Health Issues Galore

[xxleucisticxx]

Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon - Male Panther, 3 years old, 2yrs and 8 months in my care
Handling - Not too often. Spurts. (Do some educational demos with him - zoos)
Feeding - LG crickets, Dubia roaches, horn worms, butter worms, superworms, wax worms, (all gut loaded with Rehpashy Bug Burger), Hibiscus, pothos, and an array of fruits and veggies. (Offered daily)
Supplements - No Supps (had to stop due to his wide diet. Too much Ca gave him an odd growth on his right side as stated by Vet)
Watering - Mister goes off every hour for a minute and a half. I spray personally heavily in the morning. Always see him drink, even when he was a baby.
Fecal Description -Never been tested for parasites. Feces was normal up till recently.
History - He's a health disaster. Partially blind in his right eye. No depth perception (Sees cricket across room, fires tongue....has no idea why he missed.) Very clumsy (might be due to his eyes sight)

Got a wonderful peaceful attitude. Doesn't fire up (unless on Tramadol pain med - acts like a steroid for him I guess. He just gets SUPER pissy minutes after I administer it to him. He has taken other meds and never done that). Hand feeds readily no matter what it is I have, roach, cricket, bananas, whatever. And doesn't matter where - vets office, zoo, birthday party, in the car, wherever.

Cage Info:
Cage Type - Was the extra large screen enclosure (almost 4 feet high). Switched him to a 2-3ft enclosure to bump up humidity and monitor him better.
Lighting - Lights turn on at 8am, turn off at 8pm. UVB/UVA stays on 2 hours then turns off. UVB is a 5.0. Heat light is a 75w day blue in the smaller enclosure.
Temperature - Measure digitally. Enclosure floor is roughly 72-78, hot spot is 88.
Humidity - Digitally measured. 60%-90% when I personally mist. Humidity stays roughly 75% (higher now due to shed issues.)
Plants - Hibiscus, pothos.
Placement - Smaller enclosure has taken the large enclosures spot, desk. Enclosure is in cham room. No high traffic, lizards can't see each other.
Location - USA, Pennsylvania

So for anyone who hasn't read the cham/cage info, this is the deal. Xander, my male panther chameleon is a hot mess. I love him to death but he's clearly been a bit special since day one of purchase 3 years ago.

Xander is partially blind in his right eye (vet checked). He sees shadows but doesn't really 'see' all that good. Depth perception is horrible. He will fire his tongue at bugs that might be loose in the room and not know why he didn't get it. Any bugs I hold in my hand for him he has to be on top of, literally. At a time I thought he couldn't fire his tongue but he can. If I force him to fire it he can do it easily but his aim is horrendous. He'll hit my fingers or hand several times before getting the bug.

Has an unusual hard growth on his right side (ribcage). Not attached and moves freely with his skin. Suspected cancer but it isn't. Apparently it was me supplementing too much while giving him a lot of foods high in Ca (as stated by vet). I haven't supplemented him in maybe a year and everything's gone back to normal. The growth stopped growing immediately after I stopped.

It DOES affect his shedding however which was the original problem I had. Xander wasn't shedding right and I left on a cross country road trip. Left him in another person' care along with my other chams. WAS NOT HAPPY when I got back home! They were not misting them heavily and they didn't tell me the mister broke! Xander was not dehydrated but boy was he shedding like CRAP.

Took him to the vet and she gave me an anti bacterial because his old skin was clinging so tightly to him it was ripping his skin off and making him bleed. =( Felt so horrible for him and then swapped him into a smaller enclosure that's closed ofd with black plastic on the sides and back to keep humidity in it more. (Working wonderfully btw)

I have since been dealing with that for 4 weeks now and he's shedding like a pro again.

Next post to keep this from being a Wall of text will state the reason for this thread.

 

[xxleucisticxx]

HISTORY BEFORE PROLAPSE:

I noticed Xander was pacing in his enclosure thursday at 3am. This isn't unusual for him as he gets restless randomly. He's done this since he was barely 3 inches long without his tail. But what I did notice was that he was refusing to take food from me and didn't appear all that hungry. Now that's odd because he ALWAYS takes food form me. In the three years I've had him he's never once snubbed me for food. He takes it instantly. I thought that was odd.

