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Nervous System disorder in Crested?

creepycrawly

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I just recently rescued a crested gecko from - you guessed it, PetCo. She was excessively thin, and pretty lethargic when I first brought her home. I got her set up in a nice big cage, all to herself. I put her on paper towels with egg crates, and disposable cups for food and water. I didn't know what all could be wrong with her, as neither of her two cagemates (both mature males in a TINY cage) lived to make it out of their care, but they gave her to me for free since they were certain she was on the same track to death as the other two were.

She seemed to do better, and perked up and has started plumping up a bit in the short 3 weeks I've had her. However, two nights ago I realized she was sleeping in a sort of odd position between two egg flats on the side of her cage. I didn't think much of it, but the next night she was still in the same position. The only time I'd seen her in the same position multiple times in a row was laying on top of the egg crates in the narrow space between them and the top of the cage. But tonight I checked on her again and she was in almost the exact same position. I haven't been handling her, as she wasn't in good shape when she first came home with me.

I took her out, just to see if she was okay, and she spazzed out, and jumped on the floor of her cage with the right side of her head against the ground and ran into the corner, and kept running around on the floor with her head craned to the right, and the right side of her head against the floor. I picked her up and she keeps running and jumping to the right, with the right side of her head craned toward the floor.

I cleaned out a critter keeper with bleach, let it dry and air out outside, then lined it with paper towels, and put a water dish in there. I misted it lightly with water and put her in there for now. I don't know what to do with her until I can get her to a vet.

I have only used water and diluted bleach to clean out her cage and food and water bowls. I haven't used any chemicals anywhere near the cage or in the house at all.

She's been eating Clarks and organic baby food, and drinking bottled water. I did bring home some crickets from another local pet store as a treat for her, which I dusted with herptivite and calcium.

Does anyone have any ideas? I am afraid she may have a disease which could spread to my other geckos and herps. The people at PetCo had no idea what happened to the other two geckos that were in her cage, and couldn't tell me much about their husbandry for them, or really anything else about them.

I was able to turn her head to the left, oh so gently, manually while holding her, and I don't think she has any spinal injuries. Her cage is excessively simple for easy often cleaning, and she doesn't have anything heavy in the cage that could've possibly pinched her in any way.

It is so bad that she went to climb the side of the critter keeper, and with the angle her neck was at, she only managed to roll over on her back then back onto her tummy. Now she's laying calmly on the floor of the "ICU" cage, and in the morning I will be trying to get her in to one of the two veterinarians I trust with herps. Does anybody have any ideas or thoughts on what could be happening to this poor little gecko?
 
Hi,

Sounds a lot like she has severe calcium deficiency, or else D3 poisoning. (Which would depend on the feeding regime at Petco; I think undersupplementation is probably more likely. THe symptoms look quite similar for both problems.)

You are doing the right thing giving her a simple setup. I would dispense with the baby food altogether. Clark's is highly palatable and I know a lot of people who feed it; no one's geckos refuse the stuff. b-food is like feeding candy bars. Unless she is refusing to eat anything and it is the ONLY way to get supplements in, I wouldn't use babyfood. Continue quarantine; just in case she has more going on than the neural problem it will keep your other reptiles safe. Bring a fecal to the vet if possible.

http://www.pangeareptile.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3283&highlight=neurological
http://www.pangeareptile.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3257
http://www.pangeareptile.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1802

These posts have some info about calcium deficiency and neurological links. I hope reading through them helps somewhat. If it were my gecko and I suspected undersupplementation, I would mix a bunch of calcium/D3 supplement in with a little Clark's and hand-feed to see how much I could get her to eat. The vet might give her oral or injectable calcium, or both. You can overdose on D3, so talk to your vet about how much might be too much in her state.

Best of luck with her! I had a crested get MBD once (although she didn't get as bad as having neurological damage) and it is no fun for anyone invloved. I hope she gets well soon.
 
Thanks!

While she doesn't sound quite as bad as some of the others, it does sound like it is that! She hadn't been getting strictly babyfood, it was clarks with a few drops of babyfood mixed in (since PetCo strictly had her on babyfood).

I don't see any physical signs of MBD (swollen limbs, joints, etc.) so that never even crossed my mind. She's coming to work with me today, so that I can try to hand feed her as you suggested. I have a call in to my favorite herp vet to give me a call back, as she's booked up. Hopefully she'll let me bring her in and at least drop her off until she has some time to look at her. Otherwise it's off to the other vet! I also have some liquid calcium (w/out vit. D3) that I can try also. It's supposed to be cricket flavored. I also have a powdered calcium that has D3 in it, which I can try a little bit of too. I definitely don't want to swing the wrong way and overdose her with that.

I had no idea what was up with her, but now I have a good idea as to what it probably is. Thanks so much!
 
Hey, did you ever manage to get an appointment with a vet? At this point, given the symptoms and the husbandry info from PetCo, I would definitely be giving her the calcium with D3. THere is not too much chance of overdosing her at this point (and Clark's doesn't have a TON of D3 in it, so that people who use it can adjust their supplementation on their own) and she can't utilize the additional calcium without the D3. D3 is the limiting factor in metabolizing calcium in crested geckos. Anyhow, when I try to increase supplements for a gecko, I just add a little calcium/D3 powder right into their Clark's, like maybe a pinch. They still eat it right up.

I hope the vet helps you out, and I hope your girl is improving! Your quarantine setup sounds great, so keep on with that. Best of luck; sometimes (if it is indeed a calcium thing) it can take several months to really fully recover, so don't lose hope if she improves slowly. Let us know how she does.
 
The vet has her now. She wanted to keep her to monitor her, as she said she'd never seen a gecko in that bad of condition from calcium deficiancy. She'd seen geckos who were in bad shape, but never one with the damage that she has. At first she didn't even think it was a calcium deficiancy. She thought the same thing I did at first - that she had been in contact with some sort of toxin. She didn't know when I spoke to her if there was even really anything we could do, but that she was going to give her lots of care and treat her every couple of hours and see if she can be helped. I gave her some Clarks, and some fresh (non-petco) crickets, which the vet wanted to use to see if her coordination got any better. She said she would let me know how she's doing on Monday, and she's hoping that she can get me set up with an at home regimen starting then. I am crossing my fingers and hoping she'll be okay!

I know that the vitamin D3 is necessary for their bodies to be able to absorb the calcium, but I don't know how much D3 is too much. I don't know what the D3 to calcium ration should be, or how to calculate it for such a small little lizard.

Thanks very much!
 
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