Bad vet experience. Do I give it another chance or go elsewhere?
Hey everybody, long-ish post coming up.
I’ve had my gecko, Otis, for a few years now. Up until a year or so ago, we were unaware he needed a multivitamin with vitamin A, and were just giving him calcium with and without D3. Around that time, he developed minor impacted hemipenes.
The vet recommended we soak him several times a week and come back so they could manually express the hemipenes. We came back several times, and they weren’t able to extract them. They let us know that since it didn’t seem to be bothering him, it wasn’t a problem and we could leave it be (looking back, this is red flag number one)
Jumping forward to last Saturday (4 days ago), I took him out of his tank and noticed his hemipenes looked much larger, and were red. We immediately called the vet and were told we were safe to wait until Wednesday (today), which was the soonest they could fit him in.
We take him in today and the vet tech begins asking us about his tank size, temperature, how often we feed him, etc. We tell her Otis’s basking spot is around 93°F, his warm-side ambient temp is in the upper 80s, and the cool side ambient is room temp (lower 70s). She immediately tells us that these temperatures are way too hot for him, which I didn’t think sounded right, but I made a note of it.
She then asked how often we fed him, to which we said once a week. She proceeded to tell me that leopard geckos can eat EVERY DAY, which I immediately knew was wrong. But I smiled and nodded along. She then proceeded to tell me he’s overweight, which seemed to contradict the previous advice, but sure.
Finally, the actual vet comes in, and it’s a vet we’ve never seen at previous visits. She lets us know the treatment game plan is to start feeding him everyday so the “larger stools” will force out the blockage? I immediately think this doesn’t sound right, as we were expecting him to be anesthetized and have the impaction manually removed. They then take him to a different room to ‘clean the wound’.
After 20 minutes or so, they come back looking worried. They let us know they tried to extract the impaction with no anesthesia, but couldn’t proceed because he was bleeding and screaming. Me and my gf are both shocked that they even tried to do this, as it wasn’t discussed with us and seemed needlessly cruel. They then let us know that they need to anesthetize him and remove the impaction right this minute, which is what we were hoping for and expecting.
We picked him up a few hours later with some antibiotics and a follow-up in a week. I’m feeling really frustrated and not at all confident in this situation. I go home and google the info the vet tech gave us, and find out that our temps are fine and that adult leopard geckos typically eat 1-2 times a week.
I honestly have lost all confidence in this office after this situation, from the false information to the cruel removal attempt. Am I overreacting? Should I go to the follow-up and find a new vet afterwards? Or should I try to find a new vet to do the follow-up itself?
Thanks for reading and any input.