Re: [gecko]Pinworms in Leo Gex

[Catriona Lindsay]

Hi Sam
As Dr. Benson has stated there really is no veterinary specialty in reptiles, so you just have to try and find a vet that is experienced with reptiles and practices on them a lot. I personally feel it is a good idea to treat for pinworms because they are a direct parasite. You can't really compare a lizard in captivity to a wild lizard. I wild lizard is not trapped in a small space and forced to eat and defecate in the same place. When you have an animal with a parasite with a direct life cycle it is easy to get super infections of parasites. This is the reason I usually treat my animals for pins. If i had an animal that had a rare load, I might for go treatment. i would do periodical fecal samples to see if my numbers of parasites were increasing. If so then i would treat.
As for the runny stools in your geckos, pinworms do not usually cause that problem, but some other parasites can. I think this is why Dr. Benson was suggesting that you check a few more fecal samples. Your vet may not have seen other parasites in the feces, because the parasites may not have been shed in that particular sample. Another parasite we are starting to see more and more of is cryptosporidia. This parasite does cause diarrhea and weight loss and is best detected using an acid fast stain.
Catriona

At 04:48 PM 7/1/2003 EDT, you wrote:
>>>>
Hi All,
I just got the test results of two fecal samples of two different female adult leos that i got come in today. They have pinworms. Treatment for them will begin tomorrow afternoon by a specialist reptile vet in my area. I have read that in almost all herbivores such as an iguana that pinworms are present, which is known to be helpful for them in breaking down cellulose etc, and that it's not harmful if there isn't a huge abundance of pinworms in them. Therefore I was wondering if the pinworms in my leo gex are detrimental to their health or not. The vet says they should be treated for it, but i'm not sure if they're just money hungry or whether if they're telling me the truth.
A little about my two leos. One's a normal phase female adult leo, the other is a patternless adult female leo.
They have lost a lot of their appetite for a while now, their stools are runny, and they're almost always in their hide caves. One is alone in a 33 gallon tank, and the other in a 10 gallon, all with paper towel as substrate, a couple of hide boxes with one being humid hide, 24hr heat source at 88*F on warm side and 80*F on cool side. Fresh water given daily and their cage cleaned and thoroughly disinfected weekly.
Any help as to whether if pinworms are detrimental to leo gex's health would be great. The vet is also suggesting blood work just incase this is not the cause of the leos prob. Which made me doubt her opinion as to whether if the pinworms are really that bad.
Thanks very much in advance,
-Sam
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