Mouth issues?

***EDIT: Looks like I was late to this party, so disregard lol. However, I would like to leave my story up so people can have an idea of the possibilities of a bad vet experience with chameleons.***


All I see is a dragon. And as others have cautioned already: Be WARY of what the vet says. If they aren't able to truly identify what you're seeing (I am personally not seeing anything) then I wouldn't do anything unless you see SIGNS of your chameleon in distress.

While it's always best to be ahead of it..... I feel like so many vets have no idea what to do with a chameleon. I took my veiled to a vet because I KNEW she was sick. I gave the vet all the symptoms, behavior.

He told me to put a bowl of water in the enclosure for her to drink and to add substrate at the bottom because "they like to walk around on the floor of the enclosure". He also said she looks great, there are no issues, she is just a little dehydrated BECAUSE I was only misting (and fogging!) and not giving her a bowl of water.

7 days later my female veiled passed away. 7 days later after being ignored by a veterinary professional of the symptoms I was worried about and being told my chameleon is perfectly fine.

Oh and...... another thing that really threw me off was the fact he told me "I had a few chameleons myself in the past. They're very difficult. I could never keep the buggers alive for more than a few weeks or so."

He literally said that to me. A vet said that. So ..... just be careful. I was smart enough to not listen to anything he said, but my point is just because they are a vet does not mean you should just simply take their advice. I hope your vet experience is far better than mine (my vet for my dogs are AMAZING, but they do not accept reptiles). Pay attention to what they say and make a determination for yourself if this vet seems to be knowledgeable about chameleons or not.
The issue was found in the fecal, he went in for a check up and parasites were found. I advised what I wanted to do for treatment based off what input I got here and that’s what’s being done

And he seems knowledgeable enough, he was an emergency vet for key west zoo in Florida for 20 years.
 
The issue was found in the fecal, he went in for a check up and parasites were found. I advised what I wanted to do for treatment based off what input I got here and that’s what’s being done

And he seems knowledgeable enough, he was an emergency vet for key west zoo in Florida for 20 years.
Awesome! Sorry your chameleon had parasites, but at least you know what's going on and how to treat it. Hope this takes care of it! I wish I had a real reptile vet near me 😐
 
He hasn’t written the script yet so I’m sure when that happens I’ll know what dosing he’s going to do.

And his current cage is a reptibreeze - I was half thinking about upgrading to a nicer one because of this and just start fresh but I’m assuming having a sterile quarantine cage is a good bet. Do people sometimes go down in size for the interim period since the cage is kept bare anyways?
I had an 18x18x36 for the guy I was treating. It is far easier to do a deep cleaning not to mention spot clean. It was actually my quarantine cage and I had a Dragon Strand on order which was supposed to be delivered a few weeks later. Very happy I had not gotten the DS first or I would have had to deal with full cleaning on a 2x2x4 hybrid.
 
I had an 18x18x36 for the guy I was treating. It is far easier to do a deep cleaning not to mention spot clean. It was actually my quarantine cage and I had a Dragon Strand on order which was supposed to be delivered a few weeks later. Very happy I had not gotten the DS first or I would have had to deal with full cleaning on a 2x2x4 hybrid.
Yeah as long as this doesn’t happen more than once I’ll be ecstatic

Not happy I’ll have to start sourcing feeders in the mail but what are you gonna do? 🤷‍♂️

Can’t prove it didn’t come from my store so I have reservations considering most of their business is beardeds
 
I had an 18x18x36 for the guy I was treating. It is far easier to do a deep cleaning not to mention spot clean. It was actually my quarantine cage and I had a Dragon Strand on order which was supposed to be delivered a few weeks later. Very happy I had not gotten the DS first or I would have had to deal with full cleaning on a 2x2x4 hybrid.
Did you hang onto the cage on the off chance you had to quarantine again?

I had an 18x18x36 I tossed, I’d probably hang onto this one. But this was what I was thinking. He’s not gonna be a happy camper for 6-8 weeks.

You’re saying use hard plastic plants up top for him to drink off of?
 
Did you hang onto the cage on the off chance you had to quarantine again?

I had an 18x18x36 I tossed, I’d probably hang onto this one. But this was what I was thinking. He’s not gonna be a happy camper for 6-8 weeks.

