Help-White Spot on Gecko's Eye

I was giving my big guy a quick soak and noticed he had a small white spot on his eye. It almost looks like it’s slightly raised in one spot. I tried rinsing and wiping his eye, but it didn’t budge. I’ve never seen anything similar so I have no idea what it would be other than a piece of skin or some sort of irritation. Anything would help!

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Most of the time that sort of thing is stuck shed skin, but if it’s not easy removed with a moist qtip and very gentle technique, and it is raised, then he should see a reptile-knowledgeable vet. They are going to be able to differentiate between cholesterol plaques, hardened stuck shed skin, healing corneal lesions, ocular parasitism, and all that jazz.

It will be useful to tell your vet if you think he can see from that eye, and if you think he’s been able to navigate normally around his tank/bin. Are there any sharp or rough areas in his enclosure, or is he kept on a particulate substrate?

I am honestly not sure what I think that is, but my guess is a healed wound or parasite I’m not familiar with. I don’t know enough about how reptilian corneas heal. However, I have to mention another possibility, which is something I’ve been dealing with:

Some of my (older) geckos have very similar ocular lesions, and those were because of a diet too high in fat. The diet issue actually killed several of my guys prematurely when they got cholesterol tumors on their central nervous system. One of my girls, Pablo, is actually going in to see my local boarded exotics vet in a few days to discuss an enucleation for her affected eye. Unfortunately, another of my geckos, Impi, has two affected eyes, though she still seems to have some limited sight. (If anyone is seriously interested in a deeper dive on the more technical aspects of this, or prefers to see proof, I can do that- but I demand cookies! :upside_down_face:)

I’m really attached to my guys and losing those few was awful, so I’ve tried to make a point of alerting people to the potential dangers of high-fat diets over the long term in leos. Most high-fat diets fed by some breeders to assist in rapid growth or egg production are not suitable for an entire lifetime. It’s likely that your guy (especially if he’s under 4 or so) does NOT have cholesterol plaques, and that it’s one of the other issues I mentioned, or something else entirely. Nevertheless, I wanted to mention it, just in case. One of my (veterinary) colleagues even, (that works with reptiles), didn’t recognize it in time, so I’m trying to spread the knowledge around. Just an unlikely possibility, but worth it to keep in the back of your mind.

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I forgot you can use q tips, i was trying paper towels lol. I will try that again tonight and hopefully it comes off.
I do believe he can see out of it, but probably not very well. He’s definitely running around his tank as usual. I do have some deco that could possibly give him a poke if he got spooked and ran into if though. He was OBSCENELY overweight when I got him. I didn’t realize it, he was my first, so I thought he was just large. He was 115 grams when I got him last year, when I weighed him last night he was 89 grams. Good improvement, but he’s still quite chunky. He’s a bit older, only around 6 years, but I’m sure he was obese for a long time before I got him. If I can’t remove the spot he will absolutely be seeing a vet. He made me realize how much I love leopard geckos and I don’t want to see him get sick.

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UPDATE: It’s definitely a little piece of skin. It was still there but it was moving around when i pushed it with the q tip. I eventually got it off after much squirming. :slight_smile:

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I have this same issue, although for a long while - Until today actually - I thought my little man was going gradually blind due to him being old now. Any tips on how I could deal with this without poking around his eyes? He seems to cope fine, and as I already said I thought he was going blind so never thought it was something actually on the eye, and I know for sure that if I try to remove this one of two things will happen.

Option A) He wriggles and ends up with an eye less.
Or,
Option B) I get bitten in the process. He might be an old man but he sure can move fast when he wants to.

Any advice anyone could give would be much appreciated.

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You probably need to try to take it off by hand. You could either spend time taming him so you can handle him and easily take it off or you could try taking him to the vet and seeing if they have a way to get it off. Maybe if it’s decided that it needs to come off have the vet drug him so it could be easily taken off.

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