Eye problems in Chameleons.

The past month or two my vieled chameleon has had eye problems. He keeps them closed almost all day, I rarely see them open and usually to get them open I have to tap on the glass or get his attention. I have taken him to the vet twice, once I got eye drops that didn't seem to help. We took him back and were given ointment that seems to be helping a little more. The eyes are not swollen so I don't think its an infection. Occasionally I see crusty stuff in the slits of his eyes and I carefully remove it. I was force feeding him fish food mixed with peanut butter and water with a siringe but it was starting to hurt him so now I've stopped and he hasn't eaten in 3 days and I can't do anything about it.
 
The past month or two he has had eye problems. He keeps them closed almost all day, I rarely see them open and usually to get them open I have to tap on the glass or get his attention. I have taken him to the vet twice, once I got eye drops that didn't seem to help. We took him back and were given ointment that seems to be helping a little more. The eyes are not swollen so I don't think its an infection. Occasionally I see crusty stuff in the slits of his eyes and I carefully remove it. I was force feeding him fish food mixed with peanut butter and water with a siringe but it was starting to hurt him so now I've stopped and he hasn't eaten in 3 days and I can't do anything about it.
 
Three days is nothing to worry about in a previously healthy chameleon... Has he lost weight yet?
 
I have had continuing eye problems with my male panther. I have tried the vitamin A treatment that was recommended on an earlier post (retinal palmitate 1/20th of a drop every day for 5 days). It did not resolve the eye issue. I tried turning off the UVB light and then raising it to see if that would help. It did seem to help but only for a week or so. My male panther is continuing to scratch his eyes on branches and will frequently keep one closed most of the time. Both eyes are affected but not usually at the same time and there is no discharge or crustiness. The eye itself looks clear when he has it open. He has no problem with his aim while getting food and his sight is very good as indicated by the way he clammers to the cage door when I enter the room.
He has had these issues since shortly after getting him in Feb 2009 off and on. I have increased humidity in his cage and started feeding hormworms and silkworms on a regular basis. I never see him drink anymore and I have a drip going almost constantly througout the day in addition to several heavy mistings. I will occasionally squirt water from the misting bottle into the side of his mouth while he is chewing so I know he has had some straight water for that day at least. I posted a thread nearly a year ago about a scaly eye turret and the problem persists to this day although not quite as severe.
I have recently started applying a small amount of neosporin to his eye while he is sleeping and dripping sterile saline cut with RO water when he is awake it seems to have helped.
In all other aspects he is healthy and eats well. A vet visit yeilded nothing but a lot of oohs and aahs from the staff since they dont get to see ambilobes very often. The vet said he was good weight and his fecal came back negative for parasites. The eye problem comes and goes but is still there regardless of the changes I have made. Here is my first post on this subject.
https://www.chameleonforums.com/scaly-eye-turret-27072/
 
annalol said:
a scale is unecessary.
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Why do you say this? A chameleon can make itself look bigger.

How do you know for sure that the chameleon isn't losing weight?

Do you check the fat pads? The hips to see if the bones are showing?

I'd really like to know your method.
 
How do you get the eyelid open to administer the drops? I'm having a tough time getting my female jackson to open her eye long enough to actually rinse it to see if it's a debris problem.
 
lammon said:
How do you get the eyelid open to administer the drops? I'm having a tough time getting my female jackson to open her eye long enough to actually rinse it to see if it's a debris problem.
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The eyelid will stay closed if the chameleon is alarmed or anything is close to the eye. If you're using a saline solution, squeeze the tube(container) to create a jet that you can shoot into the eye. This will inflate the eye and hopefully flush it. Repeat several times and hope for the best.
 
My female jacksons eyes looked a little red/sore and after a misting I watched bulge out her eye and rub It on a wet branch, I've heard that they do this to help clean them out or if the eye irritates them. But she has only done this once and her eyes aren't getting any worse So I'm assuming that it is starting to heal. If anyone knows what leads to sore/pink eyes or any way to help it any info would be gladly accepted :)
 
pantherlover said:
the first panther i aquired in many years was way over my head in the beginning. it was 3 years plus & i was its fifth owner. the eye problem started with one eye closed. i started to give him showers. in this case they proved to be a temporary fix as did salene solution. eventually both eyes started closing. i triple checked my enclosure, lights, temps & everyting was on point. my cham was still going down hill with its eyes closed. sometimes one, often both. a vet suggested i really tweak my suppliments and gutload. i did a lot of research & ran across posts saying chams could not convert betacarotine into vit a. in my supplement contained betcarotine, no preformed vit a. so i administered 100 iu of preformed vitamin a on the back of a feeder. within 2 days, i noticed my cham was more active and alert. the eyes closing issue decreased to not being an issue at all. to this day im not sure if it was the kick of preformed vit A or the more thought out gutload or the combination of both. none the less, through this experience i would check over my chams over all vitamin & nutrient intake if i ever ran into any eye problem with any of my chams that proved to be more than a hydration or debris issue
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Can you explain this vitamin a thing more? I think I'm having the same problem. What brand of vitamin did you use? Is it something from a pet store I can pick up?
 