You’re saying use hard plastic plants up top for him to drink off of?
No, I ended up literally throwing away everything after what happened. I was so afraid of any chance of cross contamination to Beman. When Bahari did not make it through treatment, I cancelled my DS order and threw everything from his set up away.

You can use the hard plastic plants and hang them high in the cage so he can not poop on them. And no Iroh is gonna be really upset with all the change. This is why you want to wait on everything until you know when you are treating him and what the frequency will be.
 
No, I ended up literally throwing away everything after what happened. I was so afraid of any chance of cross contamination to Beman. When Bahari did not make it through treatment, I cancelled my DS order and threw everything from his set up away.

You can use the hard plastic plants and hang them high in the cage so he can not poop on them. And no Iroh is gonna be really upset with all the change. This is why you want to wait on everything until you know when you are treating him and what the frequency will be.
I’m assuming I’ll get a call today that meds have been sent over I missed a call today that the vet was confirming his weight as it didn’t make it into the chart when he was at the office
 
Milwaukee Wi

I called the vet back and confirmed the weight, I’m sure he just wants to make sure the dosing is appropriate
Yeah they have to have the exact weight to make sure the dosing amount is spot on. NOTE it can be far less traumatic for the cham if you can inject the meds into a feeder like a dubia and then immediately feed him that insect. So I would ask about getting a needle and a syringe for it to do this. When you have to medicate and hold them to shoot the meds in the very back of the throat (airway is in the front of the mouth so you can easily aspirate them if not done right) it can revert them to where they will not have anything to do with your hands. The hands become a threat to them and they relate them to something negative.
 
No, I ended up literally throwing away everything after what happened. I was so afraid of any chance of cross contamination to Beman. When Bahari did not make it through treatment, I cancelled my DS order and threw everything from his set up away.

You can use the hard plastic plants and hang them high in the cage so he can not poop on them. And no Iroh is gonna be really upset with all the change. This is why you want to wait on everything until you know when you are treating him and what the frequency will be.
The one thing about the quarantine I’m concerned about is that Iroh gets restless and goes down to the floor at times, he’d do this way more often when he was in an undersized cage with inadequate cover. I’m gonna have to watch him like a hawk to make sure I catch any poop shortly after it happens.

Thankfully, he’s pretty regular and the schedule is predictable.
 
The one thing about the quarantine I’m concerned about is that Iroh gets restless and goes down to the floor at times, he’d do this way more often when he was in an undersized cage with inadequate cover. I’m gonna have to watch him like a hawk to make sure I catch any poop shortly after it happens.

Thankfully, he’s pretty regular and the schedule is predictable.
Yeah I can understand that stress quite well. I would give him the false feeling of being in plants by hanging fake vines all around the outside of the cage. This may help him feel more settled.
 
Yeah I can understand that stress quite well. I would give him the false feeling of being in plants by hanging fake vines all around the outside of the cage. This may help him feel more settled.
Yeah I’m going to do something similar to this.

Do I have to do anything with my lighting fixtures that are outside of the cage but rested on top of it? I don’t know if I can afford to replace the uvb fixture
 
Yeah I’m going to do something similar to this.

Do I have to do anything with my lighting fixtures that are outside of the cage but rested on top of it? I don’t know if I can afford to replace the uvb fixture
Nope those are outside on top. Now for the surface the cage sits on you need to clean that. However your drainage works that is going to be another high risk exposure area. If you wet vac then your wet vac is contaminated as well.

When you are cleaning think about anything that involves fecal. Where it could land and where it could mix with water to spread out the oocysts.

Note you are going to want to become a handwashing freak during this entire process. Now I got paranoid and started wearing gloves as well granted I was hyper freaked out being as how I had not even been in the hobby for 9 months and had Beman in a huge 30 wide DS enclosure. So I was tripping out over every single cross contamination risk. to the point I bought a new wet vac for bemans cage as the other one had been compromised by the contaminated cage.
 
Nope those are outside on top. Now for the surface the cage sits on you need to clean that. However your drainage works that is going to be another high risk exposure area. If you wet vac then your wet vac is contaminated as well.

When you are cleaning think about anything that involves fecal. Where it could land and where it could mix with water to spread out the oocysts.

