serenitystarlite
Established Member
Hi everyone. I haven't had time to post anything in awhile, but I'm having an issue with my panther chameleon's eyes. Drac, my nosy be panther has been closing one of his eyes off and on and has been trying to clean it out (bulging, rolling it around, etc).
I've been having serious issues with humidity this winter, despite having a humidifier running constantly. I put the humidifier right in front of his cage to try to help him with humidity and I just ordered and set up the Mist King this past week. I have it running 4 times per day for 1 minute. I've been misting as much as I can and still the humidity is low, like 30-40%. Obviously it goes up to 70-80% after misting, but then drops back down when the cage dries out. Even my eyes have been burning this winter, but my other chameleons that are in the same room don't have any eye issues and just shedded normally.
A few weeks ago, Drac had what looked like a small piece of skin in the eye so I removed it and his eye seemed to be a little better but recently he's been closing it again. A few times lately, I've caught him with both eyes closed and now he's been trying to clean out the other eye. I've been trying to flush out both eyes with purified bottled water and when I do, he'll keep both eyes open for awhile which leads me to believe it's a humidity/shedding issue. I looked for saline solution and haven't been able to find anything with just saline. All the clear eyes and visine have weird ingredients like astringent and blood vessel constrictors, so I didn't want to get any of them. I searched around on the forums (although you can't search for the word "eye" by itself) and have seen a few people say to use saline for contacts to flush out eyes. I did find some saline for contacts and the ingredients are "A sterile, isotonic, buffered solution that contains boric acid, sodium borate, potassium chloride, preserved with polyaminopropyl biguanide (0.00003%) and edetate disodium (0.025%)." Is this safe to use? Is there a specific type of eye drops/saline I can get for him? I haven't had a chance to check Petco/Petsmart for eye drops, but I can call around and pick something up tomorrow if I know specifically what to look for.
He hasn't shedded in awhile, so I'm thinking he's due to shed and his eyes are bothering him because they are dry. There is no discharge or gunk around the eyes and when his eyes are open, they look normal. I'll try to get some pictures up tomorrow.
So basically I'm asking what specifically can I use to flush out his eyes besides just plain water? Thanks
I've been having serious issues with humidity this winter, despite having a humidifier running constantly. I put the humidifier right in front of his cage to try to help him with humidity and I just ordered and set up the Mist King this past week. I have it running 4 times per day for 1 minute. I've been misting as much as I can and still the humidity is low, like 30-40%. Obviously it goes up to 70-80% after misting, but then drops back down when the cage dries out. Even my eyes have been burning this winter, but my other chameleons that are in the same room don't have any eye issues and just shedded normally.
A few weeks ago, Drac had what looked like a small piece of skin in the eye so I removed it and his eye seemed to be a little better but recently he's been closing it again. A few times lately, I've caught him with both eyes closed and now he's been trying to clean out the other eye. I've been trying to flush out both eyes with purified bottled water and when I do, he'll keep both eyes open for awhile which leads me to believe it's a humidity/shedding issue. I looked for saline solution and haven't been able to find anything with just saline. All the clear eyes and visine have weird ingredients like astringent and blood vessel constrictors, so I didn't want to get any of them. I searched around on the forums (although you can't search for the word "eye" by itself) and have seen a few people say to use saline for contacts to flush out eyes. I did find some saline for contacts and the ingredients are "A sterile, isotonic, buffered solution that contains boric acid, sodium borate, potassium chloride, preserved with polyaminopropyl biguanide (0.00003%) and edetate disodium (0.025%)." Is this safe to use? Is there a specific type of eye drops/saline I can get for him? I haven't had a chance to check Petco/Petsmart for eye drops, but I can call around and pick something up tomorrow if I know specifically what to look for.
He hasn't shedded in awhile, so I'm thinking he's due to shed and his eyes are bothering him because they are dry. There is no discharge or gunk around the eyes and when his eyes are open, they look normal. I'll try to get some pictures up tomorrow.
So basically I'm asking what specifically can I use to flush out his eyes besides just plain water? Thanks