Eye problems getting worse

michaels2408

New Member
Chameleon Info:

Your Chameleon - Ambilobe Panther Chameloen, purchased from Liddy at Kammer. He is one of Line Drive's baby boys.

Handling - 2-3 times a week for no longer than 2-3 minutes at a time. He will take crickets from the hand without any fear.

Feeding - 1/4 -1/2" crickets from Carolina Crickets.com They are being fed Repashy bug burger, and being dusted with Repashy Superfoods calcium plus. He is eating 10-15 crickets a day.

Supplements - Repashy Superfoods Calcium Plus

Watering - Using a Exo Terra Monsoon. It is set to come on 1 hour after the lights kick on and mists for 30 seconds every 2 hours. I also have a dripper setup to slowly drip water onto the fake foliage. If we spray water right in front of him, he will drink immediately.

Fecal Description - looks kinda like bird droppings. solid black with a west white side. Never tested for anything.

History - We have had him for almost 3 weeks. He has never had a problem eating or drinking. Does not hiss or try to bite us. If we open the cage he will come to the door looking for hand fed crickets. His colors seemed a little dull, but he went through his first shedding about 3 days ago.

Cage Info:

Cage Type - Zoo Med 16x16x30. Screen. Had a bigger cage, but he seemed to have trouble hunting, so we moved him into a smaller one.

Lighting - Zoo Med 75watt basking, Zoo Med 75watt nighttime moonlight, Exo Terra Repti Glo 5.0 UVB

Temperature - 90-95 F 6 inches under the basking lamp. 80-70 F throughout different places in the cage. UVA and UVB are on for 12 hours, then moonlight is on for 12 hours.

Humidity - Using Monsoon to spray 30 sec every two hours. Plus dripper slowly drips into foliage. Spraying starts 1 hour after lights come on, and stops 1 hour before lights go off and moonlight comes on. Humidity stays between 55-80 throughout the day and in various spots of his cage.

Plants - All fake plants provided by Kammers.

Placement - Cage is in our bedroom. We do not use the ceiling fan. vents are on the other side of the room. We are careful not to turn on bedroom lights once his night has started.

Location - Savannah, GA.


Current Problem - He will rub his left eye against the sticks and vines with a water droplet, and it will 'pop out' showing red and become much larger. Then after a few seconds he blinks and it pops back in. The other day we noticed an opaqueness covering his left eye. We cleaned it out with a q-tip, and it seemed to be mucus type glob. Today, he rubbed his left eye and left a drop of mucus on the limb. Then later, he rubbed his left eye really hard. It popped out and was larger than the right. After a few blinks it was bank down to its normal size, however there was another piece of mucus covering his eye, that came out easily with a moistened q-tip. We have some Tobramycin ophthalmic drops .3%, would this be useful for an eye infection?
 
Have the vet take a culture from the eye to see what type of bacteria infection might be present. That will help determine which antibiotic to use in treatment. Cultures from my vet usually run around $40 and take about 3-4 days to get results.
 
is the moonlight giving off heat or just light?. Light is not needed at night and it can even be bothersome to them to sleep. Unless your room is getting down into the 50's I would not worry about heating up the room. Sorry to hear your little guy is having problems.
 
Chameleon Info:

Your Chameleon - Ambilobe Panther Chameloen, purchased from Liddy at Kammer. He is one of Line Drive's baby boys.

Handling - 2-3 times a week for no longer than 2-3 minutes at a time. He will take crickets from the hand without any fear.

Feeding - 1/4 -1/2" crickets from Carolina Crickets.com They are being fed Repashy bug burger, and being dusted with Repashy Superfoods calcium plus. He is eating 10-15 crickets a day.Will the 1/2 inch crickets fit side ways between his eyes? other wise they may be to large for him

Supplements - Repashy Superfoods Calcium Plus

Watering - Using a Exo Terra Monsoon. It is set to come on 1 hour after the lights kick on and mists for 30 seconds every 2 hours. I also have a dripper setup to slowly drip water onto the fake foliage. If we spray water right in front of him, he will drink immediately.

Fecal Description - looks kinda like bird droppings. solid black with a west white side. Never tested for anything.

History - We have had him for almost 3 weeks. He has never had a problem eating or drinking. Does not hiss or try to bite us. If we open the cage he will come to the door looking for hand fed crickets. His colors seemed a little dull, but he went through his first shedding about 3 days ago.

