New adoptees and vet visits

[moviemanmania]

I have adopted two new panthers in the past two weeks and both are suffering from their left eye closing. They came to me with these conditions and they both seem to be very much the same symptoms. When I do get them to open their eyes it isn't clear and appears foggy/hazy. Saline rinses havent helped in the slightest. I have made a vet appointment for both of them tomorrow afternoon and was wondering If there is any advice experienced keepers or others who've dealt with these issues before could recommend to me before meeting with the vet. Thanks in advance.

 

[KatiLemons]

Have you tried a long shower? I have also heard some people talk about Vitamin A deficency causeing eye problems. Try searching about this. I am no expert with this deficency so I would definalty research it first before you start trying to supplement with it. I have heard that it can be hard on a chams system. Hope this helped!

 

[Elizadolots]

Eyes are sort of a "tell" for chameleons...sort of like I can tell my daughter has a fever by looking at her eyes.

Eyes closing doesn't necessarily mean there's a problem with the eyes. You might benefit from filling out THE FORM.

Just copy the questions, paste them into a reply and add your responses. The experienced experts here might be able to see something that can be changed to improve the situation.

 

[jannb]

I think going to the vet is the right thing to do and find out exactly what's going on with their eyes instead of just guessing while it could get worse.

 

[Olimpia]

All I can tell you is that Cobalt had a cloudy eye for a little bit. He was keeping it closed and I knew he had shed in there. Rinses and showers helped and he kept it open for days. Then he went back to closing it, and there was nothing I could do about it. The vet gave me a triple antibiotic ointment for the eye, in case it was infected and told me to just see how it goes. I would give him the ointment with a q tip and he would rub his own eye against it. Then one day shortly after he had it open but I could see something sticking out of it so I got it out (I have years of vet volunteer experience, I wouldn't normally do something like this if I didn't feel confident that I'm not doing what I think I'm doing) and it was an entire eye cap of something, totally solid.

He was in the vet the next morning and the vet confirmed that this is what he figured I would find. The eye underneath was now a little cloudy and we imagined that after a week of having that in there he'd scratched his lens and he might be partially blind.

Now, a month or more later he is using his eye just fine. The cloudiness went away and he has it almost back to normal. He hunts on his own without problem.

It's possible that yours have some similar trauma on their eyes, and hopefully the vet can give you an ointment similar to mine and they can be back to normal soon. Good luck!

 

[moviemanmania]

Today I brought Satine the Blue Bar ambilobe female and the newly (2 days) adopted male ambanja to the vet. Both were experiencing very similar symptoms of closing the left eye. Both came from homes that only fed them one feeder and didn't gut load the crickets correctly.

The vet did a close inspection of the both of their eyes and took a culture from the male ambanjas eye as it was more cloudy then the females. He said there was no built up of material or fluids inside of their eye that could be causing the issue. He cleaned out their eyes really well and showed me how to administer an antibiotic drop into their eyes. The drops are ciprofloxacin hydrochloride and he wants me to administer one drop to the eye 3-4 times a day. He also instructed me to clean out the eye daily with saline solution and a small catheter tube, inserting the tip of the catheter tube into the eye and administering the saline this way. I am to do this 30-45 minutes before the first round of antibiotics of the day. :-( Boy are they going to hate me for this!

He made a note and asked me about her tongue. He said during the examine the female's mouth seemed much more yellow than his and that she had small 'nodes' on her tongue when he applied pressure to it. Does anyone know if these nodes are normal? I've never heard of this...

I will get the results from the culture Monday and he wants me to stop using the repashy vit. a supplements and instead make a paste from spirulina and water and inject that into a feeder once a day. He chooses this instead of the retinal because its a natural form of vit. a that they are less likely to overdose on. He also advised me to keep them at 75 or high at night as to increase their immune response.

My main concern now is all of the stress of washing and administering the antibiotics might only aid in their illness...

 

[ataraxia]

Spirulina - This will be very interesting to see if this will cure your eye issues.

Panthers on the other hand from reading repashy's post's. i dont think it is possible to overdose on the preformed vit A content in his calcium plus product.

 

[moviemanmania]

Why would a panther not be able to overdose on it? It has a warning label on it that warns users of such.

 

[ataraxia]

you can pm him. basically from what i read, your panther can have it with every feeding. i would think the disclaimer is for the more sensitive animals like montanes.

Im a week into using the product on my personal animals. so far i dont see any issues. im using it every feeding on the veileds and panthers. for the jacksons and hoe's im doing every third feeding. time will tell though

 

[moviemanmania]

Yes we will stay in touch and share/compare progress. I couldn't find the spirulina by itself locally so I just ordered it from amazon.

 

[moviemanmania]

you can pm him.

Pm him? What's Pm?

