leopard geko has suddenly become very lethargic

Question
Hi Tracie,

I have my leopard gecko for around 3 weeks and he has been fine until today. Tonight for the first time he has not come out of his hide and seems extremely lethargic, mostly with eyes closed or half open. I'm worried that he could have an impaction as we changed from paper towels to sand around a week ago, but apart from being sleepy he seems fine. It has got much colder today I was wondering if this could have caused him to go into a semi-hibernation state. We have a heat mat on half of the tank but no lighting. Temperature is around 90-95 degrees in the warm part of the tank but only 70-75 ish in the other parts - is this too cold? Is there any other reason he could have got so sluggish? Many thanks.

Answer
Hello Fran,

What type of heating are you using?  Are you using an undertank heater for him, with a low wattage basking light to create the hot spot?  The hot spot only needs to be 88-90.  The 90-95 is a little too hot for him, so he may be getting overheated & could be dehydrated as well.  
The 70-75 on the other end is ok, you could bump that to 78 or so.  
Yes, he could possibly be impacted as well.  They tend to get problems with impactions when housed on sand.  
What you should probably do is get a plastic dropper or a syringe & attempt to get some oral fluids into him, along with some chicken babyfood & a drop of olive oil or mineral oil, daily.  Start with 1 ml daily.
That should help out hopefully.
Let me know how he is doing.

Tracie