Sunken eyes and lumps/bumps?

[shelton04]

Hello all,

My veiled chameleon, Frankie, has started acting weird the last few days. She has sunken eyes and hasn’t ate her roaches that were given to her on Friday. She doesn’t get fed over the weekend. I did however feed her a horned worm last light and she ate it and I tried feeding her three horned worms today and she has only ate one and hasn’t touched her super worms. Other than that she hasn’t ate anything. She looks to have lost some weight. She also seems to me moving slower than normal. Today she has been occasionally closing one eye as well. She did closed one eye shortly after I got her and I supplemented her by poking a vitamin a capsule with a needle and dripping one drop on a q-tip and swabbing her gums (per instructions I found on here) after a few times she stopped closing her eye and I haven’t treated her again with the capsules since.

Due to her sunken eyes I increased the misting time from 1 min three times a day to 2 mins three times a day. I also turned up her fogging machine that I run during the night. I also switch the fogging machine on today as well.

Today I noticed that she might have a bump on one of her rear ankles/feet or maybe I’m just seeing things? Also one of her front elbows looks enlarged as well. I also noticed what looks like little bumps on her tail. Any idea what this could be? Hopefully not gout?…

I will be looking to contact a vet tomorrow after I find one that works well with exotics. Not sure my current vet for the dogs is experienced with chameleons.

Chameleon Info:

• Your Chameleon - Veiled Chameleon, female, 1 year 3 months, I got her around 3 month old.
• Handling - Once a week.
• Feeding - Dubai Roaches 2-3 every other day. Horned worms 1-2 twice a week if I have them on hand. Super worms just purchased to see if she would eat them. I use Flukers high calcium roach diet.
• Supplements - Zoo med repti calcium without D3 every feeding. Reptivite with D3 twice a month.
• Watering - Mist king - 3 times a day at 1 min, now 2 mins. Repti Fogger runs at night - turned up halfway.
• Fecal Description - Based off one today dark brown with bright white urate. Has never been tested.
• History - Not that I can think of.

Cage Info:

• Cage Type - Repti Zoo 24W x 18D x 36H. Combo screen and glass.
• Lighting - 24” Zoo med uvb led combo. Just replaced the uvb bulb yesterday with an Arcadia 6%. It had a zoo med t5 5ho. It had been in use for almost a year…researched and found out they should be switched out every 6 months if I don’t have a way to test them. That’s my mistake, hopefully not a costly one . Runs 9am-9pm
• Temperature - Digital Thermometers 82-84 degrees in basking area and 68 degrees mid/bottom.
• Humidity - Digital humidity gauge. Right now it’s 81%. Usually runs around 50-60%
• Plants - Golden pathos
• Placement - Corner of living room.
• Location - Oklahoma City

 

[MissSkittles]

Hi. I’m going to go back and reread your husbandry, but nothing really jumped out at me so far. Has your girl laid eggs before? I see what I’m guessing is her lay bin on the left. Has she been receptive recently?

 

[shelton04]

Hi. I’m going to go back and reread your husbandry, but nothing really jumped out at me so far. Has your girl laid eggs before? I see what I’m guessing is her lay bin on the left. Has she been receptive recently?

Yes that is her lay bin. She has not laid eggs before and I haven’t noticed any such behavior.

 

[MissSkittles]

I use Flukers high calcium roach diet.

I would ditch that and just feed your bugs a variety of fresh produce. I give mine the same types of veggies and greens that I feed my beardies - low oxalates greens (mustard, turnip, dandelion, collard), various squashes, bell pepper, sweet potato, berries, melon, etc. I also give them a bit of Repashy Bug Burger just to make sure to round out their nutrition. The healthier your bugs are, the more nutritious they will be. Giving them diets high in protein can contribute to gout in our chams. Which is a good segue into feeders. One of my vets did tell me to avoid a diet exclusively or too high in roaches as it can contribute to gout. I believe this may be a debated belief, but I’m listening to my vet and avoiding tempting the fates. Gout would cause lumps/bumps at the joints and it is usually the leg or ankle joints in chams. Only a visit with a good vet and having blood work done will be able to tell if that is what is going on.

