Dr O
Veterinarian
Fair warning—this is a somewhat lengthy musing on facts vs. guesses, my own experiences as of late and in the past, and the usefulness of one of the most powerful but grossly underused diagnostic tools in reptile medicine. there are some included photos near the end that may be uncomfortable for some to view.
i've had a bad week. losing a chameleon is difficult enough, losing three is much worse than 3x normal difficulty. and being a veterinarian comes with it's own conscience unto itself; one that can bring me peace when things go right and sick animals become healthy, but one that also has the ability to tear you apart if you listen to it too much when things go wrong. most vets that i know have a fairly high degree of perfectionism built into our psyches, and if an animal turns towards the worse or dies we can beat ourselves senseless thinking about what we may have been able to do better or differently for a better outcome. most of the time we realize that we did our best and the end result was unavoidable, but that doesn't necessarily make the agonizing phase any less painful as it occurs. here's one of my little husbandry secrets: whenever a new chameleon or pet joins our family, i find a quiet moment, look that lizard in the eye and promise to do my absolute best to make his or her life as comfortable and healthy as i possibly can.
so i was rattled to say the least for the past few days. even to the point where the day after #3, i was making excuses to do anything but to go out to my enclosure and take care of my gang. i just didn't think i could handle another loss, and my imagination was even worse, telling me that i was going to find several dead that day, not even one. because if that was the case than my previous answers that i found during necropsies would have been wrong, and that would mean that I was doing something wrong. and that's just something that i cannot abide when it comes to my own pets. thankfully everyone else still is thriving, to the point where i was even able to separate some recent hatchlings as a subset are just growing like wildfire. time heals, and a few days later i find myself needing to share and educate.
there have been untold instances in the forum where something goes badly for someone, and they may place blame. on lighting wattage, a brand of supplementation, someone burned a Teflon pan, their new generic water filterer, the stars being misaligned, whatever. and that may be human nature. however sometimes that blame intensifies and continues to the point where the person may feel the need to turn others away from what they felt was dangerous, and they feel like they are accomplishing something by doing so. and that's 100% fine (in my book) when the blame is accurate, of course we need to get the word out and warn others before they go through the same pain! but i see too many instances where that blame appears unfounded, random, unjust, and maybe just incorrect altogether. as someone trained in scientific methodology, that seems wrong to me, and even dangerous under certain circumstances.
so what can i do for this dead lizard that i promised i would take care of? or the others that are still alive but depending on me? and what can i do to help myself through my own grieving process? in this particular circumstance, the answer is.....to find the answer. and that is done by necropsy.
auto- is from the Greek word autos, meaning self. so an autopsy is performed on ourselves as a species, and necropsy is the post-mortem examination of another species. the basic point of these diagnostic tools is to give answers as to why a death occurred. doesn't that method seem the logical choice for an answer, and to see where blame may lie? as blame has somewhat of a negative connotation, let's replace it with accountability. i needed to know if i was accountable for the deaths of so many adult chameleons so suddenly. i have done as many necropsies in my career as i possibly could; there is no better learning tool than to be able to look through the body's organs and systems, macroscopically and microscopically to have as pure an understanding of normal vs. disease states as is possible. i don't care how many x-rays we take, MRI's, ultrasounds. they are all useful tools each with their own advantages and disadvantages to try and see inside the body, but to have eyes and hands on and in the body just beats all. and a textbook description or photograph of let's say a liver with chirrosis just doesn't give 10% of what it is like to see that liver, handle it, look at the destruction of the cells under the microscope, feel the scar tissue in your fingertips. in practice it became one of my employees favorite things to see. not for gore, but they too found that everything that they ever heard me discussing with a patient or doctor was now right there in front of them, they learned something, and felt better about themselves for doing so. and i have never come away from a necropsy without seeing something different, or maybe even something the same that helped reinforce what i already knew. it is a powerful, powerful tool to find an answer, and to help others in the future that may have a similar problem.
so i did necropsies on the three chams that i lost. had i not, i would still be wondering about untold circumstantial issues that in the end had no relation whatsoever to the deaths. and that right there is probably my main hope for this post: that others consider having necropsies done more often by a competent veterinarian when the cause of death is unclear. there's only two other options i can see that person doing otherwise; not changing anything and assuming that they are doing everything correctly already, or changing something or lots of things, possibly to the detriment of the other chameleons who were already doing well. but the main point is that all that would still be a guess when there is yet another option that can give much-needed answers.
