One eye shrunk and swollen..

[aspen chameleon]

Ok so first off I was in the ONLY local pet store (PETCO) the other day and they had a veiled that was being cared for properly (no drip system, glass aquaruim, high schoolers that just needed a job, etc) Well long story short I bought him. He is only maybe a few months old and has a sore around one of his eyes and it is constantly shut and shrunken with no movement in it. Any suggestions? I'm making an appt. with a reptile vet (2.5 hrs away) but wanted to get some input first. Thx

 

[cushcameleon]

Have any pictures? What are you currently keeping him in?

 

[aspen chameleon]

open air screen cage 2'x2'x4' running up to snap some shots.. brb

 

[aspen chameleon]

good eye-

bad eye -

 

[Rocky]

Looks to me like a possible eye infection. I would try to find a herp vet. The problem with eye infections is that they can easily spread and thats why the face will start to swell up. We are dealing with a girl that has an eye infection and she gets eye drops twice a day and an antibiotic in her mouth once a day. It has made her jump back and look 100% better.

My best advice would be to goto the vet. It reall sucks when pet stores don't take care of their animals properly. I'm not 100% sure about Petco, but I know our local petstore is supposed to pay for vet bills for the first month. You may want to check into that.

 

[lybeck]

I work at PETCO and they will pay for the vet bills as long as you bring it back within 15 days of the purchase.

 

[aspen chameleon]

I'll give them a call.. we're on day 2.. He had it when I bought him.. but chalked it up to poor nourishment.

 

[Weekendherper]

Looks like my carpet chams eye last week. Within one day of applying Terramycin, she looked back to normal. I caught it very early though.

 

[philanddeb818]

While you wait to get to the vet, try flushing the eye with saline solution. Sometimes a bit of shed gets into the eye and causes it to close. Even if an infection is present, a saline flush will not harm the cham's eye.

 

[writh]

take it back to petco they will have a vet treat the cham and u can buy it back later. that is what they told me first time i got one from them.. its had kinda the same issue I had, it shut its eye after 2 days of bringing him home but sadly they couldn't save him.... petco is not the best place to buy chams they do not take good care of them. To them its just a business...

 

[Breeze]

oh I have a post like this in the lizard lounge, same thing happened with a female adult jackson. the eye was disgusting. but the weird thing is, is that yes the are teen punks working there, the other chams were pretty healthy. They had screened enclosures and well they took care of all the animals there, even 2 big anacondas but anyways, it's pretty sad.

 

[tkilgour]

take it back to petco they will have a vet treat the cham and u can buy it back later. that is what they told me first time i got one from them.. its had kinda the same issue I had, it shut its eye after 2 days of bringing him home but sadly they couldn't save him.... petco is not the best place to buy chams they do not take good care of them. To them its just a business...

Yeah take it back to petco and request your money back if you can. Depending on the problem , there is a treatment that has been studied that suggests the use of Vitamin A w/ ritinol palmitate in gel cap form. This is good for eye health and you can smear the oil on the feeders for 3-5 days. After the 5th day you may see improvements. Also, ask the chameleon company about Vitamin A, he will have some suggestions.