When to say enough is enough?

[GeckoGarden]

I’ve had Ziva since July 2018. No history was picked up at 150 grams and 13 inches. Was told they guy could no longer keep her and that was all I got history wise.

2018 and 2019 great. No real health issues. Ate anything and everything, always was begging to come out when I was home, even more so on hot day’s. She was even gaining weight.

This last year it’s been pretty hard.

She had a mass that turned out to be rock hard urates that she passed on her own, but it’s meant nothing but diarrhea since January of this year. (With 3 normal stools total)

She’s also no longer eating on her own. Every once and a while I can get her to take some sort of live insect (you name it I have it on hand insect wise, same with greens/fruits/veggies)

But she stopped eating her greens as well, didn’t matter what I offered. You name it I’ve tried it. She used to love sprouts and now she doesn’t even look twice at them.

I got her eating the repashy omnivore mix and she loved it, but then she slowly stopped taking it from tongs. She was gaining weight on this and passed 300 grams to my surprise, but she’s losing it again with her refusal to eat, and her diarrhea.

I could tell when she was hungry, she Kinda has this look, so I was offering different repashy blends via syringe, but now, she doesn’t even give me the I’m hungry look, and will no longer willingly take the syringe.

She has a custom cage; 4 feet long, 2 feet wide and tall,

12% T5 ARCADIA mounted in her cage with a reflector, no plastic cover that she can get anywhere from 6 inches all the way to 24 inches away from that was installed March of this year.

Her basking spot is 95°F to 105°F depending on where she is on her longs.

Cool side is 80°F to 85°F once again depending on where she is.

Substrate is a mixture of paper towels and Slate.

She was tested for parasites and treated, numbers where low, but due to the diarrhea we treated. After treatment came back negative. (She got probiotics during this time)

Xrays look perfect.

Blood works perfect (I’ve posted it before)

I’m just at a loss. It’s been almost a week since she’s eaten, she’s staying in the same spot unless I move her. She’s spent the last 48 hours on her cork log with her tail in her water.

She’s just not herself anymore. She doesn’t beg to come out, or go crazy over food anymore. She always has diarrhea no mater what food I will feed her. Be it a sluarry or whole.

There’s been a few times where she’s eaten her fill of roaches and she still had diarrhea afterwords, and you could see parts of the roaches she didn’t digest. Same with different insects I’ve offered.

If you take her out, she perks up a bit and kinda moves around.

She used to love red colored foods as a treat (strawberries, watermelon, prickly pear cactus fruit, raspberries) but I can’t get her to eat this anymore.

(I work at a vet Hosptial as a tech and work closely with our exotics vet. Both me and her are stumped at this point)



I just don’t know anymore.

 

[AHBD]

Sorry to hear this. Could you post a pic of her stool next time she goes ? Is she on all soft foods now ?

 

[GeckoGarden]

Sorry to hear this. Could you post a pic of her stool next time she goes ? Is she on all soft foods now ?

Thankfully I have one from a few days ago. I deep cleaned her cage then was blessed with fresh poop.

When the diarrhea started at the beginning of the year she was on a mix of kale, collard, mustard, turnip, dandelion, and endive, with bugs 2-3 Times a week in addition to her salads (all hand fed)

Right now she’s not on anything since she won’t eat. The last thing she ate was one bite of kale and 1 super worm.

She was eating repashy omnivore mix with either a super worm or a dubia roach in between bits of the gel mix (was the only way I could trick her into eat them) along with shoving some greens into her mouth as she was chewing the gel mix. The bugs I did 1 a EOD and greens I did daily with the omnivore mix.

Even the greens come out weirdly. Like you can see the outline of the greens.

 

[AHBD]

Yeah that's pretty runny. I'll tag Tracie [ Drache613 ] the vet mod. here to see if she knows of some supplement that might help. Ziva was on a whole lot of veggies so cut most of them out and dial back the syringe feedings as well. But don't give up, Ziva may not be feeling great all the time but she's not really suffering.

 

[GeckoGarden]

Yeah that's pretty runny. I'll tag Tracie [ Drache613 ] the vet mod. here to see if she knows of some supplement that might help. Ziva was on a whole lot of veggies so cut most of them out and dial back the syringe feedings as well. But don't give up, Ziva may not be feeling great all the time but she's not really suffering.

Thing was she was doing great, she had a different green each week with bugs mixed in. Normal healthy stools. Her diet was about 80% greens/veggies with a tinny bit of fruit, and 20% insects.

Then she woke up this year after her winter sleep and everything changed.

Right now I’m letting her rest, she shows no interest in food so I don’t want to offer it.

She’s been having to be had fed since the beginning of the year when she woke up.

She’s tried to eat and totally miss her target. It got to the point where she’d try once then give up and walk away unless it was offered on tongs so she could grab on to it.

 

[GeckoGarden]

I got her to eat three small bits of kale with some repashy grub pie on top of it today, she turned her nose up at dubia, crickets, and super-worms. She still seems sluggish, and didn’t go after the food with her normal amount of excitement.

She hasn’t left the spot she’s in in three days now.

I feel like she may perk up if I took her outside, but outside currently looks like doomsday is upon us with all the smoke, and the air isn’t healthy for us to be breathing.

