Nematodes? Help!

[katkat669]

My Panther Chameleon hasn't been eating very well for quite a while. He will maybe eat 1 or 2 worms and a cricket every 3 days, and even then I usually have to force him to eat them. This has been going on for about 2 months. He does not seem to have lost any weight but his eyeshave been sunken for about the last 2 weeks and he is very sluggish, and sleeps all day. Today I noticed a small worm, live, in the bottom of his cage next to the feces. I searched the web and discovered it was a nematode. Since this morning I have cleaned his enclosure completely with a 10% bleach solution, and changed the feeder's enclosures as well. I also found 2 more worms under his plant, only they were dried up. How serious are these parasites? I have Panacure that I have been giving our corn snake as a precaution against parasites and found a site saying that it would also cure them. The site didn't list any doses for chameleons though. The snake gets about 75 mg/kg every 2 weeks. What dosage and frequency should I give this to my chameleon to cure the nematodes? Has anyone else experienced this problem? I am very worried and would love to hear some success stories in curing this. Thank you.

 

[lonomac]

He will need panacure, I dont know the correct dosage offhand but I have seen it in previous threads. I lost a cham last year from these, it is serious.

 

[katkat669]

Thank you. I will try to find the correct dosage. How long did your cham show symptoms before it died?

 

[chamlover]

I am in the middle of going through this with 3 of my chams, lucky me. When i posted the same question, these were the replies i got

When I have a wormy cham , I administer Panacur once every 7 days until no more visible worms are observed. Then I adminsiter every 14 days for 3 more dosages.

Panacur does not kill the worms directly . It blocks carbohydrate absorption of the worms , so that they starve. Administering 3 doses at 14 day intervals after the death of the last worm, endures that any hatching eggs are also destroyed. Panacur can only indirectly kill live worms , not the eggs.

Once thats complete, you may want to do a follow up fecal within 3 months.

Glittergloomgirl said:
1cc of panacur if you use a little more its ok panacur is pretty safe.

Marty said: From what I keep hearing Panacur (aka fenbendazole) is very safe. It's really used extensively as a horse dewormer. I've read a study somewhere that they treated pregnant mares with it at extreme dosages, something like 1200 times the dose with no ill effects to the mare or the baby horse (colt I believe is the term . There are some dart frog keepers in the hobby that actually preventively dust the fruit flies with panacur and vitamins with no ill effects and claim that their frogs are in top shape with no parasitic burden to deal with... the guy is actually an exotic vet. I'm not one for over medicating with dewormers, but I thought I'd chime in.

Hope that helps
debby

 

[lbesok]

I believe that the recommended dosage would be .1cc per 100g and agree that it is relatively safe.

 

[katkat669]

Thanks so much for your help. I gave him his first dose of Panacur yesterday. I gave him .1 cc. How long before I can see improvement. And just to be sure, how often should I give him this?

 

[Jeweledchameleons]

Don't rule out that the nematodes may also be coming from your plant and not from the insides of your animal and that your problems may be due to something else.
If your animal is a wild caught import there's a good chance that it is infected.

All I'm saying is that it's not good to be overly focused upon one thing vs the larger picture of what may be going wrong.

good luck!
jeweled chameleons

 

[katkat669]

I'm not just basing it on the fact that I found the nematode. He also expresses all the other symptoms, like the sunken eyes, loss of appetite, and the sluggishness. Since the panacur is relatively harmless then I thought that it wouldn't hurt to give it to him to make sure, since it is given as a preventative any way. What other problems could it be?

 

[Toezie]

I just took my guy to the vet today and he had some flagella in his poop so she gave me Panacur to give him. We give him .05 mL a day for three days. Then I take him back in a month to check his poop again. But he didn't have evidence of full on nematodes yet, so it might be slightly different.

Hope that helps give you an idea.

 

[katkat669]

I gave him .1 cc on July 22, when should his next dosage be? I don't want to overdose him, but I want to give him enough to get rid of the parasites as quickly as possible. I am just afraid that once a week won't be enough.

 

[lbesok]

Weekly intervals should be sufficient. The idea is the first round of Panacur kills the adult nematodes, and you may see more evidence of this in the poos Then the second round kills the left over eggs that may have hatched since the first treatment.
From what I understand different vets may prescribe different treatments depending on the worm... the second dose is typically prescribed 1,2,or 3 weeks later.
My RX for Panacur, recommends a first dose, followed by a second dose in 3wks.
Debby said she does every week until she sees no visible nematodes then backs off to every 2wks for 3 more doses.