Infection on foot

[donsebas]

First of all I want to say how grateful I am for this forum because I get most of the information from this forum and it helped me out so many times.

My chameleon is named yoshi and he is about 1 year old. We have had him since 5 months now and he is doing great. I made sure the tempratures are correct and I feed him crickets, super worms, dubia roaches and silk worms. I dust the insects with calcium without d3 every day. I have two live plants in his cage, a pothos and a hipicus plant.

The problem is that he has a small infection on the bottom on his foot, I searched the forum and it could be athletes foot or a fungal infection, I'm not sure but I think it has to do that with his last shed, it might have got infected.

Its not an open wound and on the picture below you can see its light red, this picture is from last week, I bought neosporin to help it heal. At the moment the infection is dark red/black. I have no idea if it is healing or it is getting worse. Do I have to go and see a vet or shall I continue with the cream.

Thanks in advance!

The quality of the image is not that good but as you can see it is on his right foot.

 

[Dgood]

I'm sorry to hear your problem but your chM is looks beautiful!! I'm not sure what it could be it doesn't look too horrible but I'm no expert. Hopefully a more experienced member cN help you out good luck!

 

[donsebas]

Hi, thank you he is eating fine and he behaves normal I just want to be sure he is healthy

 

[Dgood]

That's good i feel like I worry too much when it come to my Cham I just want to make sure that she is happy and healthy as possible so i don't blame you! Ha I'm sure some one will read this soon and chime in

 

[donsebas]

Yeah we worry so much about them because we do really care!

I hope some experienced member can have a look at it and if I have to post more details let me know.

 

[carol5208]

Foot sores,infections, etc can be hard to heal because as you know, your chameleon will keep using the foot and irritating the area. I for one have experienced this first hand and ultimately my chameleon died from the infection. I am not trying to scare you and say that will be you case. My advice to you would have a qualified vet look at the foot. I tried neosporin in the beginning and it never really healed and then went through a series of antibiotics and topical meds which helped, but the infection then spread up into the ankle. My guy started with a little hole in his foot and it actually almost completely healed, but then all the climbing around ripped the foot open again. His foot does not look that bad at all, so hopefully you can get it healed before it gets worse.

 

[donsebas]

Thank you for sharing your experience! I have made an appointment with the vet for tomorrow morning.

I will post an update tomorrow on how it went and again thank you for your insight.

I attached another picture of his foot which I took just now.

 

[carol5208]

I am glad you are getting him to the vet. At one point, we had tried wrapping the foot so it would not get irritated and reinjured but it ended up causing his ankle to swell. I hope yours will heal well. Like I said, did not mean to alarm you and my case may just be isolated.

 

[donsebas]

I'm sorry for the loss of your chameleon, it is good you told me his story and by sharing this hopefully more chameleons will be saved.

It made me also realize that I shouldnt wait any longer just in case it is worse than it looks like.

 

[donsebas]

So I went to the vet this morning and he had a look at it.
At first it looked like he didnt know much about chameleons but he spotted straight away what was causing the infection.

Basically it got irritated by a branch of a pohtos plant in his cage. I thought I was doing the right thing by applying neosporin but in fact all it did was heal it on the outside but not the infection itself so it created an abscess. The vet removed the abscess and cleaned it.

He gave me baytril (antibiotics) and I he has to take it for 10 days, we are lucky to have a vet so close by. We also have to clean his foot twice a day so help it disinfect.

It was a very stressful day but I'm glad I went to see a vet and from now on I will directly consult a vet when there is something wrong.

Are there any side effects on the antibiotics I should be aware of?

 

[Haze1981]

I think that antibiotic is hard on the kidneys (from what I have read) so make sure you keep him hydrated. Also I think it can decrease their appetite to. Please someone say if I am wrong.

 

[carol5208]

I think that antibiotic is hard on the kidneys (from what I have read) so make sure you keep him hydrated. Also I think it can decrease their appetite to. Please someone say if I am wrong.

yes, both of the above. If you feed hornworms or silkworms, you can inject the meds into the worms. My vet gave me a syringe to do so and it makes it much less stressful on the animal forcing it into their mouth. And your vet is right as the sore on my chameleons foot healed on the outside(it got hard and scabby) but it went further up inside the foot. It was cleaned out also and meds were injected into the site of the infection. Again, I hope yours heals quickly. Keep us posted.

 

[donsebas]

Thank you for the information, yes I have super worms and I inject the meds into the worm before I feed it to him.

I will keep him hydrated and hopefully it will heal quickly

 

[donsebas]

A quick update on yoshi, we just went to the vet and he told us that he is doing great and he removed the scab of the food to see if there is any infection. Its not infected and we have to stop the antibiotics and carry on cleaning his foot.

We have a vet visit again next week and he is doing fine, he just shedded and he actually gained weight because of all the super worms we gave him with the antibiotics.

 

[Kate]

Great news. You can never be too careful.

 

[carol5208]

That is wonderful news. Glad he is healing up and doing better!

 

[Oliviabryant]

neo poly bac is a great cream you can buy online for less then your vet will charge, its a great thing to have in a reptile first aid kit. Reptiles do not process infections like humans. It becomes a spongey substance that will need to be lanced. It is always best to treat ANY cut, or tiny scrape as an emergency.

 

[donsebas]

It's a good idea to have a first aid kit and I definitely agree with treating every cut as an emergency. I learned from this, thank you for the information.

 

[Oliviabryant]

Haha, I just read the rest of the first page of posts..
abscesses can unfortunately happen easily with reptiles, this is why handling is curcial, constantly inspect your chameleon for any irregularities and if something looks strange consult your vet.

 

[donsebas]

I didnt really handle him before only when I had to clean his cage but since I had to clean his foot every day he lets me pick him up all the time and like you said its a good way to check on him.