Weird eye problem

[Morganism444]

Chameleon Info:

• Your Chameleon - Male Panther Chameleon, 1.4 years old, been in my care for about 6 months
• Handling - Usually once a week or so (more lately with medicine/cleaning eye)
• Feeding - 5-6 Dubia roaches, or 10-12 BSFL, dusted with EarthPro every feeding (every other day). Treats: superworms, hornworms, once or twice a week
• Supplements - Repashy LOD, one feeding twice a month
• Watering - Misting for 3-5 minutes in the morning and evening by a mistking. Fogger on every other hour at night.
• Fecal Description - Poops every 1-2 weeks. Usually fairly normal looking fecal/urates.
• History - He's been a tricky guy to take care of. Right when we got him, his left eye started to look unhealthy and had a droopy eyelid/clear film that shrouded his vision (would flare up when you got close to that eye. It seemed to go away after we started misting more often. Then we redid his cage and put him in a 2x2x4 with real plants, but he never seemed to be fully happy, wasn't exploring very much etc. Sometimes he would just hide on the bottom branch and look really dark until we moved him to his basking branch and he would warm up. Over time, we noticed that his weight was dropping off, and so we took him to the vet and they gave him Praziquantel and another dewormer to get rid of tapeworms and pinworms. He's stopped licking/drinking pretty soon after we got him and now will only lick his lips if he's been sprayed for a while. Feeders are probably a big source of hydration as well as nighttime humidity but he likely is dehydrated often and we're not sure what to do.

Cage Info:

• Cage Type - Hybrid cage (four sides enclosed with screen access door and screen top), 2x2x4
• Lighting - 75 watt incandescent bulb for heat lamp. Arcadia T5 6% UVB
• Temperature - 80-85 at basking spot. 70-74 at coldest point read with a thermo gun reader
• Humidity - Average 50-60%, sometimes peaks to 85%.
• Plants - Ficus, umbrella tree, and pothos
• Placement - In separate room on a small table
• Location - Utah

Current Problem - His left eyelid has had a problem off and on with looking droopy and developing a clear film that obscures his vision. Now his right eye seems to have the same issue and he can't see well out of them. He sometimes cleans his eye and the eye looks healthier for a few minutes. But the droopyness will typically be back. It seems to flip back and forth which is odd. We've tried dripping water on his eyes and using the eye medicine that the vet gave us, even using some vitamin A on a feeder, but it doesn't seem to be making much of a difference. I've raised the UVB light higher to see if that was the issue, but that doesn't seem to impact it either. Wondering if it's just an eye infection or something deeper. Any insight would be appreciated! Just want our little guy to be happy. (pictures are of his right eye, and then in the process of squidging it, as well as the enclosure.)

 

[MissSkittles]

Hi and welcome. I’m not seeing anything jump out at me from your husbandry, other than your beautiful guy should be pooping more often than that. When the vet gave the dewormer, had they verified with a fecal check that he did indeed have those parasites? Has he had a fecal check since then? Has he ever had any blood work done? I would suggest having some basic blood work to check organ function and a fresh fecal done, if for no other reason than to rule those things out. I’d also try expanding his diet just a little and add maybe a few crickets or silkworms (juicier staples), just to see if that makes any difference.
For the eye, I somehow don’t think it’s related to vitamin A. There’s something else going on and I can’t even begin to imagine what. It could be a keratin plug deep in the inner canthus that will need a deep irrigation to get out, a sinus problem, a mouth problem, a growth, etc etc. You may need to try a vet who has more experience/knowledge with chameleons. Unfortunately, many exotics vets just don’t see enough chams. This may help if you have the time to look thru for a cham-experienced vet. https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/area-by-area-country-vet-list.32880/

 

[Morganism444]

Thanks for the reply. Yes, the vet ran a fecal float and smear and determined that there was evidence of tapeworms and pin worms.

He hasn’t had any blood work done before, maybe we should try that to see if anything pops up. We’re planning to do another fecal in about two weeks after the Praziquantel course has taken effect.

Such an odd thing, I can’t seem to find any similar cases with the same eye symptom.

