himself during the injections but not eating the last 2 weeks now on his own.
The vet thinks his body might have went into an immune supressed state and stopped absorbing nutrients or sometting along those lines and hes now on baytril again for 2 weeks and got a steroid injection to help his body start putting on weight.
Its been 3 days now and his tail is filling a little bit but it has a weird bend in it.
He doesnt have mbd, they done an xray and said his bones look great and he has good calcium levels.
Fecal sample came up clear.
His belly skin is all cleared up now but
The vets dont know where to go as he Needs full bloods done or crypto sporidium testing as it wasnt found in 2 fecal tests but the worry is it could be in the liver or stomach or maybe he has like kidney disease or something, problem is he is only 34 grams and taking full bloods would be dangerous and so would crypto testing as its a biopsy and the gecko is already weak.
I am currently making up a slurry of crushed worms water and vitamin drop and vitamin powder to syringe feed him 1-2 times a day to constantly get him hydrated and fed to help recovery.

Just wondeirng if anyone can tell me anything about the colour of his sides or whats going on with his tail.
The last pic is after his first week of recovery when it was going well @42 grams but then his tail issues and it went downhill. Other pics are from today.
View attachment 82048 View attachment 82049 View attachment 82050 View attachment 82051

I was thinking it could possibly be crypto sporidium but then again i have another gecko giant called layla and she is doing great no signs of anything so surely it would have spread because i would have accidentally held both one after another not knowing.

 

[acpart]

I have a household of crypto positive geckos who were diagnosed 6 years ago. I lost a bunch of them at the beginning but at this point nearly all of them appear healthy though they remain crypto positive. After the diagnosis I had nearly all of them tested with vent swabs (I did the swabbing myself and brought the swabs in to the vet for analysis). It seems to me that if 2 crypto tests were negative it may not be crypto. I have no idea what's going on or why the tail looks the way it does. I have found that sometimes a gecko has some innate health problem that is dormant and then manifests itself. If the vet can't figure it out, I don't think I can do any better.

Aliza

 

[danieldmcl18]

I have a household of crypto positive geckos who were diagnosed 6 years ago. I lost a bunch of them at the beginning but at this point nearly all of them appear healthy though they remain crypto positive. After the diagnosis I had nearly all of them tested with vent swabs (I did the swabbing myself and brought the swabs in to the vet for analysis). It seems to me that if 2 crypto tests were negative it may not be crypto. I have no idea what's going on or why the tail looks the way it does. I have found that sometimes a gecko has some innate health problem that is dormant and then manifests itself. If the vet can't figure it out, I don't think I can do any better.

Aliza

Were the ones that are now healthy sick when they were diagnosed? Do you have them on paronomycin all the time now or any medication? They only done fecal tests and i know that it doesnt show up unless the eggs have shed at the right time or something. My vet has to send it off to a 3rd party so its not quite as well equipped here as you probably have it where you are. Did you do the vent swab with a q tip?
I am going to the vet in 10 days so i will talk some more about crytpo with them.
I have him on critical care formula now since yesterday everyday and its been 4 days on baytril now and syringe feeding slurrys.
This is him today so maybe slowly on the right track.

 

[acpart]

He does look a little better. Most of the geckos I swabbed acted healthy. I feel that as in the case of other parasites, if the crypto parasite load isn't too great, they are fine but if they get stressed and the parasite gets out of control, they have symptoms. The vet gave me some long q-tips, each in a sealed bag. I opened the bag, took out the swab, used it and then returned it to the bag. Ironically everyone tested positive except the one that had tested positive the first time. I did use medication with that first one for awhile but it wasn't consistently effective. Medicating the whole colony (I had about 65 geckos at the time, 35 of which were hatchlings that I could no longer sell) was prohibitive and it was hard to keep things quarantined enough to make it worthwhile. I'm down to about 38 geckos now (they haven't all died of crypto; my most recent death was my oldest leopard gecko who was 19).

Aliza

 

[danieldmcl18]

Yeah kind off hard to tell hes kept the weight on, actually gone up 1 gram as off today, yeah i have heard of stress bring crypto on but he was never stressed or had any reason to be before because i didnt handle him often and i didnt mess his cage around or disturb his toilet area and i had him on a thermostat all the time and no noise or anythting like that.

It was weird today he hasnt eaten a locust in a while, like theyre may have been one in his tank but i highly doubt he caught it because he has just been lying around. But theyre was a soggy black one on the ground around where i seen him come over to that wasnt there and hour before so i think he threw it up because it was completly black. But after that was the first time ive seen him kinda have his head up with his eyes open without my hands being like in the tank so im hoping thats a good sign but i really dont know his sides are still dark so he could have organ disease or something. I need to get weight on him so i can get bloods or an endoscope done on him. Im a week into the baytril now.

 

[acpart]

That looks more like a dead locust than one that was thrown up. Usually when they throw them up, they're compressed like they've been in the stomach. That's what the dead crickets look like in my geckos' tanks. Glad to hear he's gaining a bit.

Aliza

 

[danieldmcl18]

Hmm maybe youre right i just didnt see it in the tank and he was heading that way and an hour later it was here and it the liquid around it is like a brownish colour, yeah hes still not well though but keeping the weight on atleast.

 

[danieldmcl18]

Just thought id give an update, I've brought Yoshi to the other vet, hes in for 4 nights basically on fluid injections and slowly put back onto critical care insectivore food, the purple on his body is from really bad dehydration and his skin was so constricted. His tail kink is mainly from very mild mbd but the dehydration and stress probably brought up the issue, slight mbd at his top pelvis bones and some off his tail that the other vets didnt notice but other than that his bones look good, soaks and baths were not helping him as his dehydration was too bad, fecal sample on the way to lab for a PCR test for crytosporidium and he is on parasite medicine just incase to help with recovery has put on 4 grams of weight since yesterday and will be going back on proper calorie food tomorrow slowly. Once he gets a bit off weight on him and if the crypto comes back negative he will be getting his bloods done to check uric acid levels to see if his kidneys are still working. Hope this helps anyone thats not sure. It was double the price for the better vet but she had a plan within 30 minutes and so worth is so far. 4 grams is a great improvement for 1 day and she said hes comfortable and moving around a bit.
Praying his kidneys are ok and he makes a full recovery bar his tail which might stay the same but it shouldnt effect him.

 

[acpart]

That's great to hear. Just for the heck of it, ask this vet if there's any chance that Yoshi has gout. I'm only suggesting it because it does happen for some leopard geckos and it's much more serious than when humans get it.

Aliza

 

[danieldmcl18]

That's great to hear. Just for the heck of it, ask this vet if there's any chance that Yoshi has gout. I'm only suggesting it because it does happen for some leopard geckos and it's much more serious than when humans get it.

Aliza

Yeah she did tell me about it, just will have to check it when he gets a bit healthier if he does it will be the tissue gout because he doesnt seem to have any visual physical gout on his arms or legs but yeah she did mention it to me.

 

[danieldmcl18]

Another update: Unfortunately Yoshi passed away this morning Thanks for all the input anyway everyone.

 

[Yvonne G]

Aw geez. I'm so sorry to hear that.

 

[acpart]

Sorry for your loss. Sometimes there are problems that aren't even apparent. I think you did the best you could.

Aliza