Has never been tested

Make sure to take a fresh fecal to have tested for parasites when you go to the vet.

• Cage Type - Repti Zoo 24W x 18D x 36H. Combo screen and glass.
• Lighting - 24” Zoo med uvb led combo. Just replaced the uvb bulb yesterday with an Arcadia 6%. It had a zoo med t5 5ho. It had been in use for almost a year…researched and found out they should be switched out every 6 months if I don’t have a way to test them. That’s my mistake, hopefully not a costly one . Runs 9am-9pm
• Temperature - Digital Thermometers 82-84 degrees in basking area and 68 degrees mid/bottom.
• Humidity - Digital humidity gauge. Right now it’s 81%. Usually runs around 50-60%
• Plants - Golden pathos

That’s a bit smaller of an enclosure than is preferred for adults. The standard is a 2x2x4’ or equivalent.
Arcadia bulbs are good for at least a year. I have a solarmeter and did test an older ReptiSun and it was surprisingly still putting off some decent uvb levels. Not ideal, but not bad for being over a year old.
Chams have sensitive eyes, so avoid using colored lights, especially those in the reds.
Your basking temp needs to come down a bit to around 80. It’s a part of the care in reducing egg production (along with limited feeding, which you are already doing).
50-60% is a tad high for daytime humidity. Ideal range is between 30-50%.
Yes! Pothos! More pothos! More plants! Give your lady a little jungle that she can get lost in. https://chameleonacademy.com/plants/
Have to ask - are her plants recently added? If so, did you carefully clean and rinse the leaves of them?
Does she have some sturdy and secure ways to get in/out of her lay bin?
Don’t give her anymore vitamin A or anything else. Even though we tend to think the problem has to be with the eye, since she’s closing it, with chameleons closing one or both eyes is a vague symptom that something is wrong. It isn’t necessarily an eye problem. Also, we need to be very cautious with vitamin A and other supplements. The vitamin A in Reptivite is preformed, meaning it is fat soluble and not easily excreted - can build up to toxic levels if not given cautiously.
Really, a vet visit is your best course of action. Do know though that not only are not all vets experienced or even see exotics, but many of those who do treat exotics aren’t always familiar with chameleons. So many tend to treat our chams the same as they do bearded dragons. If you look under the health tab of the forum, you’ll find sticky posts recommending vets (lots of reading, but hopefully you’ll find one). Another resource for reptile vets is https://arav.site-ym.com/search/custom.asp?id=3661
I hope I’ve been of some help to you. Btw, your lady is absolutely gorgeous. I hope you can get her back to good health and feeling great again.

 

[MissSkittles]

Oh boy! In that pic you posted last she is showing gravid coloration. Have you seen her in her lay bin at all? Once they start digging, they need absolute privacy or they will stop and can become egg bound. Is best to cover the lower half with a light sheet and just don’t disturb them unless literally the noise is on fire. Again, a vet is best to tell if she has eggs ready to be laid or not.

 

[shelton04]

I would ditch that and just feed your bugs a variety of fresh produce. I give mine the same types of veggies and greens that I feed my beardies - low oxalates greens (mustard, turnip, dandelion, collard), various squashes, bell pepper, sweet potato, berries, melon, etc. I also give them a bit of Repashy Bug Burger just to make sure to round out their nutrition. The healthier your bugs are, the more nutritious they will be. Giving them diets high in protein can contribute to gout in our chams. Which is a good segue into feeders. One of my vets did tell me to avoid a diet exclusively or too high in roaches as it can contribute to gout. I believe this may be a debated belief, but I’m listening to my vet and avoiding tempting the fates. Gout would cause lumps/bumps at the joints and it is usually the leg or ankle joints in chams. Only a visit with a good vet and having blood work done will be able to tell if that is what is going on.

Make sure to take a fresh fecal to have tested for parasites when you go to the vet.

