sick leopard gecko

[Drax]

hey all
the pet store i work at has a small leopard (about 5&quot that has a scab on his mouth. someone yanked skin off his mouth that wasn't ready to come off yet. the wound bleed and then started to heal over with partially shed skin still attached. i've taken the guy home so i can give him more attention. i've been dabbing the wound with hydrogen peroxide to kill the germs and also to help loosen up the dead skin. i've picked most of the skin off leaving the scab. should i go ahead and pick the scab off and let it heal back over clean?


also the guy's tail is getting thin. he's not as plump and healthy as he was a while back. what can i do to get him re-hydrated? soaking? also there is a bluish patch of skin on his belly between his front and hind limbs. it's about the size of a quarder. is this normal for leos? i've never really looked at their bellies before.
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[Drax]

just moving this to the top 5. so someone will see it.
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[Squirgle]

ok, I'm not a 100% on this but I'm throwing in my .02 just so you have something to go off of for a bit until someone with some Real leo knowledge comes along.
I'd say leave the scab, as with humans, they always recomend to leave the scab on. So I'd say leave it be.
As for the soaking, I'm not sure about that...but its worth a shot I 'spose.
And none of the leo's that I've seen have any discolored spots on the bottom that I can recall. Either that, or all of them do and its so commonplace that it doesn't stick out in my mind.
LoL so anywho don't take this as fact, its just my 'edjumacated' guess.
Squirgle
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[motorherp]

Is the bluey area skin colour or is it internal? It could be a build up of gas inside the leo if it is internal, looks a kind of gray colour around the organs when you hold them up to the light? This could be internal parasites or the leo could just have a funny colour patch of skin. I have had to rehydrate a leo before but it was in a VERY bad way, I used critical care formula, it's a powder you mix with warm waterwith all the neutrients needed to keep a reptile alive if it can't eat. This had to be force fed into the leos stomach by a long tube attached to a hypodermic [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_eek.gif[/img] If the leos mouth is sore it may not want to eat for a while or may only manage small insects, only force feed if necessary but you may be able to get some water soluble vits which you can put in the leos drinking bowl. I wouldn't take the scab off til its healed cos this may cause further problems. Hope this helps [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]
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[Drax]

hey all
just an update on the leo. the bottom part of his lip has healed but the top part actually goes up under his skin right behind his eye causing a big lump there on his head. the blue spot was just his stomach and guts. so nothing to worry about there.

now a month later he's still really thin. i've given him soaks in pedialyte a couple times and i'm going to be extra diligent now since he's REALLY thin. my vet told me that i could force feed him beef or chicken baby food, so i gave him some when i first got him home. i gave him a little every day for about a week. he plumped up a bit so i went ahead and gave him some crickets. he practically ignored them. it took him about 2 weeks to eat a dozen. but at that time he looked like he was fattening up. now i'm starting to see his the ridge of his backbone and his tail has shrunk back down to a toothpick size. i went ahead and dropped another dozen pinhead crickets in there to eat if he feels like it. and i'm starting him back on force feed baby food.

is there anything else i can do besides giving him the baby food and pedialyte soaks?
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[zombified]

Try giving him mealworms/waxworms. Some geckos really like these, and they are good for fattening them up.
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[amErika]

Our Leo eats mealworms as his main diet and he is plenty fat. Place them in a dish that they can not climb out of. I also have a small dish of vit powder in his enclosure and he has been seen to lick it often.
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[motorherp]

I'm not sure if you have this in America and I haven't used it myself but have heard that it works well, Jump Start or as its been renamed over here Virbak Nutragel. It's a cat/dog vitamin suppliment but works well on underweight/non feeding reptiles. If you can get hold of some mix a little bit with some baby mush and put it on the loes nose where it will automatically lick it off and repeat a few times. Again I've not used it but have heard that within a week or so of feeding like this your leo should fill out a bit an may start to eat crickets again. Hope he gets better!
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[motorherp]

Ok, had a look around the net and found something that looks similar, ESU Reptile Jump Start. It's a high energy gel to be used on reptiles that aren't feeding or have very little appitite. Might be worth a try [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]
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[Ophiophagus-hannah]

Hope the little one pulls through! [img]modules/Forum/images/smiles/icon_cry.gif[/img]
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[Drax]

thanx all. another thing i noticed is that his stool is really runny. i don't know if this is due to the baby food, but i'm thinking parasites. i gave him some baby food and then soaked him in pedialyte and he pooed while in the soaking container. that seems awfully soon.

i'll get some mealworms tomorrow and feed him those. i'll also try and find that jumpstart stuff. thax again.
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[zombified]

Honestly, at this point I would take him to a vet again... mainly due to the runny stool thing.
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[pretty-leo]

ok well i have had alot of experiance with mal-nurished leo's if the stool is runny the only way to tell is if the poop is on paper towel, if there is a water ring around the poop and it is larger then the poop (your looking at the circumfrance) it might be an internal problem, the blue spot under the belly is usually their organs and im not sure if you can find this where you are but it's called "hydrolife" and "boneaid liquid cacium" Zoo Med make both products i have used "jumpstart" before and it only made the gecko sicker cause it is really pasty stuff but i hope the little guy gets better
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[Drax]

Pretty-leo, his stool is exactly as you discribed. he's on newspaper and there's a bit of stool and then a big ring of liquid. i'm gonna take hom back to the vet tomorrow cause what i've been doing doesn't seem to help.
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[pretty-leo]

Drax he might have an internal parisite and the vet will do a fecal if it is parisites then you might get this stuff called "panacure" it's a liquid that will get rid of the parisites ASAP, or they might give you something else

i hope the little guy gets better
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