 

[Allen Repashy]

I will get the results from the culture Monday and he wants me to stop using the repashy vit. a supplements and instead make a paste from spirulina and water and inject that into a feeder once a day. He chooses this instead of the retinal because its a natural form of vit. a that they are less likely to overdose on.

Wow, does your vet see a lot of Herps? I really don't know what to say about his spirulina recommendation other than that is bad advice. I suggest you tell him to read DR. Maders book, or the ARAV publications on Retinol and Beta Carotene and their conclisions on the ability of panther chameleons to utilize beta carotene.
Panthers may be able to convert small amounts of it, and with a high quality diet of properly gutloaded and varied insects, get enough, but to recommend it to treat clinical signs of deficiency is in my opinion, the prescription of someone who isn't keeping up on herp nutrition.

If your chameleon has an eye problem and your vet has diagnosed it to be a vitamin A deficiency, (which it appears from your report) your animal needs retinol, preformed Vitamin A not beta carotene, which must be converted to retinol by the animal.

Allen

 

[ataraxia]

private message

 

[moviemanmania]

Wow, does your vet see a lot of Herps? I really don't know what to say about his spirulina recommendation other than that is bad advice. I suggest you tell him to read DR. Maders book, or the ARAV publications on Retinol and Beta Carotene and their conclisions on the ability of panther chameleons to utilize beta carotene.
Panthers may be able to convert small amounts of it, and with a high quality diet of properly gutloaded and varied insects, get enough, but to recommend it to treat clinical signs of deficiency is in my opinion, the prescription of someone who isn't keeping up on herp nutrition.

If your chameleon has an eye problem and your vet has diagnosed it to be a vitamin A deficiency, (which it appears from your report) your animal needs retinol, preformed Vitamin A not beta carotene, which must be converted to retinol by the animal.

Allen

Allen,
The vet I saw teaches at the Louisiana state University. I am unfamiliar with him as far as his background but he did seem fairly knowledgeable about chameleons. The spirulina uses a beta carotene as the vit. a source? What would you recommend to treat the vit. a def. with then?

 

[moviemanmania]

Allen,
Do I have to worry about overdosing the panther chameleon from your vit. a supplement?

 

[Allen Repashy]

You need to carefully read the directions on the label..... short answer is yes, you can overdose chameleons if you use too much. Just the same way you can with any fat soluble vitamin. The instructions on the label are for maintenance supplementation and recommend you consult a vet for using it to treat deficiency. I don't think the vet you are working with would be the one to ask because he is telling you to use beta carotene instead

Find a better vet, or use it more often than for the maintenance dose until you see results. I am not a vet and have not seen your animal so am not qualified to tell you how to treat your chameleon.

This thread might get you pointed in the right direction.

https://www.chameleonforums.com/how-do-you-give-vit-68133/

 

[moviemanmania]

Yes, I've read and post on that thread also Allen. Thank you for responding to the post I value your feedback.

 

[moviemanmania]

UPDATE: Vet called today and said that the culture drawn from he male's eye came back positive for a gram-negative pseudonomans bacterial infection. Because the infections contains a gram negative bacteria the cell walls of this bacteria are coated with an endotoxin that is difficult and resilient to most antibiotics. If left untreated the endotoxins can enter the circulatory system and cause toxic reactions such as high temperature, respiration rates, low blood pressure, and eventually endotoxic shocks. The antibiotic drops that the vet originally prescribed are working fast enough so the vet is calling in a new prescription drops but these have to be made by hand as they are a compounded treatment. Hopefully the new drops will get their eyes back open and fully functioning soon.

I also asked the vet why he would use the spirulina over retinal and he responded saying that the spirulina is one of the highest concentrations of beta-carotene that is naturally occurring and that even if the chameleon absorbs a little of it that it would be better to treat it this way then risking an overdose form a retinal source.

 

[moviemanmania]

Update: The male panther has not improved any since changing the eye drop antiobiotics to amikacin. Nor has Adding the paste form of spurlina to his feedings to increase his intake of vit. A. I've tried giving him ritnyl sources of vit. a also but to no success does he still want to keep his eye open.

Today, I took him back to the vet for a re-check. The vet and I are convinced that the problem is not vit. a related. He examined his eye turret, and mouth, and drew blood to look at the white blood cell count. The white blood cell count could give us an indication as to how serious the condition is. The Amikacin drops have cleared his eye up considerably but he still closes it.

The vet says there may be an abscess or something under his eye that may not be treatable with antibiotics. Dr. is now treating him with batryil and an anti-imflamatory MetaCam.

Anyone have anything that could enlighten my little boy's case?

 

[jannb]

I sure hate to hear that he's not improved. The only think I can think of is to go to or at least consult with a different vet and see if they might know of something different.