That’s a bit smaller of an enclosure than is preferred for adults. The standard is a 2x2x4’ or equivalent.
Arcadia bulbs are good for at least a year. I have a solarmeter and did test an older ReptiSun and it was surprisingly still putting off some decent uvb levels. Not ideal, but not bad for being over a year old.
Chams have sensitive eyes, so avoid using colored lights, especially those in the reds.
Your basking temp needs to come down a bit to around 80. It’s a part of the care in reducing egg production (along with limited feeding, which you are already doing).
50-60% is a tad high for daytime humidity. Ideal range is between 30-50%.
Yes! Pothos! More pothos! More plants! Give your lady a little jungle that she can get lost in. https://chameleonacademy.com/plants/
Have to ask - are her plants recently added? If so, did you carefully clean and rinse the leaves of them?
Does she have some sturdy and secure ways to get in/out of her lay bin?
Don’t give her anymore vitamin A or anything else. Even though we tend to think the problem has to be with the eye, since she’s closing it, with chameleons closing one or both eyes is a vague symptom that something is wrong. It isn’t necessarily an eye problem. Also, we need to be very cautious with vitamin A and other supplements. The vitamin A in Reptivite is preformed, meaning it is fat soluble and not easily excreted - can build up to toxic levels if not given cautiously.
Really, a vet visit is your best course of action. Do know though that not only are not all vets experienced or even see exotics, but many of those who do treat exotics aren’t always familiar with chameleons. So many tend to treat our chams the same as they do bearded dragons. If you look under the health tab of the forum, you’ll find sticky posts recommending vets (lots of reading, but hopefully you’ll find one). Another resource for reptile vets is https://arav.site-ym.com/search/custom.asp?id=3661
I hope I’ve been of some help to you. Btw, your lady is absolutely gorgeous. I hope you can get her back to good health and feeling great again.

I will ditch the food and give her bugs a better variety. I started her out with crickets and switched to roaches probably six months ago based off what seemed to be a heavy push to switch from cricket to roaches from what I read on these forums so that seems to be a debated topic lol. I have tried to give her a variety of different feeder but I don’t always have them on hand but roaches are her main staple feeder, may need to be reduced to be safe. She’s loves horned worms so I get those on a consistent basis.

Hopefully I can collect a good stool sample and get her/it to the vet tomorrow if anyone has an opening.

Before I had purchased this enclosure I had read in multiple forums that this enclosure was a good size for an adult female, not necessarily and adult male though. So I bought this one right off the bat so she could grow into it. Did I get more bad information?
I’ve been trying since the beginning to not go cheap and buy her what will give her the best life.
I will cut off the additional lights in the back and see if that changes her behavior as well as making some adjustment to the humidity.

The plants are not recent. When I bought them, I changed out the soils and dipped them. They have been in there for quite some time now.

She has a vine that allows he to get in and out of her bin.

I haven’t given her anymore vitamin A from the capsules since she was about 4 months old. After some bad advice from the pet store when I bought her, I wasn’t supplementing her with Reptivite for the first month or so. She soon started to show symptoms of vitamin A deficiency and based off a write up of what seemed like a very well know and respected member of this site, I used his advice of supplementing vitamin A using capsules and a q-tip, carefully I will add. I supplemented it only a couple of times and she cleared right up . I then started supplementing with the Reptivite twice a month from there on out.

I will be looking through those vet recommendations and making calls first thing in the morning and try to get her in tomorrow afternoon .

Thank you so much for your recommendations and I will try implementing them and see if her behavior changes for the better.

 

[shelton04]

Oh boy! In that pic you posted last she is showing gravid coloration. Have you seen her in her lay bin at all? Once they start digging, they need absolute privacy or they will stop and can become egg bound. Is best to cover the lower half with a light sheet and just don’t disturb them unless literally the noise is on fire. Again, a vet is best to tell if she has eggs ready to be laid or not.

I have been reading all day about her and had also read about getting her some privacy for her lay bin. I’ve been worrying about her all day and didn’t get much done at work lol. But I will be fixing something up for her some privacy. I have not seen her in her lay bin, I’ve seen her in the bottom third of her enclosure recently but not roaming around. No signs of digging and I checked the sands moisture last night while she was sleeping and it seems perfect for digging.

Do you see anything that resembles gout? Also would her preparing to lay eggs cause her eyes to sink in?

