New and question about deformed eyelid?

[ElizaDaisy]

Hi everyone,

My name is Elizabeth and I'm new to the forum. My husband and I own a leopard gecko named Julie.

We also just recently were given another leopard gecko. We've named him Earl, although we haven't tried to sex him yet as he's just a wee thing, and have him set up in a 10 gallon aquarium. Earl was given to us because he has something wrong with his eyes. They were crusty and glued shut. We picked him up on Saturday morning and took him to a reptile vet Saturday afternoon. The vet was honest with us and said he wasn't sure what was causing the infection. Other than the eye infection and being much too skinny, Earl seems to be in good health. The vet gave us a general mild antibiotic gel to swab on Earl's eyes twice a day. The antibiotic gel has been helping, Earl's left eye is open almost all the time now and the right one stays open much more than it was. I had another reptile person look at a picture of Earl and she thought his right eyelid might be a bit deformed, hence the infection. She recommended this forum to see if anyone else had any ideas what to do for him. We're a little concerned that he's going blind as last night he had quite a bit of difficulty seeing the crickets. We feed him in a small container to minimize the amount of space he has to search for the crickets and up until last night he was doing just fine at catching them. However, last night he just lunged in the general direction of the crickets but didn't really seem to "see" them. Finally, my husband held him right in front of the crickets and he was able to grab and eat.

If he is going blind and there's nothing we can do about it, we can accept that and do what's necessary to give Earl a comfortable life, i.e. keeping his enclosure exactly the same, hand-feeding him etc. But - if this is something we can fix, we'd love to help the little guy out. Here are a couple pictures of Earl, I'm hoping that someone can either tell me if they think his eyelid is somewhat deformed, what the infection is caused from if it isn't being caused by the deformed eyelid and any solutions to getting rid of the infection. Thanks in advance for your help, sorry for such a long post!

Here's Earl right after his medication which is why his eyes look a bit "gooey".

Showing off that beautiful "Leo" grin

Caught mid-yawn

And taking a boo at the camera. Notice his right eyelid at the top, how it looks a little... wrinkly/crumpled almost?

 

[dragonflyreptiles]

Im sorry you are having trouble with this little one, Ive never had an eye lid deformity or eye infrection but Im sure somer of the longer term keepers may be able to help you with that.

Glad to see you too him to the vet and are doing all you can and still asking questions, that can make all the difference in the world!

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

I think that everyone (even if they don't admit it) have had an experience with eyelid deformities. Although the jury still isn't in, I believe it has to do more with incubation temperature fluctuation. It could also be attributed to Vitamin A deficits or abundance in the mother during gestation. At any rate, I do not feel it is a genetic (inherited) problem, but rather an congenital (during development) one.

My advise it to take a good long look and see if this little sweetie can close it's eyes or not. If it CAN close it's eyes, then they will not dehydrate from lack of tears and will more likely than not live a full, healthy life! If the eyes cannot close, and the hatchling keeps licking them to stay moist, the chances of the gecko going blind is pretty high.

A blind geckos would most certainly die in the wild from starvation or unwittingly being drawn prey to a predator. If you feel that you can take the challenge and responsibility of hand-feeding a blind leo all it's life, then I think that's great! If not, maybe the best solution is to consider humane euthanasia.

 

[geckogrl6]

I'm not sure about the deformity causing an infection. I have a little one with the same problem, and he does seem to see better out of his left eye (the normal one) he does ok with catching crix, but I als offer mealies, and he does not yet require hand feeding, well, tong feeding. I think its more likely that the eye infection was caused by something else, perhaps exacerbated by his malnutrition. I have also heard that vit A plays a part in eyesight, perhaps he has a deficiency there? Also, my gex dont always give full effort to catching crix, but eventually perseverence pays off. Sounds like you are doing a great job already for this guy, I wish you luck, and keep us updated!

 

[aliceinwl]

I hatched out a few leos with minor eyelid defects this year. I've got one with eyes similar to Earl's. This little guy is really prone to shed problems involving his eyelids, I usually have to manually remove some skin form one or both eyes after every shed. If the shed were allowed to remain, the resulting irritation could easily lead to an infection. I suspect that this is what caused your little guy's eye infection. When his next shed comes around, carefully inspect his eyelids to make sure it has all come off.

Eye infections can result in a lot of discomfort causing them to keep their eyes closed and they become more light sensitive. If he's only got one eye open, it might be more difficult for him to gauge distances and he may be reluctant to open his eyes in bright light. Try to feed him in a dimly lit room and see if this helps.

Some leos are also just spazzes, I have one female who comes to mind that will regularly miss crickets by over an inch. My "spazzes" do just fine picking mealworms out of a bowl or accepting crickets from forceps (I used to use my fingers until my big male decided to go for my finger rather than the cricket). So, you may want to try bowl feeding some slow moving prey like mealworms and offering him the faster prey on forceps. You can also remove the hoppers on the crickets (usually squeezing the thickened area will cause the hopper to come right off) to make them easier to catch.

Good luck,
Alice

 

[ElizaDaisy]

Thank you everyone for your very helpful suggestions! We appreciate it.

Earl is doing well. His left eyelid looks to be completely healed, it's no longer crusty and glued shut. His right eyelid is still a bit wonky and we're not entirely sure if he can see out of it. It does look better then when we first saw him, but hasn't improved as much as his other eye.

GoldenGate geckos - we've been keeping an eye on Earl and he's having no problems closing his eye, sometimes he can't get the right one to open back up because it gets crusty, but closing is fine for him. If he does go completely blind, we'll definitely step up to the challenge of hand (well tong) feeding him for the rest of his life.

geckogrl - our vet also thought it may have been caused from a vitamin deficiency. We've been dusting every cricket we give him so hopefully that'll help if it is caused from a deficiency.

Alice - our Julie is like that too! She's a complete spazz when it comes to catching crickets. We mostly feed her mealworms and the occasional frozen (well, thawed first!) pinkie mouse because she's so terrible at catching crickets. *L* We give her crickets about once or twice a week just for a challenge but most of the time she gives up and can't be bothered to hunt them. Lazy brat!

We've offered Earl some mealworms in a bowl but so far he hasn't shown much interest in them. Of course it's always been after he's eaten his crickets so he could just be full. His current favourite mode of hunting is from my husband's hand. My husband held him in his hand in the feeding box in front of the crickets that one time when he was having trouble catching them and now he wants to do that all the time. My husband tries to transfer him to the feeding box and Earl clings to his hand and then leans out and catches the crickets from his hand. How funny is that? He's such a silly little guy.

We'll make sure to check his eyes very carefully the next time he sheds and if there's any extra skin we'll remove it.

Thank you again for all your tips and suggestions!

 

[Kaervek]

My husband tries to transfer him to the feeding box and Earl clings to his hand and then leans out and catches the crickets from his hand. How funny is that? He's such a silly little guy.

Sounds like you have one heck of a buddy in that Leo Please keep us updated, and don't be too shy to post more pics