Poor Rosalita :(

Mr Wilson

Mr Wilson

New Member
We had taken Rosie to the vet because she had one eye closed and was sitting with her mouth open. The vet flushed out her eye and gave us eye drops to give her. He said she looked very healthy and the drops should fix everything (she gets 1 drop twice a day for 10 days). He said if it got worse to call.

So since yesterday she has pretty much been "sleeping" though she is completely alert. Really, she just has both eyes closed. I'm so sad about this because I just spent $110 on her vet visit and have no idea what it would cost to go back. I feel so awful for her.

Humidity is between 50% and 60%. Temp is about 80, much warmer in the basking area. We have been feeding her phoenix worms (a guy at a reptile store highly recommended them) and silk worms (she did not want crickets for a while). We do a drip a few times a day plus mist to keep humidity up.

I'm just so absolutely sad about this. I want to do everything I can for her so she can live a long, healthy life. I read someone's comment on another thread about a Vitamin A deficiency - anyone else ever deal with that? What do you need to do to fix that? Any other food ideas? We do dust the food with a calcium supplement.
 
Try filling out the "how to ask for help" form.

Usually a mouth open means its too hot. If she is a panther chameleon, depending on her age, the temp shouldn't be "much warmer"-they should be around 85 in the basking spot. If she is 6 months or under they should be 80 in the basking spot. Veileds can be a little higher.

I'm not sure about Vitamin A deficiency. You could try dubias, butter worms or hornworms.

Also, what kind of eye drops did he give you? I know a few people on here have had experience with eye drops that just make things worse, so maybe you could talk to them about it.

We can give you more advice after you fill out the form, but you've already had a great start by taking her to the vet at the first sign of illness. Keep us updated!
 
How old is Rosie? What kind of UVB light do you have? Coil or tube style?
How hot is your basking spot? Sounds like you are keeping her too hot. She should have a cool place to go to in the 70's.

She needs 3 different supplements. Plain calcium with no D3 at just about every feeding....if she's young. Calcium with D3 two times a month and a multi vit. once a month.
 
I love phoenix worms as well but they are natuarally loaded with calcium so watch your supplementation if they are her staple feeder.


I hope she gets better, for both of your sakes. Fill in the info sheet.
 
Thanks guys. I forgot to mention she is a veiled cham. We arent really sure about her age. Honestly, we got her at a pet store (I know I know, don't buy from them, it only makes them restock blah blah). The doctor seems to think she is about 4 months.

We do currently have the coiled light, and I know they are terrible. We're waiting for the new fixture to come in. The original site we ordered from decided to wait 2 days to tell us the fixture was backordered (nice of them, right?) We're currently waiting on the fixture so that we can use the linear bulbs instead. But we know she needs UVB lights, so we have kept the coil in. The linear fluorescent bulb is a UVA, it's not nearly as bright.


Your Chameleon - Female veiled, about 4 months. We've had her for a little over a month.
Handling - twice a day to administer eye drops.
Feeding - She doesn't eat much :eek:( Phoenix worms and silk worms, she hasn't really been into crickets lately, who are gutloaded with apples, carrots, the cricket dust (with calcium) as well as the blue jelly-like hydrator. She usually eats 2-3 worms a day.
Supplements - Flukers Calcium-Phosphorus 2:1
Watering - We mist a few times a day as well as do a drip system (just a cup with warm water) about 3 times a day.
Fecal Description - Urate is white, fecal matter is brown, slightly wet. Looks healthy to me. She has not been tested for parasites
History - We brought her to the vet due to having 1 eye closed as well as having her mouth open. Got her eye flushed and is getting eye drops as a precaution. She no longer has her mouth open.

Cage Info:
Cage Type - Exo-Terra 18x18x24 glass with screen topping.
Lighting - We are about to change over to linear fluorescent bulbs. We turn her lights on around 9:30 am and off around 9:30 pm.
Temperature - daytime - between 70 and 80 degrees. Night time, 65-70
Humidity - Humidity is constantly between 50% and 60%. We mist and do a drip system a few times a day.
Plants - We currently have 1 pothos plant (live). My next step is to purchase a ficus or hibiscus once the stores start to carry them. I'm trying to get rid of as many fake "vines" as I can.
Placement - It's in the main living area, though it's really just myself and my boyfriend here. The top of the cage is just under 5 feet above the ground.
Location - central New Jersey. COLD!!!!