 

[MissSkittles]

It’s often hard to find the correct info for keeping chams due to a combination of outdated info, worn info and just everyone has their individual opinions. If you don’t have any cats/dogs, maybe make your girl a nice free range area to explore (under supervision of course) a few times a week. Since your enclosure isn’t too far off from ideal, having a free range will be nice. Another option to think about would be to get another of the same enclosure and place them side by side to double her living space. Just ideas for the future. First you need to find out why she isn’t feeling well.
Sunken in eyes is usually a sign of dehydration, but can also be another of those vague signs that something is wrong and not necessarily with the eyes.
I think the majority of us don’t like crickets, but they are at times good to give to our chams. It’s not really that one feeder is any better than the other as much as it’s giving a variety that is ideal. For example, I give my chams at least 2 types of feeders with each feeding.
I keep my cover sheets on hand so that when my girls are needing them, I can just tack it up. The easiest way I’ve found to tack up their sheets is I keep some thin wire attached to the screen (pointy ends on the outside) and when needed, hang the sheet on them with safety pins. When I think they are very close to laying, I’ll usually put the sheet up to help them feel more secure. It’s only the bottom half that I cover.
Do keep us posted as to what the vet finds/says.

 

[shelton04]

I will be taking Frankie to Stoneridge Animal Hospital at 3:30 today. They are supposed to be very experience with chameleons and also with reptiles in general. Dr. Minson from what i have gathered has or maybe still does currently work with the Oklahoma City Zoo.

 

[shelton04]

Well unfortunately we got some bad news today. It is definitely gout. One of the sample areas was from her tail. She’s also has a acouple lumps in her mouth I guess.

I asked a ton of questions while I was there and he took the time and gladly answered all of them. He has been practicing for over 20 years and he specializes in exotics. The Dr. said he didn’t have any issues with any part of my husbandry and liked my humidity levels, misting routine, everything. He also didn’t see any issues with what I’m feeding, the roach diet or the supplements. I did ask about using roaches as my staple feeder and if he has seen that it can increase the risk of gout and he has never seen any evidence that could point to that. He said the protein difference in crickets and roaches is so minimal it is a non issue. He also said that many people are confusing how protein affects reptilia with how it affects mammals, etc. He said protein intake doesn’t have near the affect in reptilia.

All in all I not trying to prove anyone wrong or discredit anyone’s opinions because these forums have helped me greatly in caring for Frankie. I am just passing on the info the vet gave me today to maybe help others out or probably make this hobby even more confusing for people looking for help/answers lol.

Anyways, I was told to go nuts with hydration. Over do it. He stressed to not try using pedialyte or Gatorade if I were to read it somewhere. Continue to feed her what she’ll eat on her own but also it might come down to force feeding . I’m devastated from the news and can’t help to think I caused this but he ensured me that it was nothing I was doing wrong and to not feel guilty, if I was guilty he wouldn’t have a problem telling me. He said it can even be passed genetically.

 

[MissSkittles]

I’m sorry that your little beauty has gout. Did your vet prescribe anything for her comfort or to treat the gout? I can’t remember if it’s colchicine or allopurinol that is used in animals.

 

[shelton04]

Thank you. I hate it. No he didn’t send me home with anything. Just stressed that hydration and food intake was very important at this point and to monitor her closely.
I do appreciate all your advice.

 

[radstusky]

Ask your vet about treating with allopurinol. I'm actually dealing with the same thing with my chameleon right now and that is what she prescribed. Also, she wants me to switch to mealworms temporarily, because they're low in purines, which are a group of amino acids that get broken down to uric acid (the build up of which is the cause of gout). In addition, maintaining high hydration levels is critical to the treatment.

 

[shelton04]

Unfortunately Frankie passed away last night. Im shocked at how fast she went downhill. Last Friday was the first meal she missed and was the first time she showed any signs of being sick. Since not eating her food last Friday I had gotten her to eat 3 horned worms and 3 super worms and had increased her hydration drastically. I knew gout was not a good diagnosis for my girl but I did not expect her to go this fast. It’s heartbreaking honestly

This pic was her not even 3 weeks ago . She had just finished shedding.

 

[MissSkittles]

Oh no! I’m so sorry that your beautiful lady passed. May she Rest In Peace.

 

[GrannyK]

I’m so sorry to hear about your Frankie. she was a beautiful girl. May she rest in peace.