Eye Boogers

Those who've been following my Facebook updates know that my youngest* leopard gecko, Liquid, has been battling a pretty horrible eye infection. The area directly behind his eye is swollen, mostly likely as a result of the gunk that's building up behind his eyelid. He generally keeps his eye closed, though not voluntarily. This gunk hardens quickly upon touching air, so his lid is closed because it's glued closed. Removing the obstruction (with my tweezers) immediately allows him to open his eye. But he can't actually see because of the greenish-white gunk that's in front of the eye itself. This last weekend, I set about construction a crude gunk-sucking contraption: basically a bulb attached to the glass part of a small eyedropper, with the intention of sticking the eyedropper end into his eye and sucking out as much gunk as possible.

You'd be surprised how difficult this task is on a fidgity leopard gecko. He was not amused, but I did manage to remove a little bit of junk from his eye. He still can't see, though. There's a lot of gunk.

Anyway, something really strange happened last night. I checked on him, and greenish gunk was sticking out of his eyelid. I grabbed the tweezers and pulled out a glob of sticky green stuff that was easily the size of his eye. In fact, I worry that the green glob was the remains of his eye, it having been ravanged by an infection for a month now. Since pulling out that nasty gunk (it just slid right out), he hasn't opened that eye. I hope his eye is still in there. My hope is that he starts eating, because he's lost his appetite and he's losing weight.

As squirmy as he is, though, I know that Liquid is happy to get anything out of his eye, even if it's uncomfortable at the time. Considering how Solid would react to me poking around his head, Liquid is ridiculously relaxed, so he must know it's benefitial. My biggest worry is that I'm doing more harm than good, but getting that giant glob out is definately a step in the right direction.

He has eye antibiotics, but I can't very well give them to him until his eye is cleared out.

*Saying he's the "youngest" isn't really correct because Solid is the same age. Liquid, though, is the smallest of the three leopards, so he's the baby of the trio.