Could this be the start of an eye infection?

DoomTurtle

New Member
I noticed a bit of swelling on my panther chameleon's right eye. I am unsure if this could turn out to be a serious infection or not. Here are some pictures:


He hasn't scratched or closed the eye at all so it doesn't seem that serious as of right now. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
How would I have to do that? Just drop a few drops into his eye and he will clean it by moving his eye?

Yup, if it comes with the squeeze bottle with the plastic tip, you can kinda jet it right in there. You can also fill a secondary plastic syringe and squirt it in.

You can also inject it directly around the eye and fill up the "bowl" with the solution, but that is a very high level technique, and i wouldnt recommend it for a beginner.

But once you can get some saline in there, there is hope that nature will take over and the cham will take a "eyeball spinning bath" and basically bulge out the eye and spin it around rapidly. Some individuals will do this quite readily during mistings.


You can also put some on a cotton swap and try to gently push the piece out. Once its dislodged it will come right out with a few blinks.
 
looks like a stuck shed. you could try to asperate it out with some human eyeball saline.
You mean flush it out? To aspirate means to suck it out and you definitely don’t want to do that in a chams eye! I also would not force a jet of water into a chams eye because that can damage it. Be carful in what you do. Some things are best left to a vet. You can drip some saline in there and let it drain on its own. The Cham will do the rest.
 
You mean flush it out? To aspirate means to suck it out and you definitely don’t want to do that in a chams eye! I also would not force a jet of water into a chams eye because that can damage it. Be carful in what you do. Some things are best left to a vet. You can drip some saline in there and let it drain on its own. The Cham will do the rest.
Is there a specific brand of saline that I should use or avoid?
 
Boy, I’m not sure. Some things made for human use are ok to use but I’m just not sure about the saline. It should be okay but just not sure. Also please don’t use force when putting it in the chams eye, just drip it onto the eye and let the Cham do the rest.
@kinyonga @ERKleRose
 
Boy, I’m not sure. Some things made for human use are ok to use but I’m just not sure about the saline. It should be okay but just not sure. Also please don’t use force when putting it in the chams eye, just drip it onto the eye and let the Cham do the rest.
@kinyonga @ERKleRose
Yeah I am gonna wait and see how his eye develops in the next few days, and if it doesn't get better, then I will probably do this.
 
There's no one specific brand. A normal saline solution is pretty simple with few ingredients. It is composed of NaCl (Sodium chloride--better known as salt) and purified water. Normal saline solutions run around .9%, so you could look for that on the bottle.

My only advice would be to stay away from saline solutions that have more ingredients other than just sodium chloride and water.

I would start gentle, but if it doesn't come out, you could apply a more pressurized stream to help break it up. I've seen posts on here before where gently applying solution to the eye didn't work. But since it looks like the shed is visible in the picture, I'd say that your cham should be able to get it out with gentle flushing.

You could also try increasing the time you mist the cage to see if that helps him dislodge the shed from his eye.
 
You mean flush it out? To aspirate means to suck it out and you definitely don’t want to do that in a chams eye! I also would not force a jet of water into a chams eye because that can damage it. Be carful in what you do. Some things are best left to a vet. You can drip some saline in there and let it drain on its own. The Cham will do the rest.

Sorry been a long day, used suck instead squirt. But yea you can squirt plain water in if you want, but i dont recommend it.

Here is the natty cleaning:


And here is a Petr cleaning:
 
Petr makes it look very easy...and I'm sure it could be easy for someone who has done it quite a few times...but if you've never done it, I would recommend that you get a vet to do it so th eye doesn't accidentally get damaged.

Personally, I would not "jet" it right into the eye...nor would I squirt it in with any force. Just my opinion.
 
Petr makes it look very easy...and I'm sure it could be easy for someone who has done it quite a few times...but if you've never done it, I would recommend that you get a vet to do it so th eye doesn't accidentally get damaged.

Personally, I would not "jet" it right into the eye...nor would I squirt it in with any force. Just my opinion.

Yea thats why i recommended not to do it as a beginner. I certainly would not be doing it with a dulled down hypo needle...

As for squirting, that eye ball is gonna seal shut as soon as even a drop gets on it :) I guess you could dribble for a minute just to get one blink in, it doesnt take much :)
 
I would caution you against inserting anything under the eye lids. If you scratch the cornea it will cause your chameleon incredible pain. It could lead to an ulcer on the eye itself that could fog the eye and impair it’s vision. I would leave anything above external rinsing to a veterinarian.
 
Yea thats why i recommended not to do it as a beginner. I certainly would not be doing it with a dulled down hypo needle...

As for squirting, that eye ball is gonna seal shut as soon as even a drop gets on it :) I guess you could dribble for a minute just to get one blink in, it doesnt take much :)
Yeah I was going to wait with using eye drops until I was sure that it wasn't going to get better on its own. Someone else suggested that it might be too much UVB exposure from my UVB lights so I turned one of them off for now to see if anything changes. (it might very well be due to too much UVB because one of his favorite spots happens to be on a branch where mainly his right side faces towards the UVB tube)
I will keep an eye on him for the next few days and if it doesn't get better I will go see a vet about it.
 
Sorry been a long day, used suck instead squirt. But yea you can squirt plain water in if you want, but i dont recommend it.

Here is the natty cleaning:


And here is a Petr cleaning:

I actually came across Petr Necas' video whilst trying to find a solution for this issue, he seems to really know what hes doing!
 
I watched the video where he’s dulling down the needle then using it in the chams eye and personally I think that was entirely wrong! He did poke the animals eye ball and could have scratched the cornea or even ruptured the eyeball itself not to mention the fact that in dulling down the needle, it’s no longer sterile and he could introduce an infection. I think it was very irresponsible of him! Is he a vet?
 
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