half of tail died, not falling off.

[armagedon48]

friend has a crested gecko female, fully grown. about half of the tail just simply died, and dried up. it will not fall off on its own.

can anyone think of how to remove or if it will fall off on its own? i can get pictures on Friday, hopefully. the dead section of tail has remained for just over a week now.

 

[Debbie]

i had something simular with a baby. It sounds cruel, but i just got a clean box cutter and a hard surface en just cut it off.
Just cut in the good part of the tail just near the bad part.
My gecko even didn't react to the cutting and now he is doing fine!
His tail is just a little shorter.
Good luck!!!!!

 

[armagedon48]

here are the photos i promissed. the dead area is spreading down her tail. we will probably have to use the razor blade to fix this.

 

[Lunar Gecko]

You'll want to cut it just above the area getting ALL the dead tissue. Do it soon, ASAP. Looks like necrosis has set in, it can get into the blood stream and harm the poor guy and possibly kill it.

 

[Royal-City-Reptiles]

I think... very strongly, that you should DEFINITELY take it to the vet before you do something drastic such as cutting it off. It could be a bacterial infection, and you don't want that to spread to the body. If it were that, cutting the tail off would do no good to help it. And if it's not bacterial, cutting it could lead to a really bad infection itself.
Is there any possibility the tail got caught in/on something? got crushed? or any chance of the gecko having a bad shed?

-Deb

 

[Debbie]

Just hold the razorblade into a flame to sterilize is. (it must not get black!).
Then cut the tail off!
Do it as soon as possible! Before it gets worse!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Turtlestork]

I am not an expert but is it possible to persuade the gecko to drop its entire tail? It seems that if that happened the whole infection would not be present anymore and not be able to move into the body. But I do think a vet would be a good thing if funds allow it. Just tell him what you've been told here and their experience with it and go from there. I once saw some people on Emergency Vets amputate a dead tail of an iguana, but that is obviously a lot different.


TS

 

[jabberwock486]

well seeing that the body is evolved to drop the tail i doubt cutting it off may cause a problem. if there are active signs of infection, like pus. i might consider a vet visit. however remove the bad section of tail. it will not heal. honestly if you give it a nice gentle tug it might dissconnect. however the gecko would control where it broke off.

i have had this happen with iguana and other animals. not to any geckos. the cure was always the same. cut off the tail. this is why the tail falls off. unless it is an active infection the tail will fall off and it should not grow. if it is infected i would go to the vet and see what he says. he will cut off the tail.

i had a cat that had this problem. half the tail died as a kitten. some sort of genetic thing. it took about a month but the tail fell off.

 

[Royal-City-Reptiles]

If it's moving up the tail, it's most likely an infection. If you do not have the funds to take it to the vet, I'd still disagree with cutting off the bad section, because it could still move up. If anything else, I'd probably recommend just pinching and putting some pressure at the base of the tail to encourage the gecko to drop the whole tail.
If you havn't done something about it already tho, I'd get at that right away...

-Deb

 

[sheenaschlytter]

it looks as though it was a bad shed and had stuck to the end the tail is dead but as they said it can spread very quickly and be very harmful cutting it off is probabley ok but it will need antibiotics if the necrocis has spread to help it so I would just let the vet do everything

 

[armagedon48]

sorry for the lack of response.

few days after my last reply, the gecko dropped her tail on her own.

thank you everyone for your replys.

 

[wolf_cry02]

The thing is is that most vets would say the same as anyone else and cut the tail off or allow the gecko to drop it. I have had many experiences with vets just doing what I would have done to help a sick reptile. Thats just my opinion. Vets cannot do alot to a reptile for the fact their bodies have a hard time taking the stress of medicines and surgury if nessisary. Just thought I would add this in. I am happy your gecko decided to drop it. I have a crested given to me by petco with that same dead tail problem. It was completly dead so i just twisted alittle and the dead part popped off. Not she only has a half a tail. Its quite cute

 

[AlexaG]

Looks like it could be gang green.
I suggest taking it to a vet, good luck!

 

[ReptileChick]

I had the same problem with one of my females. She came to me like that and I believe it was a bite from another gecko. What I did was take the back side of a knife (the side that IS NOT sharp) and applied a lot of pressure to the base of her tail. She dropped it almost instantly and went on with her normal doings. She's perfectly healthy now. Congrats on yours dropping the tail on it's own! I hated having to do that to her.