VictorHugo
New Member
Hello,
My poor panther chameleon is on death’s door, and I’m writing here in hopes that someone here knows something my vet and I don’t.
My darling is about 5 years old. His name is Victor Hugo.
Vic has been in pretty good health. He lives at my dance studio in a large glass enclosure. (3ft x 3 ft x &18in or so) He is quite social, and enjoys climbing vines in the big sunny window and helping the office staff get their admin work done Seriously, he really does love to be active and out and about, and is very loved.
About 6 months ago I noticed he was falling more than usual. He was eating and drinking as usual so I made some adjustments to his enclosure (moved things closer to the floor) and kept an eye on him.
A couple of months after that, I noticed what looked like a wound on his butt, next to his bum hole. I also noticed some white spots- looked like maybe a fungus- on his side. Size of a pencil eraser. I took him to the vet, and got some antiseptic to apply with a warm bath. I took his enclosure apart, bleached or replaced everything, and moved him closer to the floor in case he fell. Fungal tests came back negative, though vet and I are suspicious of those results.
A couple of weeks later, the wound was looking worse, not better. The skin surrounding the wound had turned black and was clearly going to fall off. It was moving down his tail toward the tip. Back to the vet we went and got some oral antibiotics and an iodine solution to apply to the wound daily. He also stopped eating during this time and started rapidly losing weight, so I had to grind up bugs and feed them to him with a syringe, and give him some intense supplements. Drinking was still ok and I’ve still been giving him a warm soak each day. His feces started looking like basically undigested insects. No white/yellow, just brown bugs and you could still see the wings and everything.
For the past 2 weeks he perked up a bit, was hunting crickets and eating more, and seeming energetic even though it didn’t seem he was gaining weight.
Vet wants to do a parasite test but his stool is so hard, I’m not sure they’ll find anything alive.
The last couple of days have been rough. His eyes are dark and sunken, and his intestines are now falling out of the wound. Sometimes he pulls them back in on his own, but tonight I had to put a bandaid over it because he couldn’t seem to pull or hold it back in
Sorry. I know that’s a lot. I feel like the vet and I are in over our heads.
I’m in the car right now so don’t have my husbandry list handy but I monitor humidity/temp/UVB very carefully. Gut load feeders with repashy and give victor the correct supps on his bugs and a bit of vit. D once a month for his eyes. He eats super worms crickets and stink bugs.
Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts. I’m worried I’m going to lose him soon
Best,
Stephanie
Photos of him today (sad ) wound at its worst last month and wound more recently, better. And the prolapse.
My poor panther chameleon is on death’s door, and I’m writing here in hopes that someone here knows something my vet and I don’t.
My darling is about 5 years old. His name is Victor Hugo.
Vic has been in pretty good health. He lives at my dance studio in a large glass enclosure. (3ft x 3 ft x &18in or so) He is quite social, and enjoys climbing vines in the big sunny window and helping the office staff get their admin work done
Seriously, he really does love to be active and out and about, and is very loved.About 6 months ago I noticed he was falling more than usual. He was eating and drinking as usual so I made some adjustments to his enclosure (moved things closer to the floor) and kept an eye on him.
A couple of months after that, I noticed what looked like a wound on his butt, next to his bum hole. I also noticed some white spots- looked like maybe a fungus- on his side. Size of a pencil eraser. I took him to the vet, and got some antiseptic to apply with a warm bath. I took his enclosure apart, bleached or replaced everything, and moved him closer to the floor in case he fell. Fungal tests came back negative, though vet and I are suspicious of those results.
A couple of weeks later, the wound was looking worse, not better. The skin surrounding the wound had turned black and was clearly going to fall off. It was moving down his tail toward the tip. Back to the vet we went and got some oral antibiotics and an iodine solution to apply to the wound daily. He also stopped eating during this time and started rapidly losing weight, so I had to grind up bugs and feed them to him with a syringe, and give him some intense supplements. Drinking was still ok and I’ve still been giving him a warm soak each day. His feces started looking like basically undigested insects. No white/yellow, just brown bugs and you could still see the wings and everything.
For the past 2 weeks he perked up a bit, was hunting crickets and eating more, and seeming energetic even though it didn’t seem he was gaining weight.
Vet wants to do a parasite test but his stool is so hard, I’m not sure they’ll find anything alive.
The last couple of days have been rough. His eyes are dark and sunken, and his intestines are now falling out of the wound. Sometimes he pulls them back in on his own, but tonight I had to put a bandaid over it because he couldn’t seem to pull or hold it back in
Sorry. I know that’s a lot. I feel like the vet and I are in over our heads.
I’m in the car right now so don’t have my husbandry list handy but I monitor humidity/temp/UVB very carefully. Gut load feeders with repashy and give victor the correct supps on his bugs and a bit of vit. D once a month for his eyes. He eats super worms crickets and stink bugs.
Just wondering if anyone has any thoughts. I’m worried I’m going to lose him soon
Best,
Stephanie
Photos of him today (sad
) wound at its worst last month and wound more recently, better. And the prolapse.
I’m on a wait list too. And am going to back to my regular vet tomorrow.