Note you are going to want to become a handwashing freak during this entire process. Now I got paranoid and started wearing gloves as well granted I was hyper freaked out being as how I had not even been in the hobby for 9 months and had Beman in a huge 30 wide DS enclosure. So I was tripping out over every single cross contamination risk. to the point I bought a new wet vac for bemans cage as the other one had been compromised by the contaminated cage.
Happy to hear the lighting should be good I was thinking maybe spray from my spray bottle hit it or something along those lines.

Vet got back to me with dosing - 0.4mls 4 doses

First two spaced out 48hrs

Two weeks after two more doses spaced out 48 hrs

Then I’m assuming the fecals are going to take place over two weeks following that.

The pharmacy called and stated that they’re pre measuring it in oral dosing syringes they called me shortly after I emailed my vet about a syringe to load up feeders with potentially.

I can probably get the cage together pretty quickly but now I’m wondering if I should be getting new feeders before he even starts treatment since I can’t confirm the source of infection at this time.
 
Happy to hear the lighting should be good I was thinking maybe spray from my spray bottle hit it or something along those lines.

Vet got back to me with dosing - 0.4mls 4 doses

First two spaced out 48hrs

Two weeks after two more doses spaced out 48 hrs

Then I’m assuming the fecals are going to take place over two weeks following that.

The pharmacy called and stated that they’re pre measuring it in oral dosing syringes they called me shortly after I emailed my vet about a syringe to load up feeders with potentially.

I can probably get the cage together pretty quickly but now I’m wondering if I should be getting new feeders before he even starts treatment since I can’t confirm the source of infection at this time.
So unless dubia are contaminated by another source you do not see them carrying coccidia. Now here is another risk... If you were tossing any un eaten feeders from the cage back into your bins then you have high contamination risk.

If you have any risk at all with the feeders you have then yes get new ones from a reputable seller like Dubia.com or Rainbowmealworms. I would suggest injecting into the abdomen (meaty part) of the insect.

So when are you leaving on your trip? You should be able to give the first two doses at least a week prior to your trip and then have the last 2 doses after you get back.

Test the fecal again 2 weeks after the final dose... Then I would follow up with another two fecals spaced out 2-3 weeks apart after that.
 
So unless dubia are contaminated by another source you do not see them carrying coccidia. Now here is another risk... If you were tossing any un eaten feeders from the cage back into your bins then you have high contamination risk.

If you have any risk at all with the feeders you have then yes get new ones from a reputable seller like Dubia.com or Rainbowmealworms. I would suggest injecting into the abdomen (meaty part) of the insect.

So when are you leaving on your trip? You should be able to give the first two doses at least a week prior to your trip and then have the last 2 doses after you get back.

Test the fecal again 2 weeks after the final dose... Then I would follow up with another two fecals spaced out 2-3 weeks apart after that.
The trip is just one and a half days, June 29th.

You’re probably right I could get his two doses in before then.

I always discard uneaten feeder insects

I don’t know if the vets gonna go for the administering with feeders as the vector but I put a note in for him via email he should get back to me before I have his quarantine set up put together
 
The trip is just one and a half days, June 29th.

You’re probably right I could get his two doses in before then.

I always discard uneaten feeder insects
Just make sure you can be there for a 5 days after the 2nd dose to keep an eye on him. Hydration will be important while he is going through treatment along with keeping him eating... Will he cup feed with you holding a cup?
 
Just make sure you can be there for a 5 days after the 2nd dose to keep an eye on him. Hydration will be important while he is going through treatment along with keeping him eating... Will he cup feed with you holding a cup?
Yes he will. Not always with dubias though sometimes I have to put them on the mesh of his cage or hand/tong feed him those as they don’t have a lot of movement.
 
Yes he will. Not always with dubias though sometimes I have to put them on the mesh of his cage or hand/tong feed him those as they don’t have a lot of movement.
ok so try to get him to cup feed... Shake them around in the cup while he is looking at them. Do this method only right now. see if you can get him to fully transfer to this as it will be 10 times easier for you to not only medicate him but to ensure there is not potential for contamination since you are holding the feeding method and it has nothing to do with being in the cage.

Make sure you sterilize the tongs you were using. And be very cautious using these I have seen some horrific things happen to chams that tong feed and end up with serious tongue injuries.
 
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