Eye infection?

[Vidgee]

Hello guys. Yesterday I noticed my boy. He has white stuff covering his right eye. Looks like an eye infection to me. Will be bringing him to the vet tomorrow morning. I'd love to do it now but I'm at work =\ poor boy. I dnt want him to go blind as I now it can happen. He's been rubbing his right eye over the weekend and when I came home last night I noticed the build up in his eye.

I've read a lot about eye problems already. I just want to share this with you guys. He will be taken care of tomorrow and hopefully gets better asap.

 

[Vidgee]

But before I take him to the vet. I'll give him a long warm bath to hopefully make him feel a lil better. Here's another picture

 

[werecat]

I hope you mean a long shower instead of a long bath. Baths don't really do chameleons any good and will not help the eye. A long shower will definitely be more helpful. It will allow him to rinse and clean his eye. You can also flush the eye with a sterile saline solution to help clean and remove debris, but I would wait and see what your vet says. Good luck!

 

[Vidgee]

I hope you mean a long shower instead of a long bath. Baths don't really do chameleons any good and will not help the eye. A long shower will definitely be more helpful. It will allow him to rinse and clean his eye. You can also flush the eye with a sterile saline solution to help clean and remove debris, but I would wait and see what your vet says. Good luck!

You're right. Shower is what I meant. Thanks bud. I was told it isn't looking like an infection. More of a eye booger lol. but still taking my boy to the vet after I shower him

 

[kinyonga]

If you shower him before you go to the vets you may wash away any "evidence" of the infection....if there is one.

 

[Vanjan]

Hello Vidgee!

Did you visit the vet? Was it a real infection or some shed went into his eyes?

We have similar problem, i could only take a photo at night when he was sleeping. He can not even close it during the night.


During the day he keeps it open, he is using it normally, but you can see there is something wrong. He is sometimes rubbing it.
I was increasing humidity in the last few days but it was not helping really. Yes and all started a few days after shedding

 

[Gavinsons]

My panther did this the last few days. I used a sterile saline spray that he hates and a big booger came out. Used a foam q-tip to rub it off his eye.

 

[Vidgee]

Hey vanjan

I didn't take him to the vet at all. All I did was shower him with warm water twice for 10 minutes each. The eye boogers started to soften up and fell off on its own. That morning scared me because I woke up and both eyes were covered in eye booger. I felt so bad for my boy I showered him right away. As he was blind for that morning. After that those boogersndidnt come back. I am monitoring him now. He's doing so much better. I believe those boogers were in his eyes a while since shedding which was 3 weeks ago. I didn't catch it while it was irritating him til it got hard and covered the opening of his turrets.
Now however I feel like the boogers have messed up his eye turret alignment. His right eye looks like your chams eye when asleep.
Hoping that it'll heal itself and align itself back.

Drogo is now free of eye boogers. Warm shower did the trick. I knew at first it wasn't infection or should I say I had a feeling cus the coloration didn't look like infection but it did look like a ball of shed skin. Your Cham might have something in his eye still.
I hope this helps

 

[Vidgee]

Hello Vidgee!

Did you visit the vet? Was it a real infection or some shed went into his eyes?

We have similar problem, i could only take a photo at night when he was sleeping. He can not even close it during the night.
View attachment 108294

During the day he keeps it open, he is using it normally, but you can see there is something wrong. He is sometimes rubbing it.
I was increasing humidity in the last few days but it was not helping really. Yes and all started a few days after shedding

You know what vanjan I took a closer look of your Cham. My boy had that same look before the eye boogers covered up his whole eye. You definitely should try to give him a shower warm water. That white stuff could turn into what happened to my boy n cover your chams eyes. Take him to the shower asap or flush it. But I find the shower so much better

 

[Vanjan]

shower seems helping

Hi Guys!
Thanks for all the suggestions!
I took him to the shower, he was really scared and trying to find a way out so i had to hold him in my hands. We spent like 30 mins there with the warm water aimed to the wall. I was touching gently the eyes to make him blink a lot. (But there wasnt any debris or shed coming out.)
Now that we are at home for the weekend we spray a lot, trying to keep humidity as high as possible.
Now he can close the eye completely. We will see how it will look like tonight.

 

[carol5208]

To my knowledge chameleons do not get "eye boogers" like people. I know sometimes when we wake up we have them in the corners of our eyes after sleeping. There is most likely something else going on with your chameleons. I would take your both your chameleons to a vet and have them checked out. I know one of you is in Hungary and you might not have access to a vet that sees reptiles like we do here in the US.

