New Mellleri eye trouble

MSAquatics

New Member
Just received a new Melleri over the weekend, it might possibly be a female, so for now I'll refer to it as a female. She is dehydrated, so Im giving her 3, 30min showers a day, and gave her a 3 hour shower when I received her. My free range has a mist king system on it, and I use RO/DI water.
My first concern with her is that she is keeping her right eye shut. She opens it occasionally, but keeps it shut for the most part. I can't see signs of infection, and I'm assuming its due to dehydration, and possible irritation from shippping and handling during transit. She's showing alittle bit of grey coloration, but not a terrible stressed color, just a little grey spotting. She's ate a handful of gut loaded crickets so far, and drinks everytime the mister's go off, and seems active.
She has her first vet appointment in 2 weeks. I like to wait at least a week before I take my chams to the vet, unless they would show obvious signs of distress of course. I feel it gives them time to settle in, hydrate, and de-stress. Melleri seem to get constipated from shipping stress anyway, and it takes a week or 2 to get their first fecal sample.
The free range room has a humidity level that starts out around 60% in the mornings, and may go as high as 90% in the daytime due to all the misting, and the temps start off in the mid 60's and peak in the mid to high 70's consitently, so the temp and humidity levels are fine.
If she doesn't begin to keep her eye open in the next few days, I may supplement with a little vitamin A to see if it helps. I read about someone using turtle eye drops, has anyone tried them?
Any way, here is a picture of her eye. I posted a pic of her in "Making artifical vines for Melleri." It wont let me repost the same pic here again. I'll have to snap another and post it later. Any tips or recommendations are always appreciated.

Thanks,
Leland

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Well as I feared, the cham has a upper respiratory infection. I was hoping warm, long daily shower, eye washes, and high humidity would alleviate the problems with the eye, but her mucus in her mouth started to become thick, and she began to occasionally close her other eye. The fecal checked out clear, but shes on Baytril for 10 days to help her URI. I really didn't want to put her on antibiotics, but its better than letting the problem become worse.

Leland
 
That's what I was going to suggest when I was reading your first post (which I'm seeing now for the first time), was to look in her mouth for signs of infection(s). I hope she does well on the Baytril!

On a side note, she's a beautiful animal. Can't believe she still has her rostral horn!
 
Thank you, I was excited to see the rostral horn too! I'm now guessing it may be a male for a few reasons, one being it still has its horn, and hasn't worn it off digging nests in the wild.
(He) was not happy after receiving the first dose of Baytril. He's on the 10mg/1 kg dose, and I'm worried I may have to cut the dose in half if he doesn't look better by the end of tomorrow night. He was green all day, even at the vet, but after the Baytril dose he climbed as high as he could in the free range and turned very black.
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Shoot a message to Dr. O (find his email on the Dr. O's Tie-dyed chameleons sponsor site, I think he's not on the forum a lot recently) because he did an excellent job dosing Baytril for mine when she had a RI and mouth rot. He knows this species is sensitive and was a big help.

If I could find my notes from February I could tell you what we used just for reference but I've moved twice since then and it is probably in a box somewhere!

Ferretinmyshoes may be familiar with melleri dosing as well, but that I don't know first hand. She's on vacation though so she may take a little to answer messages.

On the gender, I was almost going to ask you if he looked full grown or not. My second guy seems under a year old and still had his horn (until he climbed a chair and slipped off...) so youth might have been an explanation. But he does look big in this second photo.
 
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