10 years ago, I had CB melleri that suffered eye issues and general malady. This was echoed in a large number of the breeder's own animals and the common thread was that we were avoiding preformed A in our supplementation. Our gutloads contained large amounts of Vitamin A precursors, but the animals still suffered.
The eyes would close, there would be yellowish, solidified, exudate, that resembled corn grits. Advanced stages included enlarged and fixed pupils with irregular margins.
Veterinarian intervention and gentamicin treatments did not solve the issues.
Vitamin A was implemented in the supplementation and 2 out of 3 babies were too far going to recover, though they did seem to halt in the progression of further problems, the stress of blindness and not being able to feed, coupled with general dibility led to them being humanely euthanized. One of those animals fully recover and went on to lay her own clutch, which hatched, 4 months later with 100% success.
I have never had eye issues with any reptiles that have had appropriate Vitamin A supplementation and that spans experience with iguanas, tortoises, bearded dragons, uromastyx, sailfin dragons, several chameleon species, geckos, anoles, turtles, and amphibians.
 
One thing to note is that once problems set in, treating with A doesn't always cure the animal, but it still might stop other catastrophic effects going on inside the body. Vitamin A should only be suspected if you aren't utilizing a preformed source in your supplementation. Data shows that under supplementation of A is far more likely than overdosing it. The key is small, consistent doses, through the life of the animal, not whopping doses once there's a problem or every so often. Light, weekly supplementation is a good start.
 
CNorton said:
Female panther 5months old. Closed eye, irritated and continually scratching/rubbing with forefoot and branches. The cham was unable to clear the debris by herself after 1 day. Cleared with 1 session of repeated saline solution flushes that lasted about a total of 10 minutes.

I'm unsure of the first place I learned this but chameleons have a unique method for drinking water, storing it, then moving it into his tear ducts, and finally into the eye ball. They'll swish the water around in his eye to clear the debris. If you've ever seen your cham's eye squinting and bulging, that is what's going in there. And if the cham hasn't been getting enough water, there will be no water for the cham to rinse its eyes out with.

1.) Hydration is key: increase humidity, dripper, and long showers if still needed.
2.) Clear debris: saline solution squeezed from a bottle creates a stream that can force its way into a squinted eye. If repeated several times, the debris can be cleared. I have even used common contact solution although I would not recommend it.
3.) Professional assistance: the only thing better than a qualified vet, is one you know is good with chameleons. They can remove debris, prescribe medicine, and operate if necessary.
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By 4 to 6 months of age, depending on how fast they grow, all the Vitamin A that chameleons got from their egg sack is depleted! This is when eye problems kicks in! Please look at the following thread!

https://www.chameleonforums.com/thr...nced-keepers-please-share-your-wisdom.152159/
 
gpmo said:
Angus (our rescued male veiled and first cham) occasionally closes his right eye after or around the time he sheds. He gets small pieces of skin stuck in it. We use low pressure high volume ophthalmic saline flushes (two or three times a day) and it resolves within a day or two. He has never had an eye infection
gpmo (her)
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Eye infections often starts after a long difficult shed. One of the secrets is to make sure your chameleon does not have probems sheding! Please read the info in the following thread:

https://www.chameleonforums.com/thr...enace-that-causes-many-other-problems.153693/
 
Is it a sure thing that beta carotene doesn't work?

My cham Kammy some weeks back had been shutting her right eye too much for about 3 days. I decided to give her Herptivite with every feeding to see if it helped and sure enough the problem disappeared. I hadn't done anything else to help. Could it have been a fluke?

It is possible her eye issue was just a late effect of something else that may have happened at the time.

I'll go ahead and get some better Vitamin A sometime though.
 
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I'm dealing with my little guy who can't work shedding and debris out of his eyeball. He gets extremely frail and ill every time he sheds and I worry about his ability to make it into adulthood. I'm working on getting the diagnosis name I forget it now, my reptile vet has a lot of experience and said my little guy has a genetic disease where he physically can shed his eyeballs so stuff gets trapped. We have tried everything, I even have to get the shedding cap out of his eyes manually or he is blind and can't get it out himself. I did pet store instead of reptile show, and unfortunately my little guy probably wasn't bred well. My vet is involved in our reptile community heavily here, and told me the local pet stores are getting really poorly bred and cared for chams, resulting in these unfortunately genetic diseases.
 
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