My 2 Year old Leopard Gecko has an extremely swollen hemipenes that looks like he has very large testicles. He's been licking himself in that area a lot lately and I noticed today that he has a scab on one side of his hemipenes. He is alone in his tank which is directly beside another tank with 2 females he has never been in contact with. He's been eating and drinking normally and just shed recently. And other than his licking, his behaviour seems normal. I'm planning on taking him to a vet but still need to find a good one in my area, so I was hoping to find out a little sooner what may have caused this. Anyone else ever experienced this problem before?
1. What substrate are you using? 2. What sized enclosure do you have your leo in? 3. What are your warm side temperatures? 4. How are the temperatures measured? 5. What are you using as your heat source? 6. Do you have any method of regulating the temperatures? 7. How many hides do you have for your leo? What are they? 8. What food have you offered? 9. How often do you offer food? 10. Are you supplementing the food? If so, with what and how often? 11. How old is your leo? 12. How long have you had your leo? 13. Give a little detail about the behaviour of the Leo also
im going to assume the problem s the sand irritating his vent. put him on paper towels for a while after the vet visit to see if that helps any. also you want to up your temps a bit. 88-92 is what the warm side of the tank should be. plus you may want to get an under tank heater instead of using only the light since leos use belly heat. also you should get him a humid hide because the problem may also be related to some stuck shed
Well I do also have the heat rock which he uses fairly often. I'm pretty sure he shed fully last time, but the lack of having a humid hide was actually my main concern because it's the only thing that I've really changed since I got him. There's not much room in the new tank and the humid hide I have is in with the 2 females. I guess I'll try putting him on paper towel and try to make a smaller moist hide or something. thanks
Also regarding the swelling could you take a picture? It could be a prolapse, if there is (im trying to put this in the best way..) something hanging out, switch to paper towel and apply some sugar water or ky gel to keep moisture in.
as luke said, ditch the heat rock. those things need to be banned really, they are terrible and can kill an animal by cooking them.
What you described sounds to me like you may be dealing with a prolapse. The sand has probably irritated it and made it more sore. Whether it is prolapse or something else, with his scab, you should give him a very clean tank with paper towels substrate for a few days. If he has a prolapse, you need to keep those paper towels damp. Using several layers will help keep them damp. When my Mokey had a prolapse that scabbed over, I put neosporin on it for a couple of days to heal the sore (until the scab fell off). Then I put preperation H with aloe vera on it until the swelling went down and he was able to retract it on his own. The entire time, I kept him on several layers of wet paper towels, and soaked him in syrupy sugar water at least twice a day.
That does look very swollen, and the scabby looking thing is probably a prolapsed hemipene. Is the scab black? or is it brown or pink or white? If it is turning black that mean that necrosis is setting in and the vet will need to amputate. Otherwise, I would alternate between putting neosporin and preparation H on it, keep him soaking in syrupy sugar water, and keeping him in a very clean tank with one smooth and easily cleaned hide on the warm side, and always on damp paper towels. When Mokey had his prolapse, I do not remember him being nearly as swollen as your poor little guy is. His scab was also much smaller, and his was mostly pink. Your gecko may have some infection going on there too. I recommend that you get him to a vet as soon as you can, and treat him for prolapse while you wait.
Sorry, I don't have a ratio. I was told that the high sugar content would help draw out the swelling, so I should make it rather thick. What I did was boil water and add sugar until it made syrup, like pancake syrup thickness. It did thicken as it cooled some. Then (of course) I let it cool to 90 F, and had Mokey sit in it as long as he would. I actually left the bath in a shallow dish on the warm side of his tank and set him in it once in the morning and once in the evening. I also sterilized the solution once a day by re-boiling it. When it got too thick so it was leaving a thick coating on his skin, I added some water to thin it down a little. Usually I had to enforce him staying it it for the first minute or two. However, I think it really did help him feel better. Sometimes in the middle of the day I would walk through the room and notice that he had gone in and was soaking himself. After he left the soaking tub of his own accord, I would rinse him off (otherwise the syrup would turn into sugar crystals on him, and I don't think that could be comfortable) and apply either neosporin when his sore needed healing before it could retract, or preparation H when reducing swelling was the main goal.