Cage Info:

Cage Type - Zoo Med 16x16x30. Screen. Had a bigger cage, but he seemed to have trouble hunting, so we moved him into a smaller one.

Lighting - Zoo Med 75watt basking, Zoo Med 75watt nighttime moonlight, Exo Terra Repti Glo 5.0 UVB get rid or the night time light, it could be bothering his sleep

Temperature - 90-95 F 6 inches under the basking lamp. 80-70 F throughout different places in the cage. UVA and UVB are on for 12 hours, then moonlight is on for 12 hours.

Humidity - Using Monsoon to spray 30 sec every two hours. Plus dripper slowly drips into foliage. Spraying starts 1 hour after lights come on, and stops 1 hour before lights go off and moonlight comes on. Humidity stays between 55-80 throughout the day and in various spots of his cage.

Plants - All fake plants provided by Kammers.adding some real plants is very helpful, pothos, ficus and umbrella trees are what most of us use

Placement - Cage is in our bedroom. We do not use the ceiling fan. vents are on the other side of the room. We are careful not to turn on bedroom lights once his night has started.

Location - Savannah, GA.


Current Problem - He will rub his left eye against the sticks and vines with a water droplet, and it will 'pop out' showing red and become much larger. Then after a few seconds he blinks and it pops back in. The other day we noticed an opaqueness covering his left eye. We cleaned it out with a q-tip, and it seemed to be mucus type glob. Today, he rubbed his left eye and left a drop of mucus on the limb. Then later, he rubbed his left eye really hard. It popped out and was larger than the right. After a few blinks it was bank down to its normal size, however there was another piece of mucus covering his eye, that came out easily with a moistened q-tip. We have some Tobramycin ophthalmic drops .3%, would this be useful for an eye infection?

You do know that chams will push their eyes in and out as they are "cleaning" them correct? The mucus does not sound normal, seeing a vet is a very good idea. I would normally say to use the Tobramycin but if you are seeing the vet tomorrow, it is better for them to see a complete picture of the problem without you have tried meds to help.

None of the things I suggested about will help with the eye problem, the are more to improve your basic keeping of your cham.
 
Followup to my Chams eye problems

We visited a local vet last Saturday. He lectured us for 10 minutes before even looking at our cham about how they are full of parasites, require special temps and humidities. He said that they make horrible pets, and generally last only a year. He asked us to get him a stool sample, which I had thought ahead and had one with me. I explained to him that we were intelligent people. My girlfriend is a PhD candidate for Chemistry and I am a Nurse. That we had spent many hours searching for a good breeder. That Vlad our cham wakes up at 6am, east breakfast, poops at 6:30, and is on 14 hour days. I explained the eye problem. Even though he pissed me off, he is knowledgeable of chams. He scoped the eye with green stain, cleaned out the mucus, and then gave us Neomycin and Polymyxin B Sulfates and Dexamethasone Ophthalmic x3 day in each eye. He recommended flushing the eye with sterile saline (since we had access) before applying the drops. He said he used to go with salve, but found that it trapped dust in it which caused more problems. We have a followup in one week. Funny though, after he actually examined Vlad closely, he remarked how surprised he was at Vlad's health and physical presence. 


Vlad is very upset at us about the eye drops. We are swaddling him in a soft cloth to apply the meds. Since we started this regiment he is less friendly with us, and has actually spit out crickets we hand feed him. We feel like the work we have done to socialize Vlad with our family is regressing due to the treatment. His left eye seems to be getting better, but this morning his right eye is having problems. Thank goodness the drops are going into both eyes.

Anyways, I thought I would just update you on the eye issues. I will be grateful for any further thoughts or recommendations about Vlads eye issues, or social regression.
 
It sounds like you are doing all you can for his eyes. After this is over he will most likely, slowly, return to his behavior prior to the treatment. I enjoy good keepers, and I am glad the vet got to see what an excellent job you are doing.
 
The fact that your vet said they only last a year is totally wrong.

ive seen members on here who have had chams for 8+ years.

NTM, when treated with meds, they are NOT full of parasites.

And when they are, you get them treated and they are fine.


Though I am glad you got stuff to treat his eye.

Good luck!
 
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