Panacur Question

I was given this, as I said in another thread, for my cham that has nematodes (Foleyella Furcata specifically). 3 are visable in the skin and I was given Panacur to treat them Ive heard from a few sources that Panacur cannot kill anything outside the digestive tract, like the ones under the skin. I don't really have 100% faith in my vet and looking for a good on ein the phoenix area, but until then anyone know if this is true? Just wondering if I should just get them surgically removed instead of wasting my time trying to kill them if they cant even be killed with medication. Thanks

The subq nematods need to be surgically removed.... and the cham needs to be treated with Panacur simultaniously...

http://www.chameleoncompany.com/sub-q-nematodes.php

http://www.anapsid.org/resources/rxdose.html

Foleyella Furcata..............

Hi there..........I posted on your other thread questioning the Panacur. Thanks for getting the name of the nematode. Foleyella Furcata are the nematodes found in wild caught chameleons from Madegascar. They are spread by misquitoes. They are not found in the USA. I've never heard of one found in a true captive bred chameleon here in the USA. One of two things is true. They are not really Foleyella Furcata or your chameleon really came from Madegascar.

True Foleyella Furcata nematodes are not just in the skin. If they are under the skin, they are also found through out the entire body cavity. They spread through the blood stream. Panacur will only kill the ones in the intestinal tract. The only thing that will kill them in the rest of the body is Ivermectin. This is a very toxic treatment. I have a lot of wild caught chameleons. My vet and I have decided to remove the ones under the skin because they are easy to remove (I do it myself now). We have decided not to use Ivermectin at all. The side affects and high incidence of death from the drug seem to be worse than the effect of the worms. Everything my vet and I have read about it makes me firm in the decision never to use it. This type of nematode is very common in Madegascar and the chams there often live for years with a nematode load of some sort in their bodies.

I do a necropsy on all my chams that die. I had one female wild caught Ankaramy Panther that died who had a couple of skin worms that were removed. She died after laying two clutches. I found some nematodes in her body cavity but not many. I had another male Ankaramy Panther that had no skin worms. One day he just dropped dead. I had him for about a year. When I did his necropsy he was full of the nematodes. They were in his neck and head area. I think one penetrated a blood vessel and caused internal bleeding which lead to his sudden death. Panacur would have done nothing to kill these.

I think you are right to question your vet's familiarity with the issue. Someone who does not treat many chameleons may not be familiar with all the parasites a chameleon can have. I would try to find another vet who has more experience. You probably have some sort of nematode that is common here in the USA that either lives normally under the skin or migrated to the skin. Even tapeworms can migrate out of the gut into the body. I have a picture of a vet taking a tapeworm from under the skin of a reptile. In the interim go ahead and give the panacur to your cham. Lots of other nematodes are common in captive bred chams like roundworms. Panacur is a pretty benign treatment. It's pretty common for breeders to use it even if they have no confirmed sighting of nematodes. What dosage and strength does the bottle say the Panacur is? Might as well see if the dosing sounds right for a cham while we are at it.

Where did you get this chameleon? Have you asked whoever you got it from if they know what the issue is? Just my thoughts on your situation....

Thanks for the ton of info. Ill see if I can answer these:

My Vet, who I think gets her info off the web like I do lol, gave me .25oz pf Panacur Suspension(1ml of 10% Panacur to 9ml of water). I was told to give .1ml for 3 days straight, wait till the following week and do again. She said if that doesn't kill them then she can surgically remove them but she was trying to avoid that.

I got Him from Chameleons By Design back in August, Sire of Dynamite. He was less than 3 months old then. I never really asked more questions than that but I think its safe to say hes CB.

I have the day off tomorrow so Im going to see if someone can yank these things out. I'm assuming it doesn't take long. Probably not hard either but I definitely don't feel comfortable cutting my cham open

Good plan........

