GrungeEquestrian
09-13-2010, 08:13 PM
About a month ago I posted a thread about my older leopard gecko female who has been continuing to loose weight and loosing her appetite. I got some great suggestion and as Petra suggested I started to pull off the crickets legs so she could easily eat them without wasting energy. She seemed to be improving and I took her to the vet to make sure she didn't have any parasites. Unfortunately, I don't have any really good exotic veterinarians in the area and her diagnosis was probably somewhat vague or incorrect. I showed pictures of her from her best to worse state and she said everything seemed O.K. I left to college feeling somewhat comfortable that my gecko was making an improvement instead of declining.
I have daily calls with my mom and about 2 weeks ago she said that Geaky (the gecko) wasn't doing too hot and wasn't becoming active at all. Her temperature in her tank had not changed at all and my mom was misting her daily. A week after my mom said that Geaky would refuse to eat any of the leg-less crickets. I asked her if she could get a reptile syringe and force feed her. Even placing the syringe far down her throat my gecko couldn't keep a lot of food down, and would fight it becoming extremely exhausted. My mom has continued to try to force feed her, but feels its doing more harm than good at this stage.
I went home last weekend and saw what poor shape my poor gecko is in. She is at least 9 years old since I got her in 5th grade and she was fully grown then. I do know leopard geckos are capable of living up to 15 years old. It brought me to tears to see my once living attitude filled lizard exhausted. She didn't even have the energy to remove her dead skin by herself, and she has lost all even more weight.
I plan on calling the vet tomorrow and seeing if they could put my gecko to sleep. Are they any other alternatives besides the vet? Like I said they hardly do exotic animals and I don't know if they use a different injection or inhalant like they do for mammals, or if they would even be comfortable in doing it since they don't handle exotic animals typically.
I just can't handle seeing my little gecko suffer like this....
I have daily calls with my mom and about 2 weeks ago she said that Geaky (the gecko) wasn't doing too hot and wasn't becoming active at all. Her temperature in her tank had not changed at all and my mom was misting her daily. A week after my mom said that Geaky would refuse to eat any of the leg-less crickets. I asked her if she could get a reptile syringe and force feed her. Even placing the syringe far down her throat my gecko couldn't keep a lot of food down, and would fight it becoming extremely exhausted. My mom has continued to try to force feed her, but feels its doing more harm than good at this stage.
I went home last weekend and saw what poor shape my poor gecko is in. She is at least 9 years old since I got her in 5th grade and she was fully grown then. I do know leopard geckos are capable of living up to 15 years old. It brought me to tears to see my once living attitude filled lizard exhausted. She didn't even have the energy to remove her dead skin by herself, and she has lost all even more weight.
I plan on calling the vet tomorrow and seeing if they could put my gecko to sleep. Are they any other alternatives besides the vet? Like I said they hardly do exotic animals and I don't know if they use a different injection or inhalant like they do for mammals, or if they would even be comfortable in doing it since they don't handle exotic animals typically.
I just can't handle seeing my little gecko suffer like this....