kidney disease and meds

[tmai]

Hello all, first posting so please bear with.

I have a female veiled chameleon, approximately 20 months old. I've had her since she was about 3 months old give or take. I adopted her from an animal shelter - she was surrendered because they didn't know whether or not she was eating or drinking and they housed her on their ficus tree in the living room. She is now properly housed and has always eaten like a champ since I got her, but did have hydration issues initially when I took her home. Now her urates are always white and the feces look normal.

She currently has a mass on the left side of her face now pressing into her nare. My vet thinks it is highly likely that it is an abscess although there is a small chance it could be cancer. She will be having exploratory surgery Thursday. We did a blood panel today to make sure everything is fine to proceed but he did mention that there is a possibility that she may have kidney disease due to her previous hydration issues. I trust my vet (he is an experienced exotics vet) but was rather overwhelmed with all of the information today. I will continue to consult with my vet but thought I would ask about your guys' experiences with kidney disease in chams. I know they don't live very long with it, but the vet mentioned that I could give her meds to prolong her time, but I feel like that would be more stressful. Anyone have experience with giving their cham meds for the disease, do you feel like it helped, how much longer did they live than was expected? If you didn't opt for meds how did things progress for your chameleon from there? I just want to become more educated about this in order to make the best decision possible. I also understand that I don't know yet for sure whether or not she has kidney disease and this may be premature but I would like to be prepared.

 

[Suzapalooza]

Oh, tmai, I'm sorry to hear that. Sending positive vibes your way! Our 9-month old male veiled had exploratory surgery on Monday and they think he may have kidney disease (his urates looked great for about three months, then he just stopped going altogether).

He had a hydration issue early on, and was under UVA-only light for about 90 days, which caused a calcium deficiency, so he's had a rough start. We'll get our biopsy back next week and I will share what our vet (also a specialist with exotics) has to say - maybe it would help your situation.

Our vet put him on two different antibiotics (in the event it is just an infection and not the worse case scenario) and to help him heal from surgery. One is Baytril and the other is metronidazole, and we are hydrating via dropper as often as we can as I know both are rough on kidneys.

I wish you the best of luck - please keep us posted.

 

[Carlton]

Hello all, first posting so please bear with.

I have a female veiled chameleon, approximately 20 months old. I've had her since she was about 3 months old give or take. I adopted her from an animal shelter - she was surrendered because they didn't know whether or not she was eating or drinking and they housed her on their ficus tree in the living room. She is now properly housed and has always eaten like a champ since I got her, but did have hydration issues initially when I took her home. Now her urates are always white and the feces look normal.

She currently has a mass on the left side of her face now pressing into her nare. My vet thinks it is highly likely that it is an abscess although there is a small chance it could be cancer. She will be having exploratory surgery Thursday. We did a blood panel today to make sure everything is fine to proceed but he did mention that there is a possibility that she may have kidney disease due to her previous hydration issues. I trust my vet (he is an experienced exotics vet) but was rather overwhelmed with all of the information today. I will continue to consult with my vet but thought I would ask about your guys' experiences with kidney disease in chams. I know they don't live very long with it, but the vet mentioned that I could give her meds to prolong her time, but I feel like that would be more stressful. Anyone have experience with giving their cham meds for the disease, do you feel like it helped, how much longer did they live than was expected? If you didn't opt for meds how did things progress for your chameleon from there? I just want to become more educated about this in order to make the best decision possible. I also understand that I don't know yet for sure whether or not she has kidney disease and this may be premature but I would like to be prepared.

It would depend on what sort of kidney problems were present. An infection may respond to antibiotics, but physical damage from long standing dehydration may not be treatable in itself. I don't know if there are meds that would support damaged kidneys or improve function...vets? If that cham was kidney-compromised maybe you'd have to give more water or electrolytes on a regular basis or something. I've had one rescued wc cham who I think had damaged kidneys from poor care, and he drank a lot more every day, got dehydrated much quicker than the others. I don't know if the damage progressed once he got on a good routine, but he lived at least a year afterwards. Probably too many unknowns to be sure.