The Panacur dose seems reasonable. Chameleons by Design is active on this forum. Maybe he/she can help you figure it out. I feel a lot better now knowing where you got it. There are people out there (not people who participate in this forum, of course!) who sell chameleons even though they don't know enough to actually take care of them properly. I would think it has to be some other sort of nematode other than the Foleyella Furcata if it's captive bred. When it gets yanked out you can get it identified for sure. Like I mentioned before, other nematodes can migrate to the skin. I hope my posts help and don't sound like I'm a know-it-all type of person. I want to learn from your situation, even if it turns out I'm wrong about something

Heh ya I'm interested in figuring it out too. If I find out more Ill let you know

Brought my worm infested cham back from the vet again today. At this point I'm sure hes plotting my death as I write this as Ive taken him a few times in the last week. Ill just have to be careful opening his cage for now as I'm expecting a tongue of fury between the eyes, followed by a series of crunching sounds.

But the good news is the worms are out, at least the visible ones. Enjoy

Still Mystified........

Wow! Great pictures......Those look like round worms. Foleyella Furcata worms have more of a yellow tinge. They become brittle soon after being removed. Did the vet say anything about them looking like round worms? They are huge aren't they? If they are the Foleyella Furcata I am still mystified as to how they got into your captive bred chameleon living in Arizona. It didn't get it from the other chameleon you have. This is the first time I've heard of this situation. Any thoughts from anyone else in this group? Am I the only one confused by this finding? How about breeders in Florida.........Are any of you finding these worms in your captive bred populations? Have they been found in wild reptiles in Florida? I ask about Florida because it has so much reptile breeding going on there, many wild reptiles running around, and lots of misquitoes. I would like to figure this out in my own head and correct any prior assumptions I may have had regarding these worms.

I'm glad you got them pulled out. Can you imagine having those big things crawling under your skin? Your guy should feel a lot more comfortable now. I pulled a bunch of the Madegascar worms out from the corner of an eye turret of a wild caught Ankaramy male. That was totally gross. It must have driven him nuts to have those things near his eye like that. A year later he's still doing well. Just a forewarning. In a couple of months new ones may become visible. You can't see them under the skin until they get to a certain age. I hope you are lucky and don't see them again. Geez I hope some more people weigh in on this issue.....

PardalisGirl said:

You can't see them under the skin until they get to a certain age.

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I was wondering how long he could of had them. Ive owned him for 3 months and he 5 1/2 months now and just noticed them. But ya glad that parts done for now, hes kinda weak and isn't eating but im sure hell snap out of it.

Round Worms????

The more I look at your worm pictures the more I think they look like round worms instead of Foleyella Furcata. Round worms look like spaghetti. I've had a couple of Panthers that actually pooped out a pile of them. They looked like your picture. I had a cat that threw a couple of them up too. They looked like your picture too. Panacur solved the problem in the Panthers and the cat. Foleyella Furcata are thinner and have a real yellow tinge to them. They don't live very long after they are pulled out. They turn brittle quickly. Round worms take longer to die and dry out.

I now think that they are round worms that are found here in the USA. Round worms and tape worms can migrate out of the gut. This would be very good news for you and your cham if they are indeed roundworms. Round worms are killed in the gut by Pancur. I don't think round worm eggs travel in the blood stream like the Madegascar worms do. That is a big issue you won't have to worry about as Panacur, as far as I know, does not kill parasites in the bloodstream. By killing the ones in the gut with Panacur you will prevent any from migrating out in the future. Geez.......the world as I know it is making sense again.

Also, you need to disinfect everything in your cage set up, plants and all. Use a bleach/water solution. You will need to do this after each round of Panacur (once now and once in a week or two when you treat again).

Worms again......