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

How is your girl today? Do you have a copy of the blood test you could post for us?
It does seem odd that her appetite is so non existent. Has she ever laid any eggs at all?
How long did she brumate for this past year?
The hard urate sounds like it could have possibly damaged her system a little bit. When
a fecal exam was done, did they test for flagelletes, also? Those can cause diarrhea &
major stomach upset, too.
You can try using some black strap molasses in a slurry to see if that helps to increase her
appetite.

Let us know how she is doing.
Tracie

 

[GeckoGarden]

Hello,

How is your girl today? Do you have a copy of the blood test you could post for us?
It does seem odd that her appetite is so non existent. Has she ever laid any eggs at all?
How long did she brumate for this past year?
The hard urate sounds like it could have possibly damaged her system a little bit. When
a fecal exam was done, did they test for flagelletes, also? Those can cause diarrhea &
major stomach upset, too.
You can try using some black strap molasses in a slurry to see if that helps to increase her
appetite.

Let us know how she is doing.
Tracie

Hi Tracy, it’s still early early morning (California)here so she’s still sleeping. She’s still on her cork bark log, she’s been there for a few days now. It’s also super Smokey where I am thanks to the fires so, it’s a lot darker in my room today than it’s been in a while.

She’s never had eggs. We thought she had Follicles once, but nothing showed up on xrays, and what we felt on a physical exam ended up being that large hard urate.

Last year she went down right around the begging of November and woke up in January.

Here’s the blood work and fecal.

I had my roommate peak in on her while I was at work yesterday and she was still on her log even in the middle of the late afternoon.

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

Thanks for posting the results, they do not look bad surprisingly.
The uric acid is quite low which can indicate poor renal function but also mineral & other
vitamin deficiencies, too. Also, mineral deficiencies & low uric acid levels often are reflected
with follicular issues or stasis.
The more concerning values to me are the calcium to phosphorus ratios. Most of the time
when calcium levels are that high, they are in developmental stages of follicles, etc.
When were the x-rays done, in April this year?
The AST or liver enzymes look fine right now, too.

Tracie

 

[GeckoGarden]

Hello,

Thanks for posting the results, they do not look bad surprisingly.
The uric acid is quite low which can indicate poor renal function but also mineral & other
vitamin deficiencies, too. Also, mineral deficiencies & low uric acid levels often are reflected
with follicular issues or stasis.
The more concerning values to me are the calcium to phosphorus ratios. Most of the time
when calcium levels are that high, they are in developmental stages of follicles, etc.
When were the x-rays done, in April this year?
The AST or liver enzymes look fine right now, too.

Tracie

Hi Tracy

Xrays where taken April as well, same day I believe, April 4th.

I’ve been using the Repashy Calcium Plus to dust three times a week since I got her.

https://www.store.repashy.com/calcium-plus-4-oz-bag.html

She was a bit more awake today, but I think that’s nexuses I was in there replacing her water bowl, and ended up knocking a branch over so she climbed out of the way. She went back to her spot once I finished up everything.

It’s 2 am here so I apologize if I have forgotten to include anything. I set up what I call a Ziva cam to spy on her when I’m not home.

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

How long have you been using the repashy plus?
She may not be getting enough calcium, I am not sure. The mix has vitamin A & vitamin D3
in it so when given too often, it can become toxic. Since you are using a T5 tube bulb, she
does not need any supplemental D3 at all. They can develop hypervitaminosis D which is just
as bad as not getting enough, since it will cause hard urates, softening of bones sometiimes
too. Again, I am not sure this is an issue, but I would recommend changing up the supplements
some.
Try getting just a calcium powder or liquid, without any D3 in it at all. For now, cease giving any
vitamin mix at all for a few weeks, to let her system clean out if needed. Try giving some extra
fluids daily as well.
Based on the x-rays, it doesn't appear she has eggs, so hopefully that wont end up being the
case at the moment.

Tracie

 

[GeckoGarden]

Hello,

How long have you been using the repashy plus?
She may not be getting enough calcium, I am not sure. The mix has vitamin A & vitamin D3
in it so when given too often, it can become toxic. Since you are using a T5 tube bulb, she
does not need any supplemental D3 at all. They can develop hypervitaminosis D which is just
as bad as not getting enough, since it will cause hard urates, softening of bones sometiimes
too. Again, I am not sure this is an issue, but I would recommend changing up the supplements
some.
Try getting just a calcium powder or liquid, without any D3 in it at all. For now, cease giving any
vitamin mix at all for a few weeks, to let her system clean out if needed. Try giving some extra
fluids daily as well.
Based on the x-rays, it doesn't appear she has eggs, so hopefully that wont end up being the
case at the moment.

Tracie

Hi Tracie,
She’s been on that particular one since I got her.

Looking at my feeding records because she’s not been eating greens or insects, and just the repashy, she hasn’t had anything dusted in three weeks because the repashy food has everything in it vitamin and mineral wise, and since it’s made with back solider fly grub, I didn’t want to over load on calcium. Hopefully this wasn’t a mistake, I did double check with my vet before not dusting the mix.

I can easily pick up the calcium with out D3.

She changed sleeping spots last night, so I am hoping that means she’s getting more active. I got the camera set up so I can peak in on her while I’m gone.

 

[GeckoGarden]

Her behavior today is the exact same behavior she gave last year right before she went down for the winter sleeps. It’s sooner than last year, but with all the smoke blocking out the sun, and cooler temps than normal, I think it’s sending her into the sleeps sooner.

I’m a bit worried about letting her go down considering how she’s been feeling. Sadly her vets on a vacation until the 21.