Losing my first chameleon

cowchick

New Member
Well I wanted to update you guys after all the help you gave to me in last week and a half. You saw the other post where it turns out Shrek 20 month old male veil prolapsed his vent...not the hemipenis. When I backtrack I realized he was very dehydrated when I purchased him with backed up hemipenises with dried seminal fluid and other such material crusted in there.

You saw the pics...he went back to the vet and had sutures put in last Monday. He made it through the week and was still eating a bit and drinking well and looking up. I questioned it though because his body temperature was very low. He was scheduled to have his stitches removed on Monday of this week, but he was still pushing his vent out, yet still pooping normally. He ate his first silk worm this past weekend, so I thought things were looking up. But I noticed that he wouldn't eat much. By Tuesday I knew things were taking a horrible turn for the worse and he wasn't doing well, I was misting every hour in the day and was slowly getting him a bit more hydrated but it wasn't enough. I just couldn't get his body temp up and he stopped drinking and eating all together.

Yesterday I took him to the vet and he just wasn't as busy, didn't want to crawl around nearly as much, just wanted to sorta curl up to me. The vet gave him oral medicine and recovery food to syringe into him. She was clearly concerned about him and told me...when they go down, they go down...maybe her way of preparing me. SHe also noted what I was worried about...he looked bloated.

I followed her orders of syringe feeding and medicating...but when I woke up this morning I noticed he smelled funny and it was all over the bottom of his cage. He was fed and forcefed water three times today...the last time he instantly held up his back leg funny and pooped what looked to be the same as what went in (pureed recovery canned food) as well as a whole worm. And he smelled beyond belief...I mean you could smell diarrhea when you walked in my door and he's in the lower level.

I cleaned him all up and have placed him 8" under a light but he hasn't moved in 5 hours. When I came home he had his chin resting on a worm dish...and since I put him on a papertowel in a smaller enclosure to keep him closer to the light he still hasn't moved. He can't really hold on tight and he's literally dying in front of my eyes. He won't really open his eyes and he just sorta lays there.

I wish I knew how to euthanize him humanely. Go figure, I deal with horses and dogs everyday for a living and I'm stuck with a dying lizard and nothing I can do!:( I have learned a great deal from this, but I'm still pretty bummed!
 
I am sorry to hear of this after everything you did. Sometimes we just have to accept that we did all we can. If he is still alive in the morning can you take him to the vet and have him euthanized?
 
That's awful.
Watching an animal die and feeling helpless is one of the more terrible
experiences in all of this.
I'm sorry. Good for you for trying though and working with the vet.

-Brad
 
Well I wanted to update you guys after all the help you gave to me in last week and a half. You saw the other post where it turns out Shrek 20 month old male veil prolapsed his vent...not the hemipenis.

First of all, I'm very sorry for your loss. It's one of the worst feelings to watch and it sounds like his body basically shutdown and all that food was just sitting there, not being digested. And yeah, probably from chronic dehydration.

I wanted to address your statement above since it seems directed at me, as you called my questions "crazy" when I was trying to help you. While I am not a vet, I had a male pardalis that had a chronic hemipene problem. He averaged at least a half to a "full" hemipene prolapse every 2 or 3 days for a period of 14 months. Because the vet was too far away to take him back and forth, I learned to clean him up and reinsert it myself. So, what's that, at least a hundred times? I would imagine that's as many times as most exotic vets would handle over several years time. I've also taken a prolapsed chameleon to a vet, only to have it misdiagnosed. Upon questioning the vet said, and I quote, "To be honest, I don't even know what it's supposed to look like. I'm going off of what another vet is telling me over the phone." They do not teach all vets what it looks like. Based on your first and recent pics, I still believe that is the hemipene protruding.

Btw, if any vets are reading this, how many chameleon hemipene prolapses do you treat in an average year? What are the results typically, amputation or a reinsertion that stays put?
 
Sorry hairfarm, not directed at you at all. I was going by all the pics that were shown to me here of a prolapsed hemipenis...and for sure I can agree that not all vets know what they're talking about with Reptiles. Sorry if it sounded bad, I didn't mean it that way at all. The only way you could tell was when you looked directly underneath him, you could see his hemipenises were still inside him, and the part where he defacates out of was starting to be pushed out...he didn't get so far as to prolapse it all...but instead of calling it a prolapsed anus, the vet was saying prolapsed vent...same thing though really!
 
No harm, no foul. Just wanted to make sure that you knew I was trying to help, not messing with your head.
 
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