My experience with Pseudomona Bacteria in Gekko gecko...
The first time I had to deal with the bacteria was at the very end of February 1996. I had a number of baby geckos hatch during the previous year and they were the ones that seemed to be affected. I found Machichibone, my very dark colored tokay, hanging around the front of the cage during the day, which was very odd for her to be doing. I took her out and inspected her mouth. It was covered in this whitish goop. It wiped clean with some except for the underside of her tongue. She ended up dying later that day. After I found Machichibone with all that stuff in her mouth, I immediately washed up and began checking the rest of the geckos mouths (washing inbetween each cage of geckos I inspected*). I noticed one in particular, Hadly, looking lethargic and the color of the skin around her mouth was darker and blotchy. I took her
out and pryed her mouth open to find the same whitish colored areas as I had seen in Machichibone's mouth. I thought it looked like a mix between pus and mucous. I got some Nolvasan Solution on a Q-Tip and it wiped right out, but it was there again the next day. After I cleaned out Hadley's mouth and washed up, I continued to go through the others mouths and found that Cicero and Dooley had it as well, though not as bad as Hadley. They were among
the youngest of the group. I was finding that it was not just confined to one cage either. I'm sure I had spred it around when I cleaned cages.I cleaned out the cages with a Betadine Solution and got Hadley to the vet to get a culture sensitivity test run. He had it the worst. It was also on the underside of his tongue and that would not wipe off. He died before the test results came back which was within a week. The results said that it was a pseudomona bacteria. I was given Piperacillin which needed to be frozen and then thawed just enough to be drawn up in a syringe, then put back in the freezer. I was also given Amikacin to be given every third day. I had a gram scale and knew what the symptoms were, so I was told to call in the weights of any gecko that came down with the bacteria and he'd get me the dosage. Just when I thought things were going well and that I had the problem licked, another gecko would get it, or one would relapse. It seemed as if the antibiotics were only slowing down the bacteria, not killing it off. From the last day of February to the beginning of June I was trying to get rid of this bacteria from my collection. During this time I lost 8 tokays to the bacteria. It seemed to hit the young ones the hardest, I think because their immunities weren't as strong as those over a year or older. But this wasn't the case when in May, I found my 3 1/2 year old, Kiwi, had the symptoms. I would clean her mouth out several times a day with the Nolvasan and give her injections, but it kept coming back and she wasn't doing well at all. Her mouth was in very bad shape- her gumline was separating, it would bleed, and she was losing some teeth, but at least it hadn't gotten into her tongue, which seemed to be the kiss of death. One day it got unseasonably hot, raising the temperature in the house considerably. It was the very first blast of summer. Kiwi seemed to improve almost immediately. I kept up with her injections and mouth cleanings. Her mouth was healing finally. It did seem that the hot weather wore down the bacteria enough to treat Kiwi. I only had one gecko, Khabibulan, relapse after the hot spell. Even though she was on the mend, it went into her tongue overnight and she died shortly after despite antibiotics and mouth cleanings. She was only a little over a year old.
On a possibly related note... Shortly after Pesach, a filthy male iguana I took in, passed away, I had several mysterious tokay deaths. I had necropsies done on two tokays, Gui, a female, & Eugene, a male. Both showed that their livers were affected- Eugene's was enlarged, about 3 times the size it should have been. I noticed Gui was lethargic and had stopped eating. Eugene completely stunned me because he showed no symptoms except for hanging out on the floor of his cage several hours before I found him dead. My vet never did
send me reports from the necropsies, so I plan on calling him in hopes that they should be in my lizards' files. If I can obtain them, I will post them here.10/29/99- I just found out Doink has a serious case of mouth rot. She looked fine when I had cleaned her cage earlier in the week. I went in the lizard room to check on all the lizards as I do several times during the day when I noticed her hanging out in the front area of the cage. It was not normal for her to do as she preferred to hide. She also looked dehydrated. I got her out and looked her over and found quite a great deal of infection in her mouth.
I took quite a few pictures of her mouth before I cleaned it out. I decided to go with Betadine instead of Nolvasan this time in hopes of it working better. I diluted the Betadine Solution so it looked like weak tea and scrubbed the affected areas in her mouth (which were many). I gave her some Pedialyte to help rehydrate her. Hopefully I can make an appointment with our vet for the first of the week (of course things like this only happen on the weekends, after hours, or over a holiday) and get her on systemic antibiotics, though I don't think she looks all too well. The infection is into her tongue a bit. I'm wondering if it was brought on by my warm mist humidifier (I do the weekly humidifier cleanings/disinfecting). I don't know what caused it, but after checking the other tokays' mouths the rest look okay.
I'm sorry to say she passed on by early morning before I could make a vet appointment. I had her for over 7 years.
*I've come to the conclusion (especially after this most recent incidence) that it's best to wash hands inbetween inspecting each animal, and not to assume that because one animal in a particular cage is ill, that all in the same cage are as well. After inspecting Doink's mouth, (and I did wash hands right after) I checked out her cagemate, Hasbro, who's mouth looks clean as a whistle. It may be possible that she was run down from something else and got mouth rot in her weakened state and that not every gecko, even ones in contact will catch it. I am keeping a close eye on him for any changes in behavior (as well as inspecting mouths again during cage cleanings- at least for awhile again).
If you just clicked on the * towards the beginning of this page to take you here this link will take you back to where you were...
NOTE: The mouth rot I encountered back in 1996 was diagnosed as a pseudomona bacteria. It's very possible that Doink's infection was pseudomona as well, but since it was not sent out for a sensitivity culture (to see what antibiotics would work and would not), it could have been another bacteria.