Lethargic Female Panther; oral lesion

Small improvements continue to be made, though Lily still has "bad days". She does seem to perk up a fair bit on the days that she receives Metacam, but she slows down a bit again on non-Metacam days. The lesion is definitely improving, though I worry it's a lot more than her mouth and eye that are bothering her. When she's a bit stronger, I'm considering having some bloodwork run. Doc extended her meds for an additional 10 days, to be safe, after which I'll load Lily up with probiotics (Bene-Bac Plus, bird and reptile) to help reestablish her gut flora. Doc is also considering an aggressive multivitamin dusting schedule for a few weeks, as that seemed to really help Lily the last time she was doing poorly.

Lily looking perky on a good day:

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Healing progress! The swelling on her eye lid seems to come and go a bit, and the doc and I are monitoring it closely. It's always been a bit thickened/misshapen, but it is slightly worse than it has been historically after looking through some older pictures.

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Chameleons (and reptiles in general) are nerve wracking to treat! They just respond soooo slowly... :confused:
 
Tried to wean Lily off of her meds toward the beginning of the week, and she was acting very lethargic again within 2 days. So, we'll continue with them for now and reassess in a week or two! I'll also be swapping her to an alternative dusting schedule upon the vet's recommendation for the next month: 2 feedings dusted with Repashy Supervite, 1 feeding with plain calcium. It's an unconventional schedule, but it worked really well for Lily the last time she was sickly.
 
GoodKarma19 said:
Tried to wean Lily off of her meds toward the beginning of the week, and she was acting very lethargic again within 2 days. So, we'll continue with them for now and reassess in a week or two! I'll also be swapping her to an alternative dusting schedule upon the vet's recommendation for the next month: 2 feedings dusted with Repashy Supervite, 1 feeding with plain calcium. It's an unconventional schedule, but it worked really well for Lily the last time she was sickly.
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Praying for the prettiest Lily known to man.
 
Lily's still hanging in there. No big leaps, but she's also not any worse. Energy levels have been improving over the last week, and she has been "begging" when she sees me near her cage (coming up to the front and sticking out her tongue for food). I have about a week's worth of meds left and then I'll reassess with her vet, see if we need to try something else.

Lily appears to be less painful, has been hesitating less after eating one feeder before going for the next. Before, she would be really excited for the first one, take forever to chew it, sit there swallowing with her eyes closed for up to a minute, and then would rarely want to take anything else. Now she's able to take a couple pretty much back to back, though she still needs help actually getting the bugs into her mouth. I'm pretty much waiting until she's about to extend her tongue and then popping the bug in there. Seems more comfortable for her! Something definitely isn't quite right with her tongue, but it was never 100% to begin with so I don't really have a "normal" for her.

Lily's a bit of a trainwreck, the poor thing. But we're getting there!
 
Lily crashed, hard, beginning on November 28th. Found her on the bottom of her cage multiple times, and she was practically non responsive and wouldn't open her eyes. She began passing partially digested stool, and appeared moderately dehydrated (loose skin, slightly depressed eyes) regardless of what I managed to get into her. It's always shocking to me, just how quickly they can go down!

It wasn't looking good, to say the least. It was extremely touch and go, and I thought for sure more than once that she wasn't going to make it over the weekend.

Fearing toxicity from her extended course of medications, I stopped all meds and flushed her with as much water as she would drink over the course of several hours. I coaxed her into eating a couple medium hornworms dusted with bee pollen and plain calcium (1 horn) and Bene-Bac probiotics (2nd horn), physically placed her on her basking branch, and pretty much just hoped for the best. There wasn't much the vet could have done for her anyway (beyond subcutaneous fluids, and maybe a vitamin shot) and I'm pretty sure the stress of travelling in this weather would have been the final nail in her coffin (I dont drive).

I'm relieved to report that she's on the up and up again, though there's a chance that she's just rallying one last time. Now that she's more stable i'm considering bringing her in to the vet's, but I'm not sure what else they could do for her that I'm not already doing. My gut says that her best chance right now is to keep doing what I'm doing and keep her stress as low as possible. I'm thinking the daily handling for meds wasn't doing her any favors, if nothing else.

Chameleons are such tricky animals to treat! o_O

Lily finally started acting more normally again today.

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kinyonga said:
Geesh....so sorry to hear she crashed but amazed that you were able to bring her back. Let's hope it's more than just one last rally. Poor Lily...she's been through a lot...and so have you. Fingers crossed for her. Keep up the good (hard) work.
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Thanks Lynda - it's been a tough week. I'm very grateful for my medical know-how, combined with a heaping dose of luck! I'm really hoping it's more than one last rally, too... we've been through a lot together, and I'm not ready to give up on her yet! Tomorrow is hornworm day, so I'll give her her second dose of Bene-Bac and see how she does.
 