I also thought it was odd that his eyes were getting a little sunken in. I left a dripper with him and he did drink but it didn't seem to make a difference.


Current Problem:

Saturday at 9:50am EST, I got out of the shower and was getting ready to leave at 10am for work. Before I left I decided to check all my chams one more time and that's when I started misting Xander down heavily. I opened his door and like usual he wanted to grab me and come out. I went to push him back in and that's when I noticed he had a prolapse. Rushed him to my vet IMMEDIATELY after wrapping his lower section with a warm wet cloth.

I got to the vets and they took Xrays to see if he was blocked. No blockage present but even the vet was stumped and so was the radiologist at a University who focuses entirely on exotic health. They have no idea what that circular white thing is in his abdomen. (Looks like an egg but obviously that's not possible - Xander's a boy. (Xray photo below. Can see the prolapse as well.)

They suspect it's a growth off of his liver or spleen....

So with finding that there appeared to be no real blockage in his intestines, the vet attempted to push everything back in. She did twice, an twice he pushed it all back out. While that was occurring, I got this picture text from my sister. This is what he released that very morning (he usually goes to the bathroom anywhere from around 9-9:30am)

Showed the vet and she said it appeared to have been what caused the prolapse - too much straining and that's a whole lot of half eaten material.

I asked her to flush him out with an edema just in case there was something there that didn't pop up on the radiograph and so she did. Vet stated there was nothing but very little amounts of urates (nothing special or surprising.)

In the end, Xander had to get a purse string sew on him to stop pushing everything out. It worked. I got him home, gave him water (he drank immediately, but he also wanted to drink in the vet office. Was too scared of the shiny water basin though. lol silly boy.)

And YAY! He strained, and took a crap on my BF (Sorry Dave...lol) It was hard so I'm hoping he removed what was making him push so hard. He's been going to the bathroom normally since Saturday and I'm so happy about that. His stitches get removed next Sat......but.......

I got a consult from someone at the university and I was not happy with the outlook on Xander's xray.......

The growth off of his spleen or liver was hard to swallow but then reading that he has a heart smaller then normal, lungs larger then normal, and what appears to be enlarged kidneys......that had me crying.

I don't know what else to do for him. I'm already $3k in when it comes to his health and I've done everything by the book and off the book for him. He's such a wonderful guy it kills me to see how horrible he is internally.

Vet suggests it's all genetic. Proper care's been given since day one of purchase. Any incubation issues would have been noted long before this....I wanted to breed him but no way now. Not with all of these problems.

But I'm here on the forum in the hope that someone knows what this is. What's with the circular white object under his lungs? And with enlarged kidneys: kidney failure. Is there anything I can do to help him? Perhaps make things easier for him?

I keep going back and forth on euthanising him or giving him a fighting chance like I have since day one, but if he's going through renal failure or he's got cancer in his organs.....What am I supposed to do? Can he even survive a surgery with all his other medical issues?

Need some advice....need some guidance......

 

[jajeanpierre]

Sorry your little guy is not doing well.

Your pictures of the x-ray, etc., weren't attached.

One thing I've never heard discussed here--and it probably has but I've never seen it--is high levels of calcium supplements causing problems.

I have chickens, and feed the adults a high-calcium laying formula. It cannot be fed to chicks or it will cause kidney damage from too much calcium. It's not good for the roosters, but won't kill them the way it will when fed to growing chicks. The roosters will probably get kidney problems as well, but everyone feeds their roosters the same food that is given to the laying hens.

Is that his problem? Too much calcium over his lifetime?

Has the vet diagnosed him with kidney failure or is it just the x-rays show enlarged kidneys?

Don't feel bad if you don't decide not to spend a lot trying to keep him going. With kidney failure--if he has kidney failure--I think you need to keep him very hydrated. Eventually, the toxins will build up too high in his body and he will become sick--and feel really sick. You can delay the inevitable with sub cutaneous fluids, but do you want to? I would suggest you feed him a lot of super hydrating foods like silkworms and hornworms. Dying from kidney failure is not a nice way to go. My own inclination would be to euthanize him when he stops eating if feeding something like hornworms won't fix it.

 

[kinyonga]

Do you have any photos of the growth on his side?