Current Problem - She is currently keeping her eyes closed most of the day. Her grip is fine (she loves to hang upside down! haha), her coloring is beautiful, when her eyes ARE open she moves around the terrarium with no problems and rather quickly.

PS: We don't dust the Phoenix worms because the man did tell us they are a great source of calcium. Should we dust them a little anyway?
 
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I took the coil light out but put in a plain incandescent lightbulb. If I didn't do that it would have been way too dark in her terrarium. I really hope this will help her want to keep her eyes open. I am just so worried about her :(
 
Good news is that she is definitely not blind. Sean put his hand in the tank to show her the food before we put it in the cup and she looked at it. She is able to see her food and catch it, no problem. She is still keeping her eyes mostly closed, it almost looks like she is just squinting. We did see her rub her eyes on the branches so now they are a little red. We're giving her the eye drops that we were given by the vet, so hopefully that will help fix things. He did tell us we could get saline solution from the store and use that to flush her eyes.

Has anyone used saline solution before?
 
A saline solution would be good if you suspect that she has something in her eyes. I'm not sure how much it would help otherwise.
 
My female sambava got some dirt in her eyes while digging and she was doing the same thing. I used some saline solution and also gave her daily showers for about a week and that seemed to help her alot. Good luck.
 
I tried to get her into the shower on the pothos plant but she just kept going off the plant. How do you guys get your chams to stay on their plant? I decided to hold her in my hands and let her crawl around on them with some water hitting her but not for too long. I didn't want to stress her out too much, you know?

How long do you guys shower them for?
 
This may sound completely ridiculous, but can chameleons have allergies? The reason I ask is because we were watching Sean's moms cats (6 of them) and we are in a small basement apartment. This all really didn't start until they got down here. They've been upstairs for a full day now, I'm doing a huge clean today down here.

But seriously, can chams be allergic to pet dander?
 
Yes. Our apartment only has a kitchen, the main room, dining area, bedroom and bathroom. The rooms are a decently big size, but they were all in there. None of them were ever really near the tank though. Most of the day they were all in the bedroom being big lazy cats, sleeping (shocking, right?). 2-3 of them stuck by us on the couch most of the late day-night, but all came out once in a while to eat/use the litter box.

Can stress cause things like this? Because it really didn't start until we were watching them. That's why I'm thinking "oh my goodness, maybe she's allergic to pet dander".
 
Taken a turn for the worse :(

So she basically isn't eating and only opened her eyes a few times today, I took her out and she didn't put up any sort of fuss (normally she would change her patterns and get a little aggressive when we would try to pick her up). but nothing this time, as u can see from the picture she laid motionless in my hand :(. Im gonna have to take her to a vet again..... i guess im not asking any questions just kind of venting my sadness. I did receive my linear fluorescent canopy top today so i was able to finally get rid of the CFL's. Besides that no good news at all to report on Rosie's condition.
 

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Let the vet know that she is no better and see what he suggest. You might need to force feed if she can not see to eat.
 
I'm wondering if she could be gravid?
She seems a little bit young, but...does she have a place to dig in the cage?
Was she roaming around the cage at all lately or sitting low in the cage? drinking more or less?
 
beeze said:
Let the vet know that she is no better and see what he suggest. You might need to force feed if she can not see to eat.
Click to expand...

Justjumpit recently posted a "how she does it" on force feeding:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/one-eye-closed-veiled-37329/index2.html#post346648

It might be helpful.

**edited to add**

on the shower...make sure you aren't putting the shower right on the plant...it should bounce off a wall onto the plant (unless it's a very low flow misty shower). Also, as long as the drain is not something the animal can climb into, I don't know that getting out of the tree is the end of the experience....you will need to keep a much closer eye on her but I bet you would do that anyway.
 
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