 

[Vanjan]

We went to the vet today. To be more specific it was the Clinic for Exotic and Wildlife species of the Faculty of Veterinary Science.
She examined his eye and could not find any problem with it. We booked an appointment with the eye specialist for Thursday.
I asked if she could give some ointment for the next few days. She said it might make things worse if it is not the right one.
So we will keep spraying (currently about half a liter per day ) and i am seriously thinking of an automated humidifier like Monsoon RS400...

 

[rf9661]

We went to the vet today. To be more specific it was the Clinic for Exotic and Wildlife species of the Faculty of Veterinary Science.
She examined his eye and could not find any problem with it. We booked an appointment with the eye specialist for Thursday.
I asked if she could give some ointment for the next few days. She said it might make things worse if it is not the right one.
So we will keep spraying (currently about half a liter per day ) and i am seriously thinking of an automated humidifier like Monsoon RS400...

The Monsoon is a great idea! It lets your chameleon wash his eyes and drink water as well. I wouldn't recommend the timer so make sure you save the receipt because sometimes the timer is defective.

 

[Vidgee]

We went to the vet today. To be more specific it was the Clinic for Exotic and Wildlife species of the Faculty of Veterinary Science.
She examined his eye and could not find any problem with it. We booked an appointment with the eye specialist for Thursday.
I asked if she could give some ointment for the next few days. She said it might make things worse if it is not the right one.
So we will keep spraying (currently about half a liter per day ) and i am seriously thinking of an automated humidifier like Monsoon RS400...

Bought that piece of junk. Had for 2 days then returned and got a most king.
The nozzles on the the monsoon are not trustworthy. I didn't have problems with the timer. But the nozzles were pretty bad. Supposed to mist but it leaked and sprayed my boy in the face. He didn't like that at all

 

[Vanjan]

video

Finally my macro lenses arrived from china. its a clip-on thing for mobiles. Quite useful gadget for a few dollars.

I think i made the best HD quality video ever presenting a panther's eye
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4PoaqH7yOc
What do you think?
As i can see it is getting better in the last days but sometimes he still keeps it closed during the day.

 

[Vanjan]

Hi,

He was improving the last days and only closing his left eye in late-afternoons. Since we already had an appointment to the eye specialist we went again to the doctor.
The doctor seemed to be quite experienced in reptile eyes but at the same time surprised to see a chameleon. (He took a selfie at the end with my chameleon on his shoulders)
Different instruments were used for examination and he also watched the video i shared here as well.
Conclusion was that there is nothing wrong. There could be some complications during shedding that was irritating the eye.

He told me some interesting facts i did not knew before:
- They are shedding the cornea as well. This has to come out somehow.
- That protruding part when he blinks is a cleaning muscle that resides normally deep behind the eyeball. When he blinks this comes forth to clean the cornea.

If similar happens "Tears Naturale" can be given to help flushing things out.

 

[Vanjan]

Recovering

More than 2 weeks passed since my last message. I will summarize what happened since then.

He started to close the other eye as well during the day. He was having black-white-brownish colors, not moving around and eating only one superworm a day.
Then we went to the vet again. There he showed no symptoms at all! Light green colors, eyes open... On the way home in the car he started to close his eyes again... grrr.
Vet prescribed CILOXAN 3mg/ml five times a day into his eyes. We started using it but only with limited success. (If it is closed how to put in the props? if it open he moves it around... and learns quickly that drops are coming and closes his eyes)
These days he was not eating at all and only moving around when handling him. It was really sad to see him going down.
In the following 3 days i gave him long, warm showers because i saw that he is really active and feeling better after a shower.
Then he started to shed. Lot of misting and shower helped him to finish it in 1.5 days.
After shedding the started getting better and better. Today morning he ate 7 mealworms and 3 waxworms dusted with my brand new Reptivite (instead of Exoterra multivitamin)

Now that we are trough this i think there wasnt any infection or problems with the UV light. He simply got a cold when he was left outside for too long. I dont have a photo but i remember i saw some white sediments around the nose.

I will be more careful when leaving him walking in the flat and follow suggestions about supplementing.

Here is a photo from the time he was sick:

And from today:

 

[luiiiboy]

Hi guys!! pls help me. I got a male veiled chameleon 3 weeks ago. He was healthy and he was eating a lot. He was shedding when I got him. Until i saw that he was dehydrated because his eyes are sunken and I think he has an eye infection. I changed his habitat made everything better for him. Im not sure if it is an eye infection or something is stuck in his eyes. I want to give him a shower but he is just 3-4 months old. pls help. i don't want him to go blind. his eye is closed pls help