My Veiled Chameleon is sick, I need help!

[ikamelioni]

He is a one year old Veiled Chameleon, who is usually a very happy territorial little guy. Months ago he started having black scabs appear on the sides of his mouth. My boyfriend talked me out of taking him to the vet, because he was still acting great. Now his eye is all infected and closed up, and he stopped eating. He still appears healthy and moves around a lot. We took him to the vet and appears to have too much bacteria in his mouth that is spreading. I have him on antibiotics, calcium supplements, and food supplements. He seems to be getting better but I am really concerned if he will pass away. I just want to know if anyone else is out there that had this problem.
Should I clean out his cage and start from scratch?
Should I change my feeding methods?
I just want to prevent this from happening again.

 

[camimom]

you cant prevent it.

sounds lke mouth rot. and iim sorry, but you shouldnt have listened to your bf about that. he woudltn be nearly as bad now. but neither here nor there.


just keep adminstering the meds, and if you see any extra gunk in his mouth, remove it.

other than that, its a wating game...
good luck!

 

[ikamelioni]

Thank you, I'll just have to wait and see.

 

[Carlton]

Thank you, I'll just have to wait and see.

In addition to the antibiotics there are probably abscesses under the skin on his face that may need to be opened up and cleaned out. Systemic antibiotics have a hard time affecting long-standing encapsulated abscesses because they are the body's attempt to seal off the bacteria. Because the mouth is connected to the nasal passages and because nasal passages pass near the eyes, mouth infections can spread wider which is what you are seeing now. This could be very difficult to treat successfully so I do wish you luck!

What is the reason for calcium? Does he have MBD too? Too much calcium isn't good either.