ADotsalot
Member
Is there any way of telling if she is? So that bump had something to do with the eggs? She doesn't look too fat. I'm asking because the vet that sees exotics are closed today and tomorrow... and Monday too i guess....
Abscess please help!!
- Thread starter ADotsalot
- Start date
jajeanpierre
Chameleon Enthusiast
To reduce stress, make everything perfect and don't handle her if you can avoid it.
Keep her temperatures within the normal ranges. Increase humidity a lot. Make sure she has extra fluids. Give her lots of cover and open spaces so she can choose what she wants to be and retreat into cover should she feel the need.
Most important, avoid handling. Every time you medicate her you are traumatizing her. It's unavoidable but be very aware of what you are doing to her. If you hold her, she will be reacting as if she is about to be eaten whether you can see that reaction or not. She will have a flood of stress hormones and they don't go away the minute you let her go.
Stress is a physiological response, not an emotional one. It is a hormonal response.
ADotsalot
Member
Okay I was able to get her to the emergency vet, they say they can take care of exotics but just don't list that they do anywhere. We are waiting right now and she is a dark color which saddens me. She might be handled badly again by the vet like the last one. But like you said if she is egg bound she needs a vet. So does this bump have something to do with the eggs? Does her not drinking have something to do with the eggs?
jajeanpierre
Chameleon Enthusiast
Good luck. A good reptile vet is a gift.
Rogue
Avid Member
It took an emergency visit with my previous cham to find the vet we now have. I hope that this visit will be a much better experience for you both.
ADotsalot
Member
Alright... been back from the vet for a little bit and have calmed down...
My baby is indeed egg bound, and it seems it's a really bad case of it from the x-rays. The eggs are so piled up inside her they are pressing on her lungs; which probably explains the huffing and sighing. She is going to go under surgery to clean out all the eggs as well as remover her uterus. They vet doesn't know if she'll make it but he sure is going to try. He is worried some of the eggs could have opened inside her and yolk could have gone into another organ or something like that.... I feel very bad this had to happen. Despite researching how to properly care for a chameleon for a whole year before getting one, I still did not know enough. I will remember the next time I get a new pet to do more research in all the illnesses the animal can get instead of hoping the vet can tell me. I really hope she does not die because my like of information and I really hope she is okay. I love her very much, she means so much to me.
jajeanpierre
Chameleon Enthusiast
URGENT: Make sure he removed the ovaries as well or you will have exactly the same problem with follicles being released into the abdomen.
Many vets remove just the uterus because removing the ovaries is tricky as a major blood vessel travels very close to the ovaries. Removing the uterus doesn't stop the problem. Chameleon ovum are huge when they leave the ovaries.
ADotsalot
Member
It's a ovariumhistorectomy or something like that.
The surgery is done and she's just fine! I'm happy she's okay and I'm so glad my mistake did not cost her life. She's a very tough girl!
Do any you have any tips on what to do for her after a big surgery like this. I'll be putting her humidifier on blast for sure. But her cage is next to a window. I was thinking of putting her cage in a seprate room that barely anyone goes into. Should I change the setup of my cage to make it easier to move around? Any food I shouldn't give her while she's healing; like fruit or worms? I'm still having to give her oral medicine, but enable to do that she needs to hiss at me. Which I can only really do when I gently touch her belly. Any tips????????????
ADotsalot
Member
I'm sorry I don't feel comfortable giving away that information. (Yes I know you don't mean my address) I'm sorry.
As for the abscess, the vet said it could've been a hernia since she was in so much pain from the pile up of eggs. But there was no way to know for sure since he did not see the bump before the attempt at removal. He told me to keep on giving her the medication I was given by the previous vet. He also gave her an IV so she could get some liquid in her system, which I was very happy about. I hope we won't have anymore issues and my baby can live a long happy chameleon life!!
