Heartbreaking

Murrdox

New Member
I think I'm going to lose my little guy.

He had a little eye infection back in September, which cleared up no problem thanks to some help people posted.

Now, however, I have no idea. He's going to the vet first thing tomorrow morning, no doubt about it. I think this post is more for me right now and just to get some idea of maybe what to expect tomorrow when I go to the vet, and how to make him comfortable until then.

Starting maybe a week ago, he just started getting a little lethargic. He seemed to be having a hard time climbing around, which is a little "normal" for him since he's got a condition with his claws where they never really grew right. However, it seemed a little worse than normal. He was still eating and drinking like a champ though, and had a really great normal looking poo. I thought perhaps the sudden temperature drop in my area was the cause... I realized I hadn't adjusted his temperature schedule for winter, so I supplied him with some additional heat, and got the cage up to a normal temperature. He was probably getting down to the high 60s at night, and probably not more than 72 during the day, which I was dumb to overlook.

Today I get home from work and my heart just stopped. He's lying on his side at the bottom of the cage, not opening his eyes. I took him out and examined him as best I could... I can't feel or see any injuries on him, but I'm not an expert. He won't open his eyes at all now. He's trying to blindly pull himself up, and climb, but just laying on his side.

I've redone his cage to make him as comfortable as I can, but he's just laying on the floor, I can't get his eyes to open.

I'm thinking this has to be some kind of injury for this to come on so quickly. Even though I've been supplementing him and I change his UVB 2.0 bulb every 6-8 months, I'm wondering if he's developed MDB and I'm an idiot for mistaking his clumsiness from his claws for symptoms of the disease. If he got an injury combined with MDB... well I'd just feel worse since I should have seen that a mile away.

As his owner I just feel awful right now and I just hope the poor guy isn't in a lot of pain. I hope the vet has some kind of good news for me tomorrow morning. I've seen chameleons go downhill before though... so with the state he's in now I'm really not sure he'll last through the night.
 
I"m really sorry to hear about your little dude. I really hope he can pull through...:( All you can do now is keep doing what your doing and wait to see what the Vet. will tell you. Goodluck and I hope for the best.
 
Your doing the right thing. Get your guy to the vet in the morning. Don't beat yourself up over it, learn what you can from it and move forward. This is after all the rewarding part of the process is the challenge/knowledge of keeping these guys. Sometimes things are out of our control. Sometimes we learn from experience. Keep your chin up and us posted.
 
One question? Is there any reason why you are using a 2.0 UVB instead of the recommended 5.0????? Just wondering...... How long have you had him under that lighting? Can you post some pics of his limbs or is it too hard at this stage to get a pic? Hope he can pull through ok. Edit: Sorry for asking for the pic, I just reread your post.
 
Well Rygel pulled through and made it through the night. He's much better this morning. He's opening his eyes now, and while he's still acting very lethargic, he's climbing onto his branches. He hasn't accepted food, and I don't think he's eaten for a couple days now, but that's not horribly concerning yet. I have a vet appointment in a few hours. Hopefully I'll have good news and I'll be able to treat whatever is wrong with him.

In answer to the questions people posted, he doesn't have any limb deformity at all. His arms and legs are nice and straight. He does have a crimp in his tail which happened after he used his tail to catch himself from a fall once.

My wife says he drank a lot yesterday so I haven't given him a shower. He's not showing any signs of dehydration. His poo a few days ago was nice and white and damp. His eyes are nice and large.

I do have a 5.0 UVB, I misspoke earlier.

He's 2.5 years old.
 
When he had an infection previously, did you take him to the vet? If he has some form of physical deformity it is very possible that he has internal deformity as well.
 
Okay, I just got back from the vet's.

He didn't find anything obviously wrong with him. No injuries as far as he could tell, and other than his weakness he looks very healthy.

Blood-work showed that he's likely going through kidney failure. He's sending some additional samples to another lab to try and get more information on bacteria and red / white cell counts.

His prognosis to me wasn't good unfortunately. The best we can hope for is that the failure is the result of a treatable infection. So he gave me some antibiotics, and I'm going to put him on those, as well as additional fluids if he doesn't drink enough daily on his own. Hopefully in a week on the antibiotics things will improve, and we'll learn more from the rest of the blood-work. If not, we'll move on to injection fluids if necessary and feeding by syringe if he doesn't start taking food on his own.

His calcium levels are good, so it's definitely not MDB. Everything else looked normal. He just has high levels of phosphorous and uric acid. So I guess I'll find out some more information in a few days, and hope that he improves on the antibiotics.

Thanks for the well wishes everyone.
 
I'm really hoping your little guy pulls through and that it's something that can be cured. My thoughts are with you and your little guy!
 
My heart breaks with you, I'm glad he made it so far and I really hope it's some thing the vet can treat.
 
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