Wish I had anything useful to add here, but everyone really rallied here, and gave better advice than I ever could. I’m sending my best thoughts.
 
janjan20 said:
Ugh! This is tough to read but keep up the good work! Thinking about you girls and hoping for her improved continued recovery.
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Thank you! It was tough to write - one of the reasons I didn't post publicly about her decline when it started. I'm really hoping she's done trying to quit on me, and continues to recover! The wound itself looks significantly better, at least, and appears to be slowly healing.

Kaizen said:
Wish I had anything useful to add here, but everyone really rallied here, and gave better advice than I ever could. I’m sending my best thoughts.
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snitz427 said:
Feel better soon Lilly! Hang in there, both of you!
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I appreciate the thoughts! We can use all the good vibes we can get. Poor little lady has really been through the wringer... she's always been sickly since the moment I brought her home, but this is definitely the worst it's gotten! I just hope she makes it through moving houses ok - I'm hauling everyone over to the new place on Sunday. I don't even want to think about moving Kismet's glass monstrosity! o_O
 
Been awhile since I've updated on Lily! She's still hanging in there, but isn't really getting much better. She's no worse off and there have been some small improvements, but she's far from a healthy, normal chameleon. Lily's off her meds, and we're just taking it day by day at this point. My vet doesn't know what's up, and I'm really worried about blindly throwing more meds at her when she seems to have more or less stabilized. Since Lily's stronger than she was and seems less likely to crash, I'm considering bloodwork +/- radiographs. I just don't want to cause her to suffer unnecessarily if the results are inconclusive!

Lily's such a sickly little thing. I feel so badly for her! :(
 
GoodKarma19 said:
Been awhile since I've updated on Lily! She's still hanging in there, but isn't really getting much better. She's no worse off and there have been some small improvements, but she's far from a healthy, normal chameleon. Lily's off her meds, and we're just taking it day by day at this point. My vet doesn't know what's up, and I'm really worried about blindly throwing more meds at her when she seems to have more or less stabilized. Since Lily's stronger than she was and seems less likely to crash, I'm considering bloodwork +/- radiographs. I just don't want to cause her to suffer unnecessarily if the results are inconclusive!

Lily's such a sickly little thing. I feel so badly for her! :(
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It’s so very difficult when there’s no clear answer . However she’s so very lucky to have you xo . I hope 2020 bring some new light in Lily’s condition .
 
kinyonga said:
I wish I had an answer for you. :(
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So do I! :cautious: No one seems to know what's up. Lily responded poorly to medical management in the long run, but seems to be doing just a little better if I more or less leave her to do her own thing and make sure her husbandry is up to snuff. At this point, I do believe her extended course of meds were causing some degree of toxicity, resulting in her shutting down further. No idea for sure, especially since she had been too weak to risk bloodwork. I just hope she makes it until the weather starts getting nicer, here. She's always perked up after a soak in the sun!

Kristen Wilkins said:
It’s so very difficult when there’s no clear answer . However she’s so very lucky to have you xo . I hope 2020 bring some new light in Lily’s condition .
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Thanks Kristen! I'm doing my best for this girl, though at this point I'm not terribly hopeful for a full recovery. I'd really like to know exactly what's wrong so I can stop flailing around in the dark and take a more targeted approach!

Lily's currently undergoing an absolutely terrible shed. She's not making much of an effort at all to get it off, so it's taking forever. I have to keep reminding myself not to touch it! Though her energy and demeanor has improved somewhat on her "good days", her eye and (to a somewhat lesser extent) her mouth continue to worry me. She seems much more comfortable directly after misting, and comes over to the nozzle a couple times a week to rub her bad eye against it.

I'm going to bite the bullet and risk another vet visit, see if anything else can be done to keep her comfortable.

These pictures were taken before her evening misting, and she was a tad dehydrated.

Bad side:

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Front:

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Good side:

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Despite how rough she looks/likely feels, Lily is still a lovely little lady.
 
Ladies and gentlemen: we may have discovered the root cause of Lily's eye problems and ongoing general malaise! :D I've been chatting with a few wonderful people behind the scenes, and it may very well be that Lily's issues can be tracked back to UVB overexposure. This overexposure theory would explain a lot of her behavior as of late - eyes closed while basking, squinting, sensitivity to D3, not reacting to antibiotics, etc etc. Though I'm running a 5.0 UVB, her primary basking site put her head and back within 5 inches of the UVB bulb, placing her at ~ 7 UVI according to a recent UVI chart provided to me by @Beman - a bit more than double where Lily ought to be! I rigged her up a frame to raise her UVB by another 5 inches, and she already seems more comfortable. Let this serve as a cautionary tale - too much UVB is just as dangerous as not enough! I'll be getting myself a SolarMeter as soon as I can swing it. Never again!

There's no guarantee this is Lily's only problem, but we should know within the next few weeks how much of a contributing factor it was. Thanks to everyone here at the cham forums, with extra special thanks to @Beman, @kinyonga, and @JoXie411 for supporting Lily and I through this! :love:

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Lily's back to making her snack faces :LOL:

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