Baytril and loss of use of front leg?

[Julirs]

AJ (2.5 year old male Veiled) is on Baytril for a pretty bad case of mouth rot. He is on day 6 of 10 and today I notice his front leg just hanging limp. I am not sure if he can use it or if he is just perferring not to. Anyone had anything like this happen on Baytril? The mouth seems to be getting better daily.

 

[fluxlizard]

Are you injecting the baytril in this leg?

You should alternate front legs to give each a chance to heal every other day or better yet to give baytril orally is fine too.

 

[Eric Adrignola]

My old male lost much use of his rear legs (but not his rear feet) after just a couple days on baytril. He had a bad burn, went on baytril, went downhill immediately. took him off, he got better, immediately, but lost the use of his legs.

 

[Olimpia]

Not with mine, but I've only had to give one chameleon baytril for 10 days, so it's not much of an experience range. But isn't that really strange, an antibiotic causing paralysis? Does anyone know how this is possible?

 

[Julirs]

Are you injecting the baytril in this leg?

You should alternate front legs to give each a chance to heal every other day or better yet to give baytril orally is fine too.

Oral-not injecting.

 

[Amanda1801]

How are you giving it orally? Are you giving it directly or intra-feeder if you like?

My thinking was if you were giving it directly into the chams mouth, is he/she resisting and potentially injured the leg?

Mine was on oral baytril, given by injecting it into a wax worm, daily for 3 weeks due to a huge infection. Suffered no ill effects, apart from a bit of grumpiness when the wax worm feeding became less frequent!

 

[Julirs]

This guy is extremely easy to give medicine to. If I even go near him he gapes, and holds it, so I just drop the meds into his mouth.

 

[Amanda1801]

This guy is extremely easy to give medicine to. If I even go near him he gapes, and holds it, so I just drop the meds into his mouth.

I don't know then... I do know that theres not much known about the mechanism of action of baytril but it seems unlikely that a bactericide would cause paralysis, particularly in only one limb

 

[Scott85]

I had similar experiences with two chameleons. A panther female and an unsexed mellers. In both cases the baytril was given orally, injected into feeders. Each of the chams recieved a slightly different dosage from different vets. Both of them exhibited the same symptoms after about 4 days of the meds. Its not that they couldnt use their limbs, just that they seemed to have alot of trouble getting them to where they wanted. Very clumbsy, to the point where I was scared they were not going to be able to stay in their trees. I requested new antibiotics for both after seeing their condition. In both cases they were switched to chloramphenicol, which was also proven effective by culture and sesitivity tests, with no side affects. In both cases the loss of leg function cleared up when the baytril was stopped.

 

[jannb]

Juli, I am so sorry to hear that about AJ. Lizbeth has used Baytril numerous times on many different chams over the years with no side effects but I guess animals including chams are like people and different meds react differently to each cham. If it were me, I would stop the baytril immediately and if you have not done so already get a culture and sensitivity tests and see if there's not a different antibiotic to treat the infection. I hope this is just temporary and that AJ will improve very soon.

 

[Julirs]

Thanks Jann-I did notice today that he can move it, he just is not using it normally. My Vet is back Thursday I believe and we will be at the office. I am hesitant to stop the Baytril at this point, his mouth was very swollen and has gotten significantly better-so the Baytril is working, and my fear was that the infection could spread to his eyes. I will check on him tonight. I am just thankful at this point he is drinking plenty.
I have used Baytril on chams and on dragons with no side effects.

 

[Miss Lily]

I am interested in AJ's leg, as Tommy has been unable to use his front leg properly since the summer. If your vet can find out why AJ is not using his leg, it may point me in the right direction too!

Glad his mouth is improving though, it's awful to know there's something wrong and not be able to help, other than give whatever meds the vets prescribe. Amy s currently on a 5 day course of Baytril too as she has a swollen toe.

 

[ChameleonsInMyHouse]

IMHO, batryil is a terrible drug that i will refuse to ever use again. i've used it twice before and the treatment was fatal, and like a previous post said before it was "almost immediately". in my eyes, there is a natural cure somewhere and somehow for almost any type of illness.

Thats just my 2 cents though, i just personally hate that med.

i do have a couple striking questions though if you guys could help me out.

1)have any of you, ever used a saline to santize and wash early mouth rot, if so, has it ever healed it?

2)is aloe vera safe for cham consumption?

 

[kinyonga]

I have used baytril many many times over the last 20+ years of keeping chameleons and have never had a problem with it. I have had trouble with amikacin though.

Perhaps its the dosage? I found this site and I don't know if it would apply to chameleons as well....
"No clinical signs of toxicity were observed when a dose of 5 mg/kg was administered for 15 days. Clinical signs of depression, incoordination, and muscle fasciculation were observed in calves when doses of 15 or 25 mg/kg were administered for 10 to 15 days. Clinical signs of depression, inappetence, and incoordination were observed when a dose of 50 mg/kg had been administered for 3 days"...
http://vetdrugslist.net/baytril-100...antimicrobial-injectable-solution/341115.html

 

[ChameleonsInMyHouse]

I have used baytril many many times over the last 20+ years of keeping chameleons and have never had a problem with it. I have had trouble with amikacin though.