He's probably had them for awhile. It takes time for them to migrate out like that. If they migrate out like that, show up as adult worms in poop or are regurgitated as adult worms they have usually been around for awhile. It usually means a bigger load of them is in the gut too. A small or recent infestation usually is not something you observe. It's usually something that shows up in a fecal check at the vet. The two Panthers I had that pooped out a pile of them were imports. It took four rounds of Panacur to get rid of the problem. They sure gained weight after the worms were gone!

hes going to be a temporary for a week or two prolly until he launches some worms out. But ya his cage is getting a serious bleaching and plants are getting repotted. And the worms are like spaghetti so maybe your right, the new vet didn't specify what they were so...

For some reason after having these worms removed this guy became incredibly weak over the night. This morning he was dead. Seems like whatever I tried to do for that cham, I got the opposite result. Pretty F'd up.

lonomac said:

For some reason after having these worms removed this guy became incredibly weak over the night. This morning he was dead. Seems like whatever I tried to do for that cham, I got the opposite result. Pretty F'd up.

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didn't see that coming...WTH?!!!!
so sorry for your loss..
but... that's so weird..

F.................

I am not a person who uses bad words, but...F***!!!!!!! Was he given any anesthetic or sedative before the worms were taken out? He may have had a reaction to that. In the beginning I used to have my vet take the worms out. He would put the cham totally out and remove them. He did it to several chams with no ill effect. Macondo, my Avatar had it done twice. Then I took a WC Sambava in for the same procedure. He never woke up from the anesthesia. After that I started taking them out myself with no anesthetic. Other breeders have been doing it that way with no ill effect. There is a brief moment of pain from the tiny incision but no possible after effect from anesthesia or sedatives. Jenna, from Prism Chameleons also had a cham die soon after the vet removed some worms. I'm not saying it's the vet's fault that my cham died, Jenna's died or yours died. It's just that I think their systems may be sensitive to certain things or the stress of being taken away from home and handled extensively by a stranger may be an issue too.

But, you did all the right things....The worms were a serious issue. You did what you should have by trying to find out what they were. The Panacur was the right thing since they look like round worms. And having them taken out was the right thing too. You saw how big they were. If they can migrate out to the skin they can migrate into internal organs. You did all the right things. You handled the situation as it should have been handled. These creatures are somewhat of a mystery to us and the vets that treat them. It's not like treating a dog or cat. We can do all the things we should do and still get a bad result.

I feel terrible about your loss. I hope you will, in time, get another one to replace him. You are the type of person who should have them. You did whatever you could to take care of him and his issue.

Your cham may have already been weakened by the roundworm infestation and the surgical removal would be the added stress that could have dealt the final blow. If worms have migrated to the outer side of your cham , then there would be a hell of a lot more on the inside.

Its also possible , that if you had given Panacur a few days prior to the surgery, the many dead and dying worms in the gut , would pose a huge toxic shock to your cham. That alone , regardless of surgery on the subq worms, could have done it .

When subq worms are visible.. there is the likelihood of a huge infestation. And by that time, the internal worms can have already begun to destroy organs such as stomach, intestines, kidneys, heart and lungs.

Sorry for your loss. Learn from it and apply what you've learned to the future.

Totally Agree.....

I totally agree with Cham_man...........more things you had no control of.......

So sorry for your loss. Its never easy losing one of these creatures.

Are you going to get an autopsy done on him? It might give you some answers as to why he died.

Howdy,

A friend of mine had acquired a WC male Panther and it suddenly dropped dead after having it for only a couple of weeks. I opened-up the chameleon and found worms in various locations but the one that caught my attention was when I cut open the heart and a worm came out . I couldn't be absolutely sure that it came directly out of the heart and not slipped in there as I opened it but it sure looked like it came right out of a main blood path. Can you imagine what would happen if/when that worm got stuck in a heart valve?

You did your best. Sorry for your loss .

kinyonga said:

So sorry for your loss. Its never easy losing one of these creatures.

Are you going to get an autopsy done on him? It might give you some answers as to why he died.

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No, just going to let it go. I don't have much faith in vets at the moment anyway lol. I end up spending $100 and get zero answers every time i go