Blood...problem pooping help!

Moomancow

New Member
Hi posting here cuz I'm not sure what else to do

My veiled chameleon Lilee has not been eating for a couple days and this morning I saw some blood in the spot she likes to poop...igave her a warm water bath because up until this point should have been eating like crazy and I thought maybe she had an impaction/constipation but I'm beginning to suspect a bigger problem

she is roughly 10 months old she has never laid eggs does not appear to be gravid she still has her juvenile spots
temps ~70f-78
basking ~85-90 incandescent daylight
uvb reptisun 5.0 tube replaced 3 months ago
open air reptibreeze cage the large one

diet consist of about 30% crickets and then phoenix worms (larvae and adult), hornworms, superworms, mealworms (and adult beetles), silkworms, Blue Bottle flies, the occasional wax worm or adult moth....

supplements: she gets calcium without D3 at almost every feeding a multivitamin once/twice a month

gutload (for crickets)
Fresh washed dandy-lion, fluker's Cricket gut load, cricket gel, sometimes squash carrot or blue berries
The other insects get different types of gut loads depending on the species requirements.. nothing I would deem unsafe after research

Drinking:
There's a fogger system that allows water to collect on the top of the screen to drop two leaves also a dripper system and I hand mist two or three times a day ( sometimes she's lazy and just like to sit by the edge of the screen with her mouth open and have me spray directly into it lol)...shes been drinking a lot just spent about an hour drinking yesterday

she did just get over an infection a bit over a month ago which developed an abscess on the bridge of her nose the local exotic vet give me Baytril shots to give her every 3 days this went on for about a month while we also drained the abscess

This was about a month ago her behavior went back to normal her appetite picked back up she began eating much much more than she usual

About 3 days ago she stopped eating and became pretty lethargic I've noticed her taking quite a lot of naps during the day and noticed blood where she usually poops

I thought maybe she was impacted due to the amount she's been eating so I gave her a warm water bath yesterday and today to no avail... but after the warm water bath today and I put her back in she began trying to pass something but all I saw was blood attached is a picture

I would normally just rush her to the vet but my exotic specialist is out of town for 4 more days

Does anyone have any idea what this can be and what I can do to help in the meantime...i love my lilee whatever I can do to help her

also she has had an egg laying bin present for a couple weeks just in case although she shows no signs of being gravid or even mature enough yet

let me know if you need any more information attached is a picture whatever she was trying to pass bad angle but didn't want to scare her or she would stop
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also up until now her poop and urates looked healthy (brown+white)
she was extremely strong and her bones are healthy as well except now the lethargy shows shes not really holding on well here's another picture of her
Just gave her another warm shower she's not happy about
 

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she is now laying on the bottom of her cage 0_0

i found another exotic specialist around but they do not open until 7am

does anyone anyone have any ideas

it just progressed so rapidly and im freaking out
 
It could be parasites that are causing intestinal bleeding. If at all possible save the stool as a sample for your vet appointment tomorrow it will help in determining what is wrong with your little one. I hope she is ok please send updates on her condition if at all possible.
 
Will do...i fear maybe shes had parasites and the baytril killed the competeing microorganisms and maybe thats why the symptoms became severe so quickly..(stool samples have not been checked by a vet since I got her)

I do everything I can for her I hope she makes it through the night...
 
I went in to check on her (lights are off now)

Shes hanging on...but she really looks like shes not going to make it through the night...shes laying on the bottom of the cage with her mouth open...

...i am heartbroken for her and hoping she makes it...

she just started developing mature colors...maybe a hormonal disorder....if parasites she only started showing symptoms 3 days ago...

I couldnt imagine any kind of poison/contaminant from her feeders or otherwise

impaction/constipation I feel wouldnt have caused this

She drinks tap water here which is hard water and we did just recently get a water quality assessment and nothing in it seemed enough to cause something like this...unless some sort of microbial agent in the water

I just dont see much on here about pooping blood...

Im really hoping for her...shes my only pet ever to get this close to death except old age under my watch...or even house plant for that matter

ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..this pic was earlier today after her warm water bath..she lost some weight over the last 3 days and the lethargy that came kept her weak...you can see the scar tissue on her nose from the abscess a bit over a month ago
 

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She just died X_X.....

im really sad...

Thought I was doing everything right

the last picture was literally her earlier the same day
 
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Luckily the new exotic vet said they would do a free autopsy

This does not come with any biopsies though but if something internally looked wrong shed be able to let me know

I will update with any findings
 
Sorry to hear the bad news. That's very nice of your vet to offer free service and I hope she can give you some answers.
 
An update on the necroscopy from the veternarian

She said everything appeared to be normal and healthy
with one exception a section of her intestines was nearly necrotic and/or hemorrhaging...

She said this could be caused by a severe microbial infection a culture was not completed

im wondering if she may have picked something up from a feeder insect


Thinking about it after her being on Baytril for nearly two months to clear the abscess with assisted draining

The first week she had the abscess her appetite fell off then after being on Baytril she began eating normal again but the vet mentioned he'd like to see her put on some weight a stool sample was not examined at this time

Near the end of her antibiotics I began to feed her a wax worm every couple days to try to give her some more fat

I did notice the waxworms smelling a little funky but they were alive and she continued normal behavior she just got off antibiotics completely about a month ago

Any of the moths that came out of that batch of wax worms all seemed to be stunted and/or deformed I still have some larvae left I'll try to take pictures

I'm wondering if she picked something up from the wax worms and with Baytril eliminating the naturally occurring competing microbes maybe they were able to run rampant hence the sudden decline in health

I just wish I would have taken her to the vet the first day but I didn't think 3 days later she would be dead

The only open-end for me is a stool sample had never been examined since I got her about 10 months ago and maybe there's something going on the whole time but her stool and urates looked fine until 2 days ago when the blood showed up

It's good to have some closure and if I do plan on getting a chameleon again in the future I know the first thing I do will take it to the vet for a stool sample.... and also take any change in behavior extremely serious immediately

She had been to the vet twice in the 10 ten months I had her
this morning would have been her third time if she would have made it through the night been it would have been her third

I do wish the original vet would have been a little bit more thorough though it could have been something more recent and aggressive

out of all the reptiles and amphibians (and carnivorous plants for that matter) that i have owned over the years this is my first companion to die under my care....

Sucks a lot

Maybe one day I'll get another chameleon this one's definitely a tough loss definately seemed to have a lot more personality than other reptiles

sorry long post
*edit* heres a picture of her when i got her as a baby and she earned her name lil-ee cause she looked at me and squeaked eeeee!
 

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