Perhaps its the dosage? I found this site and I don't know if it would apply to chameleons as well....
"No clinical signs of toxicity were observed when a dose of 5 mg/kg was administered for 15 days. Clinical signs of depression, incoordination, and muscle fasciculation were observed in calves when doses of 15 or 25 mg/kg were administered for 10 to 15 days. Clinical signs of depression, inappetence, and incoordination were observed when a dose of 50 mg/kg had been administered for 3 days"...
http://vetdrugslist.net/baytril-100...antimicrobial-injectable-solution/341115.html

i've used baytril on a multi during the summer. he had a URI and the dosage was .5mg untill the perscription was finished. we got maybe a week to a week and a half in and everything in his system shut down within a few days.

sorry kinyonga, im sure you have used it many many times without a problem, but having 2 consecutive failures in a row with baytril, and only a dosage of .5mg. i have to steer clear right away from it.

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

I have used baytril many many times over the last 20+ years of keeping chameleons and have never had a problem with it. I have had trouble with amikacin though.

Perhaps its the dosage? I found this site and I don't know if it would apply to chameleons as well....
"No clinical signs of toxicity were observed when a dose of 5 mg/kg was administered for 15 days. Clinical signs of depression, incoordination, and muscle fasciculation were observed in calves when doses of 15 or 25 mg/kg were administered for 10 to 15 days. Clinical signs of depression, inappetence, and incoordination were observed when a dose of 50 mg/kg had been administered for 3 days"...
http://vetdrugslist.net/baytril-100...antimicrobial-injectable-solution/341115.html

The dose isn't the same between calves and chams. The typical cham dosage is 5-10mg/kg q24-48h. Overdose toxicity should not affect a single limb like that, usually it's a systemic problem.

 

[kinyonga]

Of course the dose isn't the same for both animals...that doesn't mean that the vet prescribed the normal/right/whatever you want to call it dosage.

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

Of course the dose isn't the same for both animals...that doesn't mean that the vet prescribed the normal/right/whatever you want to call it dosage.

Sorry kinyonga, I wasn't trying to imply you thought the dosages were the same, I just didn't want anyone else reading it to misinterpret what you said if they didn't read it closely! I posted the normal dosage for chams to give people an idea if it was prescribed correctly.

 

[fluxlizard]

I used it numerous times in the 90s (dozens of chameleons recently imported- used to shotgun treat imported chameleons with baytril, flagyl and fenbendazole- uh, I don't recommend that anymore- just get a good vet and a fecal you kiddies at home, better yet buy captive bred and avoid the cleanup problem altogether) and never had a problem with it either. I used it as an injectable though, not orally (My brother who is a vet told me I could and probably should use it orally especially on smaller lizards to reduce trauma of daily injections and because the injection is a bit painful of this particular drug- Another vet I once knew confirmed this and said it will give you nightmares when you sleep if you treat yourself with it from personal experience LOL). Anyway, my brother told me this about the time I stopped using it anyway, so I have never used it orally for my animals- don't have any experience with it that way myself.

I do know that this drug has a dehydrating effect on the animal, and that if that effect is allowed, serious damage from the resulting combination of dehydration and drug can follow.

I countered this by tube feeding a thick liquid diet during treatment (well I was shotgunning anyway, so I tube fed along with to get weight gain on my animals over the 10 days of treatment, and replace gut fauna that was killed off from the treatment). Plus I would run a mister for them for several hours a day during and for a week or so after treatment so they could drink much of the day when they wanted and breathe super-humid air much of the day.

So, my advice is to make sure your animal has plenty to drink in a manner that is easy for it to accept (fine mist) if you aren't already doing that. Depending on the mouthrot, I might take my chances and take the animal off until the vet returns. I don't have experience with moutrot, so I don't know what other drugs might prove effective. If you take him off the baytril and that is all your vet has to offer for mouthrot (I doubt it) then when baytril is resumed the dose will have to be upped and that will be harder on your chameleon, so it's kind of flipping a coin to a layman like me. Most good vets have a place you can leave a message if it is an emergency and they are out of town so they can get back to you on the phone...

Of course the symptom you are seeing could be totally unrelated to the baytril at all- On the other hand I guess going out on a limb- could a little gout from the dehydration of the treatment be making the limb painful?

I've gone way out into guessing now- better just say sorry can't be more help. Good luck to you.

Just wanted to confirm too, that the dose that ferretinmyshoes gave is the one I went by at that time. I went for the low dose- only used the high dose one time and that was on non-chameleons that had something that seemed resistant to treatment. If you are using the high end dose, you might consider backing off and reducing the dose some...

 

[Julirs]

Thanks Flux-it is all good info. For all I know he fell and injured it somehow. This is the most severe case of mouthrot I have ever dealth with, I would have to assume the few other cases I have had were mild at best. This poor guys gums are "exploded" looking, and have improved daily with reduced swelling and redness. He is drinking well as I mentioned. I will give an update tonight when I get home.