Advice/Guidance needed

[Elzellie]

Hello everyone I have a leopard gecko named taco and she is approximately seven years old. I actually found her abandoned about four years ago and decided to keep her and she has been with me in my care ever since. A month and a half ago she stopped eating and drinking and defecating I was concerned and I made an appointment with her vet and they checked her out and said she was fine but they needed a fecal sample to check for parasites and gave me a laxative to give her. Even with the laxative it took about a week for her to defecate and even then it was more or less diarrhea however I still collected what I could of the sample and brought it to the vet at which point the vet called me and said she did not see any parasites whatsoever and said it was nothing to be overly concerned about and gave me carnivore care of powder and told me to syringe feed her for a while until she would start eating on her own again. Another week goes by and she still wasn’t eating and at this point she wouldn’t even try for live pray. So I brought her back into the vets and the day before bringing her in she started breathing super heavily and the vet determined that it was most likely a respiratory infection so we started a very mild antibiotic at the time I cannot remember what it was and she said to give it another week and if she’s not better give me a call as well as she gave me more laxative because she is still not defecating however at this point she is not losing weight whatsoever. I went home and I gave her her antibiotics continued with the carnivore care so that she got the nutrition as well as the laxative after a week she still wasn’t defecating and her breathing had become significantly worse. I brought her into the vets office on a Friday and the vet suggested to do more testing involving putting some type of element into her system and doing an x-ray so that they could illuminate where the problem was as to why she’s not defecating as well as they wanted to do breathing treatments with a nebulizer so she was hospitalized over the entire weekend when I retrieved her Monday morning the veterinarian told me she did defecate and gave me baytril to put into a nebulizer and continue on her breathing treatments, she has now been on this for a week and has gone back to not defecating still won’t eat on her own and still having breathing problems I called the veterinarian back today and was told she would give me a call tomorrow she hast to consult some other vets on what to do from here I am at a loss of what I can do I have pretty much reached the maximum point as far as finances that I can spend I have now spends over the course of a month and a half over $3000 on her treatment I cannot afford much more I don’t know what to do and at this point I am not getting answers from the vet and it is basically just trial and error. I guess I’m just kind of looking for some guidance because I have no idea what to do from here I am so scared that I am going to lose her and that would be soul crushing I just want to do everything that I can do for her but I am starting to get severely discouraged because nothing is helping her. As far as her tank she is in a 29 gallon glass tank she has an under the tank heater as well as A basking lamp she has two separate water dishes she has a calcium dish she is on reptile carpet she has three hides one hot one cold and one moist, The cold side of the tank is an average of 75 to 76°F in the hot side of the tank is an average of 86 to 90°F as far as humidity level it is at 34%.

 

[acpart]

I'm not a vet and I can't really diagnose, but here are some things to think about:
If she's not eating, it's not surprising that she's not defecating, because there's nothing that needs to come out, right?
I have a number of leopard geckos. Some are eating well right now and some aren't. As long as they're not losing a ton of weight, I just keep offering and try not to worry. It sounds as if she's had a lot of treatments. You may want to ask your vet which treatments seem the most crucial (if there is breathing trouble, that seems pretty important to me). Otherwise, keep offering. You can pick her up and gently poke a squished (or live) feeder and poke it at her mouth. I have a few geckos that I have to feed this way all the time.

Aliza

 

[Elzellie]

Just wanted to update: after months of testing and close to $3k the vet finally figured out what is wrong with Taco. She unfortunately is one of very few geckos to have diabetes. It is so rare that there are very little studies and very little treatment plans to go off of. She has had 7 blood glucose tests done and everytime she test off the charts high. My options are to try insulin, which is trial and error as dosage for her is completely unknown and this would require a retest every 2-3 days, with work it’s just not possible let alone the cost. I’ve opted to just monitor her for the time being. She will occasionally eat on her own (once every 3-4 days) the good thing is she is not losing weight. I want to do everything possible to save her and make her feel better but my hands are tied financially, should she take a turn for the worst I’ll have to humanely euthanize her. Not a decision I will be able to easily make. Now I also say her because well, I was told by 2 vets she was a female and for 5 years I thought she was this new specialist vet however informed me Taco is actually a hermaphrodite. I have a very rare gecko and I never knew. Diabetes and a hermaphrodite haha

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

Hi ~

Thanks for sharing these details about your leo Taco: diabetes & being a hermaphrodite!

I wonder whether a diabetic leopard gecko is not as rare as one thinks. You've gone to great lengths to keep Taco in good shape! Thanks for caring SOOO much.