female #1 was in the second stage of articular gout formation. she was the first reptile i have ever owned who came down with gout. although we know a fair bit about what causes gout, there is still much more left that is unexplained. additionally, treatment options consist of only trying to slow the progression of the disease as the crystals that have been deposited cannot be removed even with surgery. reptiles in general have a terrible prognosis. what made her case even more difficult is that she was gravid and near-term to laying. but how could she possibly dig a nest if she wasn't even able to grasp a branch anymore due to the pain? discussion with other reptile vets was unanimous; she needed to be euthanized. even then i still nursed this cham (who has bitten me in the past any and every chance she could get) for several more days, using strong medications for her pain and nursing her in other ways until it was evident that she could no longer make it. as i was literally going to draw up the anesthesia for a quick c-section followed by euthanasia solution, she died. i have her eggs, and time will tell. the reason that she developed gout was due to recent dehydration. she just went into a nosedive as her eggs grew, her hormones and metabolism changed, and became anorexic. i have read that articular gout can seemingly pop up almost overnight, and i bear witness to that. everything that was going on compounded by her age as a breeding female (3 1/2 years) and some likely early renal disease caused an enormous shift in her uric acid pathway, and protein crystals precipitated out of her body and into every single joint space that i inspected. other cases of gout that i have seen in practice were typically diet related (e.g.-turtles and iguanas on cat food) and were far worse textbook-wise. but hers popped up just when she needed to dig a nest, and if she couldn't do that, she would have become eggbound and died that way. had this been at any other time i may have been able to alleviate some of her signs and pain, but the medicines that we have take months to work, if they work at all. so it was a lot of things going wrong at the most inopportune moment, but it was also the moment that caused the things to go wrong. there was no winning here.
female #2 was found dead on her cage floor a few days later. she had laid her first clutch 6 weeks ago and just never seemed to recover, even with extra supplements and care. she was by far the smallest chameleon that i have and ideally should have been a pet. she wasn't cut out for breeding. other than the missing fat stores in her body and muscle atrophy, there were no other gross issues noted on necropsy. her death saddens me, as i am the only one who could have changed any of that for her. i failed my promise to her, and won't forget that. the next time something like that happens, she goes to a non-breeding home.
(to be continued)
i've had a bad week. losing a chameleon is difficult enough, losing three is much worse than 3x normal difficulty. and being a veterinarian comes with it's own conscience unto itself; one that can bring me peace when things go right and sick animals become healthy, but one that also has the ability to tear you apart if you listen to it too much when things go wrong. most vets that i know have a fairly high degree of perfectionism built into our psyches, and if an animal turns towards the worse or dies we can beat ourselves senseless thinking about what we may have been able to do better or differently for a better outcome. most of the time we realize that we did our best and the end result was unavoidable, but that doesn't necessarily make the agonizing phase any less painful as it occurs. here's one of my little husbandry secrets: whenever a new chameleon or pet joins our family, i find a quiet moment, look that lizard in the eye and promise to do my absolute best to make his or her life as comfortable and healthy as i possibly can.
so i was rattled to say the least for the past few days. even to the point where the day after #3, i was making excuses to do anything but to go out to my enclosure and take care of my gang. i just didn't think i could handle another loss, and my imagination was even worse, telling me that i was going to find several dead that day, not even one. because if that was the case than my previous answers that i found during necropsies would have been wrong, and that would mean that I was doing something wrong. and that's just something that i cannot abide when it comes to my own pets. thankfully everyone else still is thriving, to the point where i was even able to separate some recent hatchlings as a subset are just growing like wildfire. time heals, and a few days later i find myself needing to share and educate.
there have been untold instances in the forum where something goes badly for someone, and they may place blame. on lighting wattage, a brand of supplementation, someone burned a Teflon pan, their new generic water filterer, the stars being misaligned, whatever. and that may be human nature. however sometimes that blame intensifies and continues to the point where the person may feel the need to turn others away from what they felt was dangerous, and they feel like they are accomplishing something by doing so. and that's 100% fine (in my book) when the blame is accurate, of course we need to get the word out and warn others before they go through the same pain! but i see too many instances where that blame appears unfounded, random, unjust, and maybe just incorrect altogether. as someone trained in scientific methodology, that seems wrong to me, and even dangerous under certain circumstances.