I asked where you lived so I would know if the climate was like Florida or Canada...but I was just asking so I could tell you if it was OK to keep the cage by the window or not....so well do it this way...if you live in a climate like Canada move the cage away from the window so your chameleon doesn't end up with a respiratory infection. If you live in Florida it won't matter. In both cases if the cage is glass and the sun shines on the cage through the window, move the cage away from the window.
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Nursemaia
Chameleon Enthusiast
We ask where you live because it can help us help you not because we're crazy stalkers. Sometimes will even ask what city you live in because we have a member on here that can help you find a reptile vet in your area. Most of us who have been on here for a long time know where each other live. Kinyonga is from Canada and I'm from Delaware
ADotsalot
Member
I live in Texas
jajeanpierre
Chameleon Enthusiast
Where in Texas? I'm in the San Antonio area.
I have never had surgery other than having a vet deal with an abscess so I can't help you with the recovery other than just general advice of not stressing your chameleon.
You can often get them to gape by tapping them on the head or behind their jaws. I never can. I either have a wild thing that wants to eat me or one that won't open its mouths no matter what I do. When that happens, I resort to forcing the mouth open I GENTLY slip the toothpick end of one of those disposable dental floss/toothpick thingies into the front of their mouth--right at the front teeth--and ever so gently working it completely across the front of their mouth and then working it back. If you use something like that, you have to be REALLY careful you don't damage the inside of the mouth/jaws/tongue with it. Be ever so gentle.
I would also suggest you loosely wrap your poor girl up in a light towel to avoid having to struggle with her. Wrap her so that only her head is exposed. You want it tight enough that she can't struggle but not tight enough to restrict breathing.
Good luck. If I can help, pm me.
ADotsalot
Member
I just got her back from the vet, she spent the night. The vet said she is making an "unbelievably quick recover" she is thankfully already wanting to eat and still doesn't mind being hand fed. I'm thinking about feed her some cucumber. Just for the moisture since she is still dehydrated. As well as crickets and apples. She is sadly no longer comfortable with me holding her but I will gladly spend another year trying to earn that trust back. The problem is she runs away now when I try to take her out of her cage. Do you have any solution to get a hold of her for her meds?
jajeanpierre
Chameleon Enthusiast
My only advice is to do everything fast. Have everything ready ahead of time and plan it.
When you give her medication, have an extra syringe of plain water. You can add it to the meds, but you have to realize that there is a approximately .04mls of dead space in the syringe at the tip and you have to take that into consideration if you are adding water to the meds. It's simple calculations but I don't know how comfortable you are with calculating things like that. I don't think I would feed her fruit or veggies. They aren't really an omnivore and vegetable matter is hard on their gut at the best of times.
I would give her something like hornworms or silkworms, but you probably don't have them on hand. If you are anywhere near San Antonio, I could meet you somewhere with some silkworms for her.
Some reptile store might have hornworms, but with the gass shortage, you certainly don't want to be driving around needlessly.
ADotsalot
Member
We have hornworms at a petsmart close by. I live pretty far from San Antonio. I never tried feeding her hornworms though because she's very tiny and I don't really like cutting up bugs in half... the horn also worries me. Are they a pretty good source of moisture? Although she's been eating in a lot higher amounts than before the surgery, she still isn't drinking off her leaves.
jajeanpierre
Chameleon Enthusiast
The "horn" on hornworms is soft.
Don't cut anything up. It dies and she won't eat dead things. They ship the hornworms when they are small but they grow really fast. You can control their growth with temperature and access to food. If you can find a new shipment, you can get small worms.
If she is anywhere near 50g, she can probably manage to get a fairly big hornworm down. She might be intimidated by it, though, if she has never eaten them before. I regularly feed my wild caughts those big green Katydids that are the size of their (the quads/graciliors) heads. It takes them awhile to get it down but they do it. That's a healthy and motivated wild caught, not a sick little veiled who just underwent surgery.
I wish I were closer to you.
