Lets talk about Pinworms

[Intense Herpetoculture]

Marcia, were there only oen or two nematodes that you saw, or a whole bunch of them?

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

Justyn,

There were several whitish larvae that looked like very tiny grains of long-grained rice... approximately the size of a cricket dropping... difficult to see with the naked eye, but visible nonetheless. They did not move like inch worms. About 20% of my stock were randomly affected that I could see, and I did not submit fecals on every one of them. Whatever the heck they were, they were eradicated with 2-3 treatments of Panacur, and the geckos never did have any other physical symptoms. It was such a pain in the you-know-what to weigh and treat 200 leopard geckos, and halt all sales until I was 100% confident that the infection was gone.

 

[Intense Herpetoculture]

Yeah, I bet it was a pain, I did the same thing several months ago.

 

[gothra]

Sorry to dig up this old thread...

I just thought maybe someone could solve this long time mystery for me.

Back in May 2004, I had a blizzard male that excreted some very weird stuff; I took a picture of it, then wiped that off with tissue (it was on the tile and I didn't know how to retrieve the mess for vet examination). Here is the pic:

The blizzard male deteriorated very rapidly, and after 2-3 hours, his belly turned completely black and his color paled. I did make a vet appointment on the next day's afternoon, but unfortunately he passed away in the morning. I showed the picture to our vet, he said the white "thingy" resemble maggots, and he was sure that its not from the inside of our blizzard. I stand 100% positive that our blizzard pooped those out, but our vet wouldn't believe me (how frustrating...).

Marcia~ Is this the type of pinworms that you were describing, resembling small rice grains?

After our blizzard's death, I took all my other geckos in for check ups; 5 out of 7 were positive for worms (he said LOTS of worms). Anyway, he gave medicine to treat all of my geckos (panacur, metro and sulfa); After a week or two, some worms showed up in their feces:

These looked very different to the first pic, any idea what type of parasites they are?

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

Marcia~ Is this the type of pinworms that you were describing, resembling small rice grains?

Sort of... they could be the ones that are infecting the feeders and are just showing up in the gecko's stool, or they could actually be fly larvae. I'm more inclined to think that what you have pictured are small 'maggots'. Either way, I would think that Panacur would take care of them. As far as administering Panacur, I just give it to the geckos with a syringe a little at a time on the end of their noses.

 

[gothra]

That's the part I don't understand, I thought maggots need air to survive, how can my blizz poop out maggots along with his feces?? Anyway, after the mass deworming 2 years ago, I had their fecals done by vet regularly (twice a year) and I haven't had another occurrance so far (touch wood).

 

[Xelda]

Bonnie, those look about the right size as hookworms. I've had lots of geckos poop them out after medication (when the worms are dead), and it's always accompanied by bloody stools. Hookworms alone don't usually cause any outward symptoms in a healthy animal. The only time I've ever seen them become a real problem is when there's a secondary infection going on. If you want a more positive identification, you're welcome to perserve some of the worms in alcohol and mail them to me. My parasitology professor loves to collect that sort of thing.

 

[Xelda]

Here's a pic I took a couple of years ago of the worms I found in my leos' poop. Sorry it doesn't show much detail. The worms measured just under one centimeter long.

 

[gothra]

Olivia, the worm in my first pic is white, around 3-4mm long, chubby with a pointy/hook on one end. The feces that came with it is brownish-red in color too. Whereas the worms that pooped out by my other geckos (2nd pic) are slightly longer, translucent white, and lack the pointy end. Honestly, I didn't even notice that my geckos had worms if my blizzard didn't die off suddenly. Here is a pic of him just 2 hours before he pooped out the worm, and died the next morning:

(I took the pic because it was unusual for him to sleep outside in broad day light)

I didn't take any sample of the worms, as this was something that happened 2 years ago. Thanks for your offer.

Bonnie

 

[Xelda]

Bonnie, I've only closely looked at nematodes in humans, but I would guess that the ones you found with the hooks are hookworms and the longer stringy ones are ascarids. Hookworms are just straight forward mini-vampires. A heavy load of those can cause anemia because they secrete an anti-coagulant that prevents blood from clotting, so the host keeps losing blood even when the hookworm has finished eating. (Scientists are researching hookworm secretions as a possible way to treat strokes in humans.)

Ascarids, on the other hand, are much more dangerous because they migrate throughout the body. This is one of the parasites with eggs that can last up to 10 years in the environment and still remain viable. They can reportedly survive 2% formalin, 50% acids, and if they're not fixed properly they can still cause infections during dissections. Part of the life cycle includes larvae migrating through the capillaries and into the respiratory system. Some people speculate that's where they do most of the damage because of the wastes they produce, and they do cause pneumonia-like symptoms.

There are other types of nematodes out there that are known to cause heart failure and respiratory problems, so I might be wide off the mark. It's too bad we don't know more about the ones that are parasitic to reptiles.