Veiled cham, 11 months old, one eye closed, rubbing on and off

S

ssc97

Member
Hi all... My 11 month old veiled cham is having an eye issue which has been going on for the past 2 days. She's got her right eye consistently closed and is rubbing it on a branch. I've had her for about 7 months, she's been pretty healthy up until now. She had a poo this morning and the urates was white and the poo looked normal. She also ate, had about 10 bugs today (she's about 11 months old now).

I don't see any discharge coming out of the eye and I've been misting her regularly.

Today I put her on a plant in the shower for 30 mins and she seemed to enjoy it, and also did a 0.9% saline solution on her eye just to try to see if that would help.

Her eye's been a bit funny for the last 2 days.

I will make a vet's appt but the vet is closed for the weekend. I will try to get her in ASAP but our nearby vet's is pretty busy and realistically I probably won't be able to get her in until Thurs/Fri of next week.

I think it might be one of a few things, wondering if anyone else may have an opinion on how to best treat?

a) A shed - she is currently mid shed so it may relate to this. Her eye hasn't started to shed yet but maybe she's itchy / uncomfortable?
b) An eye infection (also could be related to the shed?)
c) A scratch from something
d) She's pretty rough going through the ficus microcarpa ginseng in her enclosure so I'm thinking maybe she got scratched / got some sap on her eye? She kind of just barges through it and breaks off a lot of leaves

So my plan of action next is to continue trying to treat the eye with saline and frequent mistings / showers (I also have a small humidifier in her enclosure filled with distilled water), and I'll take the ficus out and pray for the best and hopefully I can either get her to the vet's or she can get better

Would love any other advice. thanks
 
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Hi Adrik and welcome. :) To avoid any possible confusion I’m going to ask you to start your own thread. Go to forums, then health clinic and click the right upper ‘post thread’ to do this. It would be of great benefit to those helping you if you copy & paste the help questions with your answer in your post. You can find them here. https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/how-to-ask-for-help.66/
 
adrik said:
Oh nice, okay thanks you! 💕
Click to expand...

Sorry to hear this about your cham :(

I was super worried about mine and it seems hers cleared up . I don't know about your husbandry but I ended up taking her to the vet to get her checked out in case. She was fine, and it turned out to be a slight Vit A deficiency, however I only took her to the vet after about a week and when she started to refuse food.

I narrowed down the potential(s) to the following:

1. An infection (the most worrying)
2. A scratch on the eye, from a sharp plant etc.
3. A retina burn (I ruled this out as she's been in the same viv since I got her ~6 months ago and no problems}
4. A bad shed - she had just shed so this might've been the case. Vet told me she's seen cases where the cham had a tiny piece of skin stuck in the turret and they needed a full eye flush to get it out)
5. Stress - but I thought unlikely as it was only 1 eye closed

So not sure what your little one might have... But you can probably narrow it down depending on your circumstances.

For my part, in the days up to when I took her to the vet, I made sure to:

1. Rinse her eye out with saline, once a day. She didn't like this but I was doing this as she was rubbing her eye on her vines and I didn't want her to accidentally catch an infection
2. Put her in the shower - although I only did this once as it really stressed her out
3. Dust her bugs with a bit more vit a than normal, however you need to be careful here as they could overdose on it.

I recommend you turn up the temp in your viv as sick chams need to be at slightly higher temps.
If it doesn't sort itself out worth taking your cham to the vet as better to be safe than sorry imo.
 
adrik said:
Oh nice, okay thanks you! 💕
Click to expand...
Posting your own thread is best. Then we focus on your husbandry and enclosure to narrow down reasons. What someone may have done for theirs could be a totally different issue then yours is having. Doing what they did has the risk of causing issues for yours if the issue is not the same. We would be happy to help you individually. :)
 
ssc97 said:
Sorry to hear this about your cham :(

I was super worried about mine and it seems hers cleared up . I don't know about your husbandry but I ended up taking her to the vet to get her checked out in case. She was fine, and it turned out to be a slight Vit A deficiency, however I only took her to the vet after about a week and when she started to refuse food.

I narrowed down the potential(s) to the following:

1. An infection (the most worrying)
2. A scratch on the eye, from a sharp plant etc.
3. A retina burn (I ruled this out as she's been in the same viv since I got her ~6 months ago and no problems}
4. A bad shed - she had just shed so this might've been the case. Vet told me she's seen cases where the cham had a tiny piece of skin stuck in the turret and they needed a full eye flush to get it out)
5. Stress - but I thought unlikely as it was only 1 eye closed

So not sure what your little one might have... But you can probably narrow it down depending on your circumstances.

For my part, in the days up to when I took her to the vet, I made sure to:

1. Rinse her eye out with saline, once a day. She didn't like this but I was doing this as she was rubbing her eye on her vines and I didn't want her to accidentally catch an infection
2. Put her in the shower - although I only did this once as it really stressed her out
3. Dust her bugs with a bit more vit a than normal, however you need to be careful here as they could overdose on it.

I recommend you turn up the temp in your viv as sick chams need to be at slightly higher temps.
If it doesn't sort itself out worth taking your cham to the vet as better to be safe than sorry imo.
Click to expand...
Glad to hear that your chameleon has recovered.
 
ssc97 said:
Sorry to hear this about your cham :(

I was super worried about mine and it seems hers cleared up . I don't know about your husbandry but I ended up taking her to the vet to get her checked out in case. She was fine, and it turned out to be a slight Vit A deficiency, however I only took her to the vet after about a week and when she started to refuse food.

I narrowed down the potential(s) to the following:

1. An infection (the most worrying)
2. A scratch on the eye, from a sharp plant etc.
3. A retina burn (I ruled this out as she's been in the same viv since I got her ~6 months ago and no problems}
4. A bad shed - she had just shed so this might've been the case. Vet told me she's seen cases where the cham had a tiny piece of skin stuck in the turret and they needed a full eye flush to get it out)
5. Stress - but I thought unlikely as it was only 1 eye closed

So not sure what your little one might have... But you can probably narrow it down depending on your circumstances.

For my part, in the days up to when I took her to the vet, I made sure to:

1. Rinse her eye out with saline, once a day. She didn't like this but I was doing this as she was rubbing her eye on her vines and I didn't want her to accidentally catch an infection
2. Put her in the shower - although I only did this once as it really stressed her out
3. Dust her bugs with a bit more vit a than normal, however you need to be careful here as they could overdose on it.

I recommend you turn up the temp in your viv as sick chams need to be at slightly higher temps.
If it doesn't sort itself out worth taking your cham to the vet as better to be safe than sorry imo.
Click to expand...
Woah, thanks so much for all the informations! 💖
 
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