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Help! Leopard Gecko hemipenes prolapses!

MicroZooKits

MicroZooKits

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Last week I picked up a pair of young leopard geckos to which both looked in excellent health. 2 days later I notice the male has a swollen red tissue protruding from his vent. It turns out to be his right hemipenis swollen and prolapsed. I soaked him in some sugar water a few times and the next day I took him to our vet. After a fecal examination it turns out he has parasites which the vet diagnoses as the cause of the prolapse. He says he cant reinsert it and recommends an amputation. That's what I assumed he was going to say. Which of course costs about 5x what I paid for the lizard. This afternoon I was examining it to see if it was getting worse, and notice most of the tissue inside his vent is red and swollen. That's when the the other one pops out. It looks just about the same as the first one. I tried a little bit to push them back into place but the tissue inside is swollen along with the hemipenes not giving them much room to retract. I have him soaking in some room temp water at the moment to keep them moist. I'm wondering if there is anything I can apply to get the swelling to go down so it might be easier to get them to retract? Sugar water didn't help, and I don't really think I can afford expensive surgery for a $50 gecko at the moment. I really don't know what else to do other then keep them hydrated and hope they don't get worse.

-John
 
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Keep trying the sugar water soaking every few hours for half an hour or so at a time. The water needs to have a LOT of sugar added (more than I would have thought), until the sugar is all dissolved. Between soaks all you can do is make sure his enclosure is very clean with fresh paper towels and no moss or any other substrate in the humid hide, only damp paper towel. You can put neosporin on the area also.

There is no need for any amputation in most cases. The affected hemipene will normally drop off once it dries out. Treat the area with neosporin for a few days and there should be no problems.
 
here's an update, I have been keeping him in a sterile glass enclosure with paper towel lining the bottom, a heat pad under his warm cave with soaked paper towel in there, and moist paper towel at the other end in his cool cave. I was taking him out at night to soak in warm purified water for about 30 minutes before I fed him, but that ended up only causing them to swell again which irritated him to the point of eventually biting at them causing them to bleed. So I stopped soaking him yesterday to just let them dry up and it appears he is attempting to remove them himself. Which i'm assuming is probably the best solution right now. They weren't getting any smaller with the soaking, just hydrating making them more fleshy and swollen. So as of now i'm letting him do his thing, applying neosporin and keeping his tank as sterile as I can. I think everything is going to work out for him, he may end up a eunuch but he's still a pretty cute little guy and has good personality :)

here is a pic of what I found today before I cleaned him up, looks like he already got one off

oliver.jpg

oliver_wound.jpg
 
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