Discolored teeth

Chamlo

Member
I took Monty to the vet again last week (about 3 months after the previous one) to revisit the discolored teeth he has. On the top and the sides, sides on the back ones, are brown. There is no swelling. He eats and drinks all the time. My vet said that she'd make some calls and no one else has seen this. It doesn't look like mouth rot... She said to keep an eye on it. Since the last visit i dabbed the teeth with peroxide for 2 months, didn't work. So he was on Reptaid until last Monday. He has had no other medicine in his life, even though they aren't medicines. Monty has also been in a constant shed for the past 2 months. He sheds in one spot, it stops then another spot sheds then when he is done the spots do it again. He is almost 1 year old. He eats all his food. Has anyone else seen either of these? All my husbandry is correct, I won't fill out the form, sorry. But I can try for some pics.

Hello? Anyone

Bump; please answer someone
 
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idk about the teeth but it sounds like humidity issue you should really fill out that form these people on here know alot and could help way better with that thing
 
Your Chameleon - male veiled, had him for 10 months
Handling - 2 - 3 times a week
Feeding - Meal worms, butterworms, hornworms, romaine lettuce (sometimes carrots, fruit, waxworms, and Phoenix worms) he hates crix he'll hiss at them and he avoids dubs
Supplements - I use the zoomed stuff. Calcium w/ d3 once a month, same with multi vit, and plain calcium everyday.
Watering - hand mist, 4 times a day, I see him drink every day
Fecal Description - Urates white, poo is dark. Not runny. Tested once negative on parasites
History - bought from a small business that has excellent Cham care and is very responsible.

Cage Info:
Screen, wood. 3 ft deep, 3 1/2 ft long, 4 feet tall, custom. Working on drainage system and water proofing. Been in it for 5 months lived in small zilla screen enclosure till 4 months old
Lighting - Exoterra solar glo (does both UVB and UVA) which he loves, in a wire lamp suspended 7 inches maybe 8 from basking spot
Temperature - 82 - 87 in basking 76 every where else no night heat. Night is 68 - 70 degrees
Humidity - 20 to 30% (plan to use digger after waterproofing) created using spraying. 50 when sprayed. Using hydrometer/thermometer by zoo med
Plants - All fake
Placement - In my room, low traffic, quiet, 5 1/6 ft up with stand no vents on it
Location - northwest region

Current Problem - Discolored teeth, not mouth rot. Constant shedding for the last 2 months (no pics available yet) just need to know if anyone else has seen this
 
When you say discolored, what color do they appear to be?

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There are pics please help and tell me if you recognize what it is. Sorry they are kinda blurry
 
Unfortunately, your pictures don't help, cause the interesting parts (the teeth) aren't focussed at all. Maybe you can upload better pictures later on. In those pictures, the right dental ridge (seen from the chameleon, not from beholder) looks a bit deformed/thickened but it's too blurry to be sure.

Chameleon's teeth are part of the jaw bone, so they're really different to mammal teeth (which are made of adamantine and dentin, have a pulp and roots and are fixed by teethridge). Here you'll find some pictures for better imagination.

Normally, brown coloured bone means it's necrotizing. A better examination could be done under anesthesia, cause you never have the ability to check every little detail in a struggling chameleon really carefully. There are often very tiny lesions you'd never noticed by just taking a look. It can even look like a completely normal mouth although there are multiple abscesses inside tissue. And most chameleons do still eat until their whole head is rotten. Were the teeth and jaw bones touched with e.g. a probe by your vet to check softening, rough surface or porosity? An x-ray could help to check bone structure of the affected areas, too. Pigmentation could be another reason for coloured tissue, but there's few probability that's the case in your chameleon. Pigmentation from external pigments would probably affect not only certain areas on both sides. Internal pigments might be an idea, but melanin has a very rare chance to reach bones symmetrically and other pigments (e.g. degradation products of haemoglobin) aren't seen in healthy bones. Could even think about a calcium problem, but this wouldn't really change colour without a secondary infection or reduction of inner bone mass.

By the way, you feed too much worms imho... you're chameleon is already choosing his favourites, which means he's getting too much in general. And I would suggest doing fecals regularly, not only once a lifetime. One parasite free fecal doesn't mean the chameleon is parasite free categorically. There are lots of possibilities to have no parasite stages inside feces, but a high parasite burden inside the chameleon's body (hypobiosis, intermittently expulsion...). But the more often you let your reptile vet check fecals, the more increases correlation between parasite free fecal and parasite free chameleon.
 
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Unfortunately, your pictures don't help, cause the interesting parts (the teeth) aren't focussed at all. Maybe you can upload better pictures later on. In those pictures, the right dental ridge (seen from the chameleon, not from beholder) looks a bit deformed/thickened but it's too blurry to be sure.

Chameleon's teeth are part of the jaw bone, so they're really different to mammal teeth (which are made of adamantine and dentin, have a pulp and roots and are fixed by teethridge). Here you'll find some pictures for better imagination.

Normally, brown coloured bone means it's necrotizing. A better examination could be done under anesthesia, cause you never have the ability to check every little detail in a struggling chameleon really carefully. There are often very tiny lesions you'd never noticed by just taking a look. It can even look like a completely normal mouth although there are multiple abscesses inside tissue. And most chameleons do still eat until their whole head is rotten. Were the teeth and jaw bones touched with e.g. a probe by your vet to check softening, rough surface or porosity? An x-ray could help to check bone structure of the affected areas, too. Pigmentation could be another reason for coloured tissue, but there's few probability that's the case in your chameleon. Pigmentation from external pigments would probably affect not only certain areas on both sides. Internal pigments might be an idea, but melanin has a very rare chance to reach bones symmetrically and other pigments (e.g. degradation products of haemoglobin) aren't seen in healthy bones. Could even think about a calcium problem, but this wouldn't really change colour without a secondary infection or reduction of inner bone mass.

By the way, you feed too much worms imho... you're chameleon is already choosing his favourites, which means he's getting too much in general. And I would suggest doing fecals regularly, not only once a lifetime. One parasite free fecal doesn't mean the chameleon is parasite free categorically. There are lots of possibilities to have no parasite stages inside feces, but a high parasite burden inside the chameleon's body (hypobiosis, intermittently expulsion...). But the more often you let your reptile vet check fecals, the more increases correlation between parasite free fecal and parasite free chameleon.

Oh no! Could any of these things be stopped to save his jaws? It's on the top too
 
The problem with using another animal (pictures) to describe what you are seeing is that there could be something very different in your pet than in the example pics which could dramatically change the possibilities of what could be wrong. Posting better pictures and answering Alexl's questions would probably be your best course of action as far as the forum goes.

I have seen some chameleons with calcium problems or jaw infections where the jaw/teeth became discolored like that (though not symetrically? I dont know what that is about.) I've read about the Exoterra solar glo's not working properly for UVB (unless they fixed the problems.) If they still are like that and not enought UVB is produced, it could be a possibility.

You could also try calling your vet and asking about the stuff Alexl said to see if they can use the ideas as a springboard of sorts. Perhaps they will get some ideas or look into it to see if it matches. Maybe get an x-ray too.
 
Sorry, there was only one. I didn't mean to type the "s" on "questions."

Were the teeth and jaw bones touched with e.g. a probe by your vet to check softening, rough surface or porosity?
 
No she did not poke around in his mouth. I think it would be a good idea to put him under and take a good look
 
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