Chameleon Suddenly Closing Eyes

[adoptaspork]

Hello,

I am new here so I'll give you some basic information first before I ask if anyone knows what's going on with my poor little Jackson's Chameleon.

cage: tall (large size, i believe it is?) repti-breeze
lights: reptisun 5.0 in a mini deep dome and zilla mini halogen daytime heat bulb.
temp: basking ~80, nighttime ~73
humidity: ~50%
substrate: paper towels
water: hand-misting
diet: mostly gut-loaded crickets, very occasional waxworm, calcium dust, occasional multi-vitamin and some greens.

chameleon: male jackson's chameleon, very "friendly" with a lovely green hue and typically decent eating habits.

now the story...

"jackie" was adopted from a petsmart because he had crawled upside down beneath a heat lamp that was too close and therefore had thermal burns on his toes. this caused foot deformities and he was no longer sellable. i took over responsibility for the care of his damaged feet when i took him home. he had appeared relatively healed until 2.5 weeks ago one of the abscesses worsened and i took him to the vet. he prescribed baytril oral 2x daily (jackie weighed 52g) alongside silvadine ointment on the affected toe. he's been fine for the past two weeks. saturday i took him in for a check-up and the vet prescribed an oral smz-tmp suspension 2x daily (he ended up at 54g saturday). when i gave him his medicine this afternoon, i fed it to him and then gave him a wax worm (enticement to eat...) by hand because he hasn't seemed to eat anything in the past few days (previously, he was eating). he drank directly from my mister about two days ago, but i haven't seen him drink since. he took it, and when i placed him back in his cage, he promptly stretched out from head to tail and proceeded to vomit a bunch of clear goopy mucous. this, he has NEVER done. afterward, he closed his eyes. they seem like they may be a little sunken, so i soaked him in some warm water and he would pop one eye or the other open for a minute and glance at me, then by the end of the soak he just sat there with both eyes closed. i also gave him a few ml of water from a syringe. i placed him back in his enclosure, and he has not opened his eyes since. he still has a decent grip (his grip is a bit weak anyway because of his deformed toes, so it doesn't feel any different) but isn't really moving anywhere at all. his color is still bright green. i've never seen any discharge in or from his mouth and he's never vomited. he's also never gone off his food/water before or closed his eyes like this. i tried to listen closely to him and i might have heard a very slight pop once or twice so i'm not sure if it's really really early signs of an uri but there are no symptoms otherwise and i might just be going crazy and hearing things just because i'm an overly concerned mama. either way, has anyone experienced this or have any idea what could have happened? i'm very worried for my poor baby, so a vet call is probably in order tomorrow.

 

[adoptaspork]

Just found this, so...

Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon - jacksons chameleon, male, probably somewhere around a year and a half?? in my care since ~july.
Handling - currently 2x/day for medication purposes. none other than that.
Feeding - mentioned in post above. he gets offered crickets every day, occasional waxworms because he was skinny when i got him, calcium supp a couple times a week, multivitamin about once a month, gut loaded on cricket diet from the store as well as vegetables from home. all organic - i'm a vegetarian.
Supplements - rep-cal and reptivite.
Watering - hand misting a few times a day. morning for ~5 minutes, mid-day for a few minutes, night for ~10min. typically he drinks from leaves or straight from my misting bottle.
Fecal Description - dark brown feces and chalky white urates. i've never had him parasite tested, although i think petsmart did way back.
History - mentioned above.

Cage Info:
Cage Type - screen large/tall reptivreeze
Lighting - mentioned in above post. lights are on at 10am and off around 9pm.
Temperature - mentioned above. measurements made with an analog thermometer
Humidity - mentioned above.
Plants - no live plants. i plan to put some ficus in there when the nursery has it again, though.
Placement - cage is in my bedroom, on my bedside stand, so it's not in very high traffic. there is a fan, but it produces very little breeze which can be felt by him. top of the cage is probably about 6 feet off the ground.
Location - florida, usa

 

[adoptaspork]

update

he's opened his eyes and is mobile now...he seemed really thirsty and drank directly from my spray bottle, but then he vomited it up. it basically looked clear and was the consistency of human spit...pretty much the same stuff he vomited up a few hours ago. he's moving around and has taken up curiosity concerning his surroundings again. i'm not sure if he just drank too fast and it caused him to vomit again? regardless, he's been starting at and following a cricket with his eyes but hasn't gone for it at all. also, he's just started gaping a little bit post-vomit. :/

 

[Carlton]

he's opened his eyes and is mobile now...he seemed really thirsty and drank directly from my spray bottle, but then he vomited it up. it basically looked clear and was the consistency of human spit...pretty much the same stuff he vomited up a few hours ago. he's moving around and has taken up curiosity concerning his surroundings again. i'm not sure if he just drank too fast and it caused him to vomit again? regardless, he's been starting at and following a cricket with his eyes but hasn't gone for it at all. also, he's just started gaping a little bit post-vomit. :/

So how much total liquid did he get with the oral Baytril (which tastes bitter apparently), the waxworm, plus water all at once? Chams have small stomachs for their size and no sphincter between stomach and esophagus. If their stomach is overfilled the contents can back up into the throat and be regurgitated or even aspirated. It is probably pretty uncomfortable and stressful. I'm sure he was thirsty or had an irritated throat too.

 

[adoptaspork]

the oral baytril was 0.2 ml two times a day but now he's on smz tmp 0.3 ml two times a day. traditionally, i would spray the enclosure about an hour after the medicine dosing. when he regurgitated, though, he had just had it and then tried to drink off a leaf so i had figured he was thirsty...which is when he had consumed all the water and then regurgitated it, so that case might be solved.

do the smz tmp suspensions taste particularly worse than the baytril? because he was eating and even gained some weight during the 2 week baytril regiment. now he hasn't eaten on his own for probably 4-ish days. i did manage to convince him to swallow down a hand-fed cricket earlier and i got some calcium dust on it because i've been a bit concerned about the lack of calcium intake with the hunger strike. he's always been a good eater despite having to be handled every day for a very long time for silvadine on his toes and recently the antibiotic. i do feel like the antibiotics are particularly more stressful than putting silver ointment on his toe, though.

otherwise, he seems stable and is acting normally. just no eating. i'm just wondering if this particular medicine is hitting him hard. the toe (the reason he's on them in the first place...) is looking significantly better since he went on it, but i'm not sure if that's really a worthwhile tradeoff.