so what can i do for this dead lizard that i promised i would take care of? or the others that are still alive but depending on me? and what can i do to help myself through my own grieving process? in this particular circumstance, the answer is.....to find the answer. and that is done by necropsy.
auto- is from the Greek word autos, meaning self. so an autopsy is performed on ourselves as a species, and necropsy is the post-mortem examination of another species. the basic point of these diagnostic tools is to give answers as to why a death occurred. doesn't that method seem the logical choice for an answer, and to see where blame may lie? as blame has somewhat of a negative connotation, let's replace it with accountability. i needed to know if i was accountable for the deaths of so many adult chameleons so suddenly. i have done as many necropsies in my career as i possibly could; there is no better learning tool than to be able to look through the body's organs and systems, macroscopically and microscopically to have as pure an understanding of normal vs. disease states as is possible. i don't care how many x-rays we take, MRI's, ultrasounds. they are all useful tools each with their own advantages and disadvantages to try and see inside the body, but to have eyes and hands on and in the body just beats all. and a textbook description or photograph of let's say a liver with chirrosis just doesn't give 10% of what it is like to see that liver, handle it, look at the destruction of the cells under the microscope, feel the scar tissue in your fingertips. in practice it became one of my employees favorite things to see. not for gore, but they too found that everything that they ever heard me discussing with a patient or doctor was now right there in front of them, they learned something, and felt better about themselves for doing so. and i have never come away from a necropsy without seeing something different, or maybe even something the same that helped reinforce what i already knew. it is a powerful, powerful tool to find an answer, and to help others in the future that may have a similar problem.
so i did necropsies on the three chams that i lost. had i not, i would still be wondering about untold circumstantial issues that in the end had no relation whatsoever to the deaths. and that right there is probably my main hope for this post: that others consider having necropsies done more often by a competent veterinarian when the cause of death is unclear. there's only two other options i can see that person doing otherwise; not changing anything and assuming that they are doing everything correctly already, or changing something or lots of things, possibly to the detriment of the other chameleons who were already doing well. but the main point is that all that would still be a guess when there is yet another option that can give much-needed answers.
female #1 was in the second stage of articular gout formation. she was the first reptile i have ever owned who came down with gout. although we know a fair bit about what causes gout, there is still much more left that is unexplained. additionally, treatment options consist of only trying to slow the progression of the disease as the crystals that have been deposited cannot be removed even with surgery. reptiles in general have a terrible prognosis. what made her case even more difficult is that she was gravid and near-term to laying. but how could she possibly dig a nest if she wasn't even able to grasp a branch anymore due to the pain? discussion with other reptile vets was unanimous; she needed to be euthanized. even then i still nursed this cham (who has bitten me in the past any and every chance she could get) for several more days, using strong medications for her pain and nursing her in other ways until it was evident that she could no longer make it. as i was literally going to draw up the anesthesia for a quick c-section followed by euthanasia solution, she died. i have her eggs, and time will tell. the reason that she developed gout was due to recent dehydration. she just went into a nosedive as her eggs grew, her hormones and metabolism changed, and became anorexic. i have read that articular gout can seemingly pop up almost overnight, and i bear witness to that. everything that was going on compounded by her age as a breeding female (3 1/2 years) and some likely early renal disease caused an enormous shift in her uric acid pathway, and protein crystals precipitated out of her body and into every single joint space that i inspected. other cases of gout that i have seen in practice were typically diet related (e.g.-turtles and iguanas on cat food) and were far worse textbook-wise. but hers popped up just when she needed to dig a nest, and if she couldn't do that, she would have become eggbound and died that way. had this been at any other time i may have been able to alleviate some of her signs and pain, but the medicines that we have take months to work, if they work at all. so it was a lot of things going wrong at the most inopportune moment, but it was also the moment that caused the things to go wrong. there was no winning here.
female #2 was found dead on her cage floor a few days later. she had laid her first clutch 6 weeks ago and just never seemed to recover, even with extra supplements and care. she was by far the smallest chameleon that i have and ideally should have been a pet. she wasn't cut out for breeding. other than the missing fat stores in her body and muscle atrophy, there were no other gross issues noted on necropsy. her death saddens me, as i am the only one who could have changed any of that for her. i failed my promise to her, and won't forget that. the next time something like that happens, she goes to a non-breeding home.
(to be continued)
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