Head burnt?

[Lazereth]

Chameleon Info:
• Your Chameleon – ambilobe blue bar panther chameleon
• Handling – Once a day for 10-15 minutes
• Feeding – Gut loaded crickets with BugBurger (cooked) and Super Worms & Horned Worms as treats (a few a day)
• Supplements – Repashy Superfoods Calcium Plus
• Watering – MistKing, 3 minutes of misting every 4 hours.
• Fecal Description - Normal
• History – None

Cage Info:
• Cage Type – 2x2x4 all screen
• Lighting – Lightyourreptile 24” hood with t5 6
• Temperature – Basking is around 88F and 75F out of the basking area, night time temps are around 70-72F
• Humidity – 85% shortly after misting and stays around 53% between misting
• Plants – Umbrella plant
• Placement – Located in dining room, low to no foot traffic
• Location – Northern Illinois

Issue:
Today I noticed the top of my Panthers head was nearly black and looked "dried up". Also seems like some kind of dark puss was oozing around his cask edges. He seems very irritated today which isn't normal behavior. He is still eating and drinking as normal. He just finished a shed a week ago. I also have a panther Nosy Be with nearly exact setup and they are not able to see one another.
The pics do not show well but the left top part of the cask looks "deflated" also his back looks like shedding skin, but i assure you it is not.

UPDATED PIC: Notice the dark patch on his eyelid as well...

Here he is right before his last shed.

 

[MWheelock]

Looks like a thermal burn to me.

Did you change a bulb recently or move the basking area?

It does look like a thermal burn. I had a panther that got burned after changing to another mercury vapor bulb. First 3 were no problem, but the 4th had an issue . . . (one of the reasons I'm not so fond of mercury vapor bulbs.)

Any way, you have two issues. 1) as the skin dies, and it is dying/dead on top, there will be a higher chance of infection, so antibiotics are likely warrented.
2) The skin underneath will be very sensitive to heat and light. I found that using a topical twice daily with Zylofen (from the company that makes Zymox) helped significantly.

The bad news is the pigmentation is gone and will not come back and look like scar tissue. The good news is once it's healed it will only be cosmetic

Hope that helps,
Matthew Wheelock, DVM

 

[Lazereth]

First of all, Thank You for the reply.
The general basking area and lights have not been changed in a few months. I use a t5 6uvb and a 75 basking bulb. I'll get that topical with Zylofen ASAP! I turned his basking bulb off about an hour ago due to he is staying under it longer then usual. I'll lower his branches to help prevent this from happening again, so strange after 19 months this happened.

Once again thank you so very much!!!!