Dave Weldon
Avid Member
Howdy All,
I was reading one thing (The gutload PDF that Chris Anderson sent me ) that also had another article in it that lead me to another and then to another and so on until I ran into some webpages that happened to discuss parasitic worms and their development of resistance to Panacur. It reminded me; that just like antibiotic treatments where we are warned to finish the entire treatment even if we feel fine, we should also be careful with the drugs that we use with our chameleons. While there are worms that have developed resistance to Panacur, I'll bet that it is more likely that it occurs in countries that have been treating domesticated mammals with Panacur rather than WC reptiles (unless they've been exposed to pinworms that survived treatment). None-the-less, it is a good reminder that if we are treating for parasites (or anything else), we need to be responsible and ensure that the treatment regiment is completed and that the parasite in question has actually been eradicated. If not, we may be making things worse for our chameleons and producing a resistant parasite that is capable of infecting the rest of our collection as well as spreading it through the reptile community via breeding projects etc. .
Here is the little blurb that triggered me to look further look into the subject using Google searches.
http://veterinaryherpetologist.blogspot.com/2009/09/bearded-dragon-health-parasites-and.html
More Google: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&num=100&q=fenbendazole+resistance&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=
P.S. That first link also has a nice discussion of the life-cycle of Coccidia. It also mentions the positive effectiveness of treating Coccidia with (one of our favorites) Ponazuril.
I was reading one thing (The gutload PDF that Chris Anderson sent me ) that also had another article in it that lead me to another and then to another and so on until I ran into some webpages that happened to discuss parasitic worms and their development of resistance to Panacur. It reminded me; that just like antibiotic treatments where we are warned to finish the entire treatment even if we feel fine, we should also be careful with the drugs that we use with our chameleons. While there are worms that have developed resistance to Panacur, I'll bet that it is more likely that it occurs in countries that have been treating domesticated mammals with Panacur rather than WC reptiles (unless they've been exposed to pinworms that survived treatment). None-the-less, it is a good reminder that if we are treating for parasites (or anything else), we need to be responsible and ensure that the treatment regiment is completed and that the parasite in question has actually been eradicated. If not, we may be making things worse for our chameleons and producing a resistant parasite that is capable of infecting the rest of our collection as well as spreading it through the reptile community via breeding projects etc. .
Here is the little blurb that triggered me to look further look into the subject using Google searches.
http://veterinaryherpetologist.blogspot.com/2009/09/bearded-dragon-health-parasites-and.html
More Google: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&num=100&q=fenbendazole+resistance&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=
P.S. That first link also has a nice discussion of the life-cycle of Coccidia. It also mentions the positive effectiveness of treating Coccidia with (one of our favorites) Ponazuril.
