I was looking for a Vet to treat my leopard gecko who had just started to develop a mouth infection. She had not eaten in a few days but had not yet begun to lose weight. Her behavior began to change, meaning she let me pick her up which she had not appreciated at all before. Within 18 hours, I had her in the vet's office because we all know that catching anything early is what we all want including for our littlest family members. The doctor handled her like a belt, flipping her upside down and pulling on her jaw. Keep in mind, I raised her and she has certainly never been handled so rough. She became clearly distressed and began to open her mouth wide and breathe differently. He told me that she had a mouth infection and he was going to take her to the back to get a better look. When they returned about 20 minutes later, he said that he gave her a shot of antibiotics and two shots of liquid to keep her hydrated as she hadn't eaten in almost a week. Although she had been drinking water the whole time. He then said that he had irrigated her mouth to clean out the debris. The doctor said that he wanted to see her back in two days to see how the antibiotic was working. She was acting very strangely, not moving much and barely engaging, kinda like she was in shock. He told me to feed her mealworms and to give her a mixture of half Gatorade and half water. After paying the $95.00 bill, I left with my all of a sudden depressed gecko in hand. After I got home, the tech called and said that they had collected two cultures that they needed to send off so that they could give her an antibiotic next time that was more specific for her type of mouth rot rather than the one they gave her that treats everything. The cost of these two cultures was $250.00. I love my gecko so I agreed to pay the price. I was told that they would be sending the cultures to the lab the next day and would include mine in the shipment as long as I came into the office first thing the next morning. ""If you don't pay before 11:00 am then we can't send them."" Well, I had every intention of paying for the tests to keep my gecko from getting more sick. Problem is, after we got home she was still behaving like she was in shock. I was keeping a very close eye on her and increased the humidity in the terrarium to 100% and was increasing the heat to 90 degrees as the doctor had instructed. Three hours after we left the vet's office, I regret to report, my sweet little gecko has passed away. This doctor handled her so abruptly and without any concern for her stress level and she just couldn't handle it. Any doctor should know the importance of not creating additional stress for any animal. He should have been gentle and frankly he should never have taken her into any back room to treat her out of my presence. He should have been gentle, especially with an exotic which is by nature more delicate than others. However, I should not have allowed him to flip her upside down and yank the peeling skin fro her toes. Now I get to live with the regret of not speaking up in her defense because my baby is gone. I am writing this review because what I took her in for was equal to me going to the doctor for a hangnail. It was a common infection that is always curable when caught as early as we caught her's. He created unnecessary stress and deteriorated her condition when she should have been just fine. I can't go back in time and make this right. I let my baby down by remaining silent and trusting the doctor. Please, speak up if you find the doctor causing additional stress to an already stressful experience for your loved ones! We get many opportunities to protect them but it only takes one moment of silence to make us fail their trust. ~Very sad in Tampa
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