Egg bound, surgery and recovery experiences?

[blastPHANT1337]

Hello everyone,

I have a 2yo veiled female that I adopted from craigslist when she was approximately 1.5 years old. At the time I got her she had not laid any eggs yet and was pretty enormously hefty in size. Long story short I tried many different setups over the months based on what I've read on the forums to try and get her to choose to lay. After no success I took her to the vet a few weeks ago and did an X-ray and he believes she has pre-ovulatory egg-binding (noncalcified eggs all still within the ovaries, never ovulated). Thus, he thinks surgery is the best option and she is scheduled for next Friday.

I was wondering if people have had to go through this with their chams and if anyone had any tips as to how I could make her recovery as comfortable as possible. I have read that reptile wounds can very slow to knit compared with mammals.

She is still eating thankfully and so she will be well nourished up until the procedure. That's a good base off which to start healing.

Thanks for sharing!
-Greg

 

[NHenn]

Sorry to hear about your female and her being egg bound . Unfortunately I don't have any experience with this but I'm sure some will be able to help. I wish you and her the best of luck and hopefully a speedy recovery!

 

[SaintJimmy]

Sorry to hear about your female and her being egg bound . Unfortunately I don't have any experience with this but I'm sure some will be able to help. I wish you and her the best of luck and hopefully a speedy recovery!

Same here!

I wish you the best.. You and your cham.

I hope she is okay after the surgery!

 

[laurie]

Hello, I am sorry to hear about your girl. I have not had the experience of having surgery for an egg bound girl. But several of the members here have that surgery. Most all have had a good experience. Of the surgeries I remember, one of about 8 had a problem that the cham broke open the stitches. It was fixed and all went well. With a good vet you and your girl should be fine.

 

[kinyonga]

This surgery for veileds seems to have a pretty good track record in the last few years. Good luck!!

 

[blastPHANT1337]

This is very comforting news, I'm glad people have had success with these surgeries.

 

[little leaf]

I also have never had a cham w/ egg issues, only slugs, but just wanted to wish you luck, I am sure all will go well - will keep you and her in my thoughts and prayers

 

[blastPHANT1337]

Survival!!!!

Well,
Trudy is back in the healing cage now and she is looking pretty magnifique I dare say. Let the healing begin. She just had a nice long drink from the spray bottle and then went right back to exhibiting her anger towards me with maximal chin protrusion.

Here's her photos (including XRAYs) http://imgur.com/a/izmlk

BEFORE

AFTER

XRays

 

[stalincat]

my girl had it done about a year ago. She is doing great now, hope yours will recover fast! All the best to her!
be sure not to overfeed her though, as she will be very greedy. Mine hit 200g last month.. she is heavier than my males, and I barely feed her.

 

[blastPHANT1337]

Haha wow!
The vet actually cautioned me against that, something about either their metabolism or their satiety sense being coupled with their ovaries, and once they are gone they gain weight very easily. Do you have pictures of how big she has gotten? I would be curious to see.

I'm just really excited she can move about freely now. Even with the post-surgical inflammation her body is about half as bulky and I see her walking around much more easily. 40% of her weight was eggs.

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

That's great that she's doing well! I hope she has a speedy recovery! Keep us updated on her progress.

 

[jannb]

That's great news. I hope Trudy has a speedy recovery. Keep us posted.

 

[Lathelia]

40%? Wow, she must feel much lighter now

After no success I took her to the vet a few weeks ago and did an X-ray and he believes she has pre-ovulatory egg-binding (noncalcified eggs all still within the ovaries, never ovulated).

How did he diagnose her? I mean base on the fact that she was "huge" for a long time or the x-ray?

 

[ChrisZ]

Good luck with her! You can see on the Xrays she will need extra calcium.

 

[blastPHANT1337]

40%? Wow, she must feel much lighter now



How did he diagnose her? I mean base on the fact that she was "huge" for a long time or the x-ray?

Palpation suggested that the eggs masses were
1) uncalcified and
2) more anteriorly situated than they would be had they been ovulated,

so we moved on to perform the XRay, and that supported the pre-ovulatory diagnosis again due to their locations

P.S. Already ravenously hungry. Maybe because there's so much extra room now to expand her stomach

 

[jastate09]

How's she doing?

 

[blastPHANT1337]

Pretty well I think. I gave her her last dose of prescribed NSAIDs today which is always entertaining -- it involves moving my hand near her as if to touch her and when she hisses at me I squirt the syringe in. That's pretty easy to do since she is so mad at me for bringing her to the vet

Since her surgery her wound bled a very small amount a few days ago and there's a touch of the dried blood from it. I was concerned but since then there has been no further bleeding and theres no inflammation or signs of infection. Her color is also good all over and even right up to the stitches she is bright and happy colored. I can tell it hurts though because she foots at it when her NSAIDs wear off. The vet did a good job stitching to avoid that causing problems thankfully.

The other day I decided to stick her back in her 'freerange' because she was doing so well (really its a closed sunroom with tons of plants that belongs to her and a young panther, they ignore each other completely). She seems happy to be back home and watches traffic and passersby from her 3rd story perch.

Still eating like a pig. I couldn't be happier about that!

Here's some pictures I just snapped before lights-off

http://imgur.com/a/8BBrP

 

[blastPHANT1337]

one hell of a scare

So I checked on Trudy a few hours ago and fed her. Then when I did my closer inspection of her body and her wound I saw a bunch of mites crawling around on her.

I immediately assumed she must have picked up some mites at the Vet's office. I picked her up and checked her vent and her eyes (she did NOT enjoy that), but didn't find any infestations.

I swept some of the buggers onto a dish and then inspected them under my scope and they were certainly mites, tiny red ones (I assumed filled with blood)...

I gave her a warm bath and got the remainders off. I was still puzzled to see so many of them on her while she lacked any obvious signs of infestation around the vent and eyes and nostrils.

Then I checked the plant she was on. It was swarming with them. I looked at the plant under my scope and they were feeding on it and spinning little mite webs.
Phew!

Now to figure out how to save the plant!