 

[Chameleonfriend10]

Chameleon Info:

• Your Chameleon - Male Panther Chameleon, 1.4 years old, been in my care for about 6 months
• Handling - Usually once a week or so (more lately with medicine/cleaning eye)
• Feeding - 5-6 Dubia roaches, or 10-12 BSFL, dusted with EarthPro every feeding (every other day). Treats: superworms, hornworms, once or twice a week
• Supplements - Repashy LOD, one feeding twice a month
• Watering - Misting for 3-5 minutes in the morning and evening by a mistking. Fogger on every other hour at night.
• Fecal Description - Poops every 1-2 weeks. Usually fairly normal looking fecal/urates.
• History - He's been a tricky guy to take care of. Right when we got him, his left eye started to look unhealthy and had a droopy eyelid/clear film that shrouded his vision (would flare up when you got close to that eye. It seemed to go away after we started misting more often. Then we redid his cage and put him in a 2x2x4 with real plants, but he never seemed to be fully happy, wasn't exploring very much etc. Sometimes he would just hide on the bottom branch and look really dark until we moved him to his basking branch and he would warm up. Over time, we noticed that his weight was dropping off, and so we took him to the vet and they gave him Praziquantel and another dewormer to get rid of tapeworms and pinworms. He's stopped licking/drinking pretty soon after we got him and now will only lick his lips if he's been sprayed for a while. Feeders are probably a big source of hydration as well as nighttime humidity but he likely is dehydrated often and we're not sure what to do.

Cage Info:

• Cage Type - Hybrid cage (four sides enclosed with screen access door and screen top), 2x2x4
• Lighting - 75 watt incandescent bulb for heat lamp. Arcadia T5 6% UVB
• Temperature - 80-85 at basking spot. 70-74 at coldest point read with a thermo gun reader
• Humidity - Average 50-60%, sometimes peaks to 85%.
• Plants - Ficus, umbrella tree, and pothos
• Placement - In separate room on a small table
• Location - Utah

Current Problem - His left eyelid has had a problem off and on with looking droopy and developing a clear film that obscures his vision. Now his right eye seems to have the same issue and he can't see well out of them. He sometimes cleans his eye and the eye looks healthier for a few minutes. But the droopyness will typically be back. It seems to flip back and forth which is odd. We've tried dripping water on his eyes and using the eye medicine that the vet gave us, even using some vitamin A on a feeder, but it doesn't seem to be making much of a difference. I've raised the UVB light higher to see if that was the issue, but that doesn't seem to impact it either. Wondering if it's just an eye infection or something deeper. Any insight would be appreciated! Just want our little guy to be happy. (pictures are of his right eye, and then in the process of squidging it, as well as the enclosure.)

 

[Beman]

Hey there... What is your distance now from the bottom of the UVB fixture to the top of the basking branch? Then what would be the distance if you had it set right on the top of the cage to the branch?

This is not a vitamin A issue. Your repashy LoD has the Vitamin A he needs. I would not supplement with additional vit A.

Has the eye issue been the case the entire time you have had him? Does he sleep down in the ficus?

 

[Chainsaw Dave]

Hello has this been resolved my girl (5 mth old veiled) has the same thing husbandry is all correct and I'm thinking it's a light issue, a clear film builds and I flush with distilled water and saline it resolves and a week or two later it repeats, the first time it flaked off like a scab that was essentially like a clear eye patch same diameter as the lens opening, i raised her light even higher currently 12 " above her highest perch ( was 6"), I have uvb 6 t5 from arcadia 34" bulb im thinking of putting in a diffuser or something, i didn't have these problems with the uvb 12 reptisun i got from Petco, i may put that back in temporarily till we figure it out, but I'm at a loss and afraid of permanent eye damage.

 

[Beman]

Hello has this been resolved my girl (5 mth old veiled) has the same thing husbandry is all correct and I'm thinking it's a light issue, a clear film builds and I flush with distilled water and saline it resolves and a week or two later it repeats, the first time it flaked off like a scab that was essentially like a clear eye patch same diameter as the lens opening, i raised her light even higher currently 12 " above her highest perch ( was 6"), I have uvb 6 t5 from arcadia 34" bulb im thinking of putting in a diffuser or something, i didn't have these problems with the uvb 12 reptisun i got from Petco, i may put that back in temporarily till we figure it out, but I'm at a loss and afraid of permanent eye damage.

Can you make a thread about this. I would like to look into why this is happening. With your 6% bulb raised that far she will be getting minimal UVB not the levels she needs. You will end up dealing with MBD possibilities due to not getting appropriate UVB levels. A 6% needs a measured distance of 8-9 inches from bottom of fixture to the branch. At 6 she would have been in overexposure levels.

 

[Morganism444]

We've been able to minimize how often it happens, and it's better if we keep up on wetting and swabbing his eye carefully with a q-tip to get the film off. There must be something off with that particular eye, because the other eye has not had the same issues. The eye struggles to shed fully as well and has developed somewhat of a harder surface to the skin on the turret, which may mean that he struggles cleaning his eye normally. I did notice it was aggravated when we sprayed him a lot, so I'm not sure if it's some type of irritation or previous damage. He started having problems very quickly after we got him. Our UVB is about 10 inches up from his branch.