Eye and tongue help....

[jergar2]

My buddy Cajones(Cham) is having serious problems for about 3 days now. His right eye looks swollen and barely open. When he closes his eye it seems like a lump is moving around under his eye-lid. I keep his cage clean. i keep a mister in his cage that mist for about 10 minutes 3 times a day and I feed him mostly gutloaded crickets and a couple times a week i'll feed him superworms. Here at about the same time frame as the eye problem he has been having problems with catching his food. I think that it may have something to do with not being able to see to well out of the eye. He has been having problems shooting his tongue at the feeders. sometimes he misses or he does not release his tongue far enough. Any advice is very useful. I was going to take Cajones to the animal hospital today but the were closed due to the fact of it being Sunday. I read of some eyedrops that I can get for him that have antibiotics in them. If anyone knows of a great website to get these that would be helpful. I would like to try and save money and not have to take him to the vet but I am starting to feel very worried for his health and feel it may be nesscary.

Thank you

 

[Dez and Delilah]

One thing you might want to try prior to getting him to the vet is to give him a warm shower. We did this with our older cham who had eye problems and it seemed to work fairly well.

The best way to do it is put a plant inside the shower with the cham on it. Aim the water off the wall so it mists on him, eventually he should start trying to clean his eyes. Make sure the water is warm though!

Even if you do see improvement, it won't hurt to take him to the vet anyway. Catching something early is better for the cham and your wallet in the end.

 

[wanker]

I believe you're misting your enclosure way, way too much, especially for Savannah, GA and this may have led to the infection. The enclosure should dry out between mistings. Try one minute applications, three times a day and none at night. You only need to mist enough so that droplets form on the leaves of your plant for drinking. Other than that, it's over kill and breeds bacteria.

 

[wanker]

Here's a nice how-to regarding treating eye infections from Screameleons:

Problem 2: My chameleon keeps an eye closed.
Sometimes, a chameleon might keep an eye closed without the symptoms of a URI. You may see "gunk" in or around the eye. When this happens, the chameleon more than likely has an eye infection.
This is also caused by improper husbandry. Make sure your cage dries out completely between offering water, and keep everything clean!

The first thing to do is give your chameleon a shower and follow up with a gentle cleaning. Follow the steps below:

1. Turn the shower on and ensure that the temperature is at room temperature. Keep in mind that if it is warm to you, it is hot to your chameleon.

2. Point the Shower Head at the wall so that your chameleon gets an indirect mist.

3. Place either the entire cage (if it will fit), or a plant inside the shower along with the chameleon.

4. Observe that the chameleon stays relaxed. If he starts to panic, then the water is either too hot or too cold. They will also panic if the water is blasting them. He should attempt to clean his eye by bulging it out. You may see the eye "bubble"
up. This is normal so don't panic.

5. Stop the shower after 30 minutes and use a moist Q-tip to clean up any visible "gunk" on the outside of the eye. Do this by gently sweeping the outside of the eye from left to right. Be extremely gentle to avoid damaging their eyes.

6. Repeat Steps 1-5 for 5 days. If the problem persists, and you are a customer of ours, please contact us by phone for further advice.

If the eye continues to stay closed, you will need to pick up an antibiotic eye-drop from the vet. In our experience, the eye drops work better than the eye ointments/creams. The ointments tend to build up on the inside of the eye, which makes matters worse.
While treating your chameleon with the eye drops, continue with the showers. This will allow the chameleon to flush the eye out between doses.

 

[jergar2]

great help

I will try the showers that you talk about and see how that works. but i am taking cajones to the vet today anyway to get some eyedrops and to just get him checked out because the tongue things worries me most. if you have any advice on that it would be greatly appreciated because even though the vet tells me on thing sometimes experinced cham owners and breeders can give hands on advice.

 

[Dez and Delilah]

An eye problem could definitely throw off your chams aim. If he's still shooting/retracting it well, but the aim is off that would be my first guess at the cause.

Of course check with your vet though

 

[jergar2]

I just got back from the vet and the vet said they did not see anything wrong with him at all. They looked down his throat and did not see anything what so ever with his throat cavity or with his tongue and would you guess the whole time im in the waiting room he was doing the eye buldging thing but would not do it in the room with the vet. She told me to give it about one more week and see if it stops and if it does not that she knows of a better qualified vet for exoctic animals and that they would be able to take x-rays and see things that she might not have been able to see. So that is my plans. I am going to try the shower thing and normal saline eye drops for humans and then take him back if things dont clear up. If anyone still has any advice i will keep checking back to this podt and i will also keep doing my research

 

[wanker]

Definitely do the shower thing and turn down your mister. In fact Screameleons only recommends you use the mister 4 times a day for 30 seconds at a time. Good luck.