Serious Help!!!!

Question
QUESTION: Please tell me what to do! My son was given a very friendly, seemingly healthy leopard gecko. I did research to see how to care for it. Bought a 20 gal. aquarium, carpet, a fake stone hide rock, tree for looks, drink tray. Well about a month ago I noticed his shedding taking awhile. Then his eyes were always closed. I thought it was part of the shedding process. Well after two weeks of this, I went into the petstore and told them that his eyes are always looking like they are partially closed or squinting like. They told me to get a uv light and that will help with the shedding. So we bought one, and I left there assuming this was part of the shedding process still and now the light would aide in that. Well here we are two weeks later and the poor guys eyes cannot open, and there has been dead skin over his head still! So this time I called again and spoke with someone else and they said to take a qtip with water and moisten the skin and that should help and buy some eye drops at the petstore. Well, that night I spent an hour moistening his eyes with a qtip. It looked as if the skin had totally attached itself to his eyeball and would not come off. I was almost sick to my stomach. I could not pull on it, I did not want to hurt him. The next night, which was last night, my husband was doing the qtip thing on his eyes and got skin off, then he said it went "pop" and this chunk of skin attached to what looks like a little helmet of harder tougher skin came off. His eye then looked black with some opaqueness and I was very sick to my stomach looking because I could not tell if my husband pulled his eye out. He said that he was doing the qtip gentle and it just came off. So I did more research last night and found things about a retained eye cap. I'm not sure if that is what came off or if it was the whole eye. Today his eye is shut again and if you gently touch it, it seems to sink in some. I am so afraid there is no eyeball in there. And if there is, he surely is blind. Now, we have to deal with his other eye which still has dead skin attached to the whole eyeball. I can't believe this poor gecko has not been able to use either eye and this is all due to our awful care. What should I do and how do I know if he lost his eye and should we even attempt moistening the other eye????? Please help us, we really do care about our gecko!!

ANSWER: Okay, that's a tough one there could be any number of things wrong with the gecko.  It could have developed an eye infection from the irritation.   It could have a vitamin a deficiency or even a fungal infection of sorts.  As for the shedding issues I would recommend a moist hide in the cage where the gecko can go during shedding and the extra humidity will aide in the skin removal.  Same goes in this situation as opposed to poking around in a sensitive area like the eyeball try wetting down some paper towels with warm water and place the gecko in a box (with air holes of course) and the high humidity should loosen the hardened skin.  I doubt you removed the entire eye as that would be very obvious.  You may be correct in your assumption that it is blind in that eye if this is the case though any ailment is bad I have kept completely blind leopard geckos in the past and they lived many happy healthy years with very little problems.

As for diagnosing the real root of the eye problem I obviously cannot see the gecko nor do I know what you have been feeding it or what supplements may have been offered or how often so I'm afraid I can't be a ton of help there.  You may want to take it to the vet or atleast explain the problem to a vet and they could recommend an opthamalic solution or ointment for the eyes.  Most opthamalic ointments are available by prescription only.

Hopefully this helped you out atleast a little bit.  Also you may want to limit the uv light for a little bit and certainly never leave it on 24/7 as bright light often is a cause of them keeping their eyes closed also.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thank you for your response. We have fed him crickets dusted in Rep-Cal phosphorus-free Calcium with Vitamin D3 and Rep-Cal Herptivite with beta carotene Multivitamins. He seems healthy in every other way, as I can see. But another concern of mine, is how should we guarantee that he is able to eat? My son has put some crickets in there, and they are gone, but I am not sure how he can find them, if he cannot see. I am pretty sure he cannot see, since I can wave my finger around both eyes and he will not move. He has gotten a little sckechier now too, understandably. I will try the moist box. We have been keeping his moist hide extra moistened. He has shed again, too. How often do they shed, I am so nervous about it now, and wonder if this is going to be very often? Thanks for your help

Answer
To guarantee he is eating you could always use a long pair of forceps or tweezers and put the cricket in front of him but if the crickets are disappearing then he is most likely finding them even if he is blind he can still smell them.  How often they shed depends on a number of factors how old it is how much it eats and the simple fact that it was most likely put into an accelerated shed due to this situation could be part of the reason it is shedding soon.  It will most likely after this go back to its normal shedding routine and you shouldn't have to worry about it again.  Also if you really want to check it he is blind the easiest thing to do would be put a silk worm or even a wax worm in the cage if he looks directly at it and wags his tail then eats it then he can most likely see if he sniffs around and shows little response to the wiggling of the worm then it is probably atleast somewhat visually impaired.