impaction

[Bert-N-Sheila]

we just hopefully saved another little guy from Petland. we saw her there 3 days ago while buying some crickets and she looked bad and had ZERO water in the tank. we said something to the manager and he of course blamed it on the daytime shift. i call BS since the thing was BONE DRY. anyway, we bought her to save her and didn't even take the time to look at her. she ends up being very light white and tan/browns and is albino. solid red-clear like these "ruby clear" eyes i've read about(when she does open them).

anyway, the problem is much worse we think. as we were putting her in her new home, she took a poop on my hand, some sand was in it which made me curios. for such a tiny poop there was a good amount of sand. so chrissie looked at her underside and it looks like a sand impaction. I THINK.

i do not have my camera as i took it back to school(im a school teacher) so i cannot provide a good picture. i did however use photoshoo to make an extremely rough drawing of what her underbelly looks like: (notice the little blood line that runs towards her upper body, its very very very very thin but can be seen). the pic is about as acurately close to proportion as possible.

i've been reading as much as possible but would rather have some more "personally related towards us" answer. i've read warm baths, mineral oils, all sorts of stuff. i did read how serious this was and know fully well that she could die. we bought her to save her, and we're going to very well try as hard as possible. any information, be it here or a link to somewhere that may be quicker we would totally appreciate. thank you in advance.

ps: the warm 15 minute baths, what is warm? to me warm, luke warm? no ideas.... and the best thing to use as 'mineral oil'? baby oil?

thanks again

 

[SeanConnery]

This is exactly what Sean Connery's stomach looks like. I took some pictures of him, but the file size is too big. and he has gotten really skinny in the past several days. He was not this skinny last week. I'm afraid that some of these pictures might even scare you and you might think I'm abusing him, but I swear to the lord I'm not. I've changed his water everyday and fed him every day. I feel just terrible. He has an appointment at the vet for tomorrow.


and yes, what is a warm bath?

 

[Bert-N-Sheila]

sounds like we both need some help!

 

[Grinning Geckos]

A warm bath should really feel luke warm. If it's warm to you, it's probably too hot for the gecko. Use a thermometer if you can, as you really don't want the temperature to be above 95. They won't like it, but I have heard it does some good.

If you're going to try mineral oil, all you need is a drop. I've never had to do it myself...but too much is probably going to give you one sick gecko. I would look for pure mineral oil. You don't want any perfumes or other things in it.

It can be serious, even fatal, but the fact that the gecko was able to pass some poo on it's own is promising.

To keep things easy on your gecko's stomach, you may want to mix up some of Marcia's slurry. It had things in it that will help to keep your gecko hydrated, as well as get those intestines moving. Otherwise, I would try to feed only freshly molted bugs until you're sure all the sand has passed.

 

[pawsfoot]

I think Shanti has very good information, as well as if things do not look up by tomorrow then I would suggest a trip to the vet. It is less expensive to take a gecko to the vet then a dog. Others on here have had miracles with Marcias slurry though, so I would try that first.

 

[Bert-N-Sheila]

updated on this little one. she is AWESOME. very alert now. loves crickets. i still handfeed her. she's as long as my 5 month old, just not as thick and you can tell how young she is because her head is so small compared to my 5 month old. i'm beginning to wonder if she may be 'tremper giant' as she's longer in every way than my 5 month old. it's amazing to think that we saved her. i had VERY VERY VERY little hope when we got her. everyday expected to come home from work to find her lying lifeless. must also say we have learned that it's a little easier to see the organs inside of an albino.


thanks for the replies!

 

[Bert-N-Sheila]

sorry for the blurry stuff. this camera stinks.

 

[dragonflyreptiles]

Im glad you got her through some of the rough part!

I don't know what size tank that is to get a comparison on size and all leos grow at different rates, even clutchmates, Ive had some grow fat fast and some lenght wise fast then they even out at an older age.

Kepp up the good work and keep adding that needed weight to her!

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

Kudos!!!