My Yemen chameleon was bite by a locust 2 days ago and a small semi hard lump has appeared where he was biten. The lump doesn't appear painful at all, even when pressed, he's still eating and drinking, he's active and alert and displaying all his usual happy colours so is fine in himself. I'm just wondering if there's anything I can do to get rid of this lump? I've tried local vets and they all say that they aren't experienced in reptiles but they'll take a look at him but I'm reluctant to put him through the stress of taking him to the vet if they don't know how to treat him anyway. Any help would be great. Thanks!
I'm going to give you my experience with dealing with a lot of abscesses caused by injuries to wild caughts. Some were infections surrounding exposed bone that eventually died (the bone, not the chameleon). I've had five vets from four different clinics who were either very experienced with reptiles or very interested in treating reptiles look at photos and sometimes the animals themselves.
I don't know how many of my wild caughts have developed abcsesses from injuries surrounding capture and import but many. Most have not been treated other than monitoring. A few were treated with antibiotics. One had an abscess drained. Although part of a large collection, nothing was spared in their treatment.
The approach to treatment that seemed to be shared by all the vets was to not do surgery to drain the abscess, to let the animal deal with it on their own sometimes with the assistance of antibiotics and hope that the animal would successfully wall off the abscess. The one time an abscess was drained was when it suddenly enlarged after staying pretty constant over a period of many months.
I'm currently dealing with what looks like multiple abscesses along the spinous processes of the tail of an animal imported in June. (The spinous process is the long thin parts of the vertebrae that stick out from the main body of the vertebrae.) He's been in to see three different vets at two different clinics and no vet wanted to do surgery, in fact advising against a surgical treatment. One vet treated him with oral Baytril which did nothing, the last vet treated with injected Baytril which immediately produced a good response. There still are huge swellings that are causing pain, but the vet is really happy with it and is hoping that it will wall off and not bother him and he continues on and lives a full life.
Since you do not have a vet who is in any way comfortable treating reptiles, I would be even more hesitant to allow them to treat your animal. Treatment is not without side effects. Opening up an abscess could introduce the rest of the body to infection. Any kind of anesthetic on a chameleon is very risky, even for an experienced reptile vet let alone one who doesn't work on reptiles or even small animals. Even treatment with antibiotics is not without risk as many of them are toxic to kidneys.
The lump you showed in your picture is really small. Perhaps it is just inflammation. Keep a photographic record of the lump so you can actually see if it is growing or shrinking or staying the same. If it gets larger, you might want a vet to look at it. (I suggest you start looking for a vet experienced with reptiles now so you know who to call if you need them.)
Out of curiosity, why do you say a locust bit him? Did you see one bite him?
