Possible respitory infection

AngieL

Avid Member
Hey everyone! I've made a couple of posts about our girl. First it was this about gular edema which is all gone now
https://www.chameleonforums.com/we-trouble-88386/

And then an update in which I said we suspected a respitory infection https://www.chameleonforums.com/tealcs-gular-edema-update-90637/

I have another appointment at the vets tomorrow because today she has been swallowing a lot and raising her head :( also shes been a bit off colour today and wasnt keen in eating. There's no extra mucus in her mouth or nose so I'm thinking LRI? I honestly don't know what could have caused it. If you look at the how to ask for help in the first thread you'll be able to see our husbandry details.

The only thing I can think of that may have been an issue is that there's been a leak in out drip basin we use to catch the water from the enclosure which caused the carpet to be damp right under where her enclosure is. See this thread for details https://www.chameleonforums.com/drainage-four-letter-word-90984/

Do you guys think that the damp carpet could have caused a respitory infection? I honestly don't know exactly how long it was damp for.

I phoned the vets office this afternoon and the vet I saw last was just glint to give us baytril. We haven't heard back from Edinburgh yet to find out if the noise the vet heard when listening to her breathing was normal.

I didn't want to get antibiotics without seeing the vet again but he's not in til Wednesday so we are going to see a new vet tomorrow who has some exotic experience but I don't know if this experience is Cham specific.

If anyone can offer advice on which antibiotics are good for which kind of infections or anything else, it would be much appreciated and well recieved.

Thanks guys!
 
Sounds like a RI to me... does she gasp/take deep breaths?

She has gaped once I think and I didnt see any extra mucus in her mouth. Her breathing appears to be normal but the vet listened to it whith his stethoscope and said it sounded "noisy for such a small lizard".

I'm pretty sure she does have an RI but not sure if its upper, lower or how she could have got it.
 
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Ok so we've just got back from the vets and it was a young lady from the states that we saw! She said that Teal'c does not have an infection and that she does not have eggs either.

She says that because we held back in the vitA for so long to combat the edema (which she agrees was the right thing to do) its possible that get immune system was down a bit and she may have had the early stages of an infection but that it hadn't come to anything serious. She said there's no need for antibiotics at present but to keep a keen eye on her behaviour.

Now, she made a couple of suggestions that I'm not sure I agree with. She said that we should add a shallow pool to the enclosure for Teal'c to have a soak and absorb water into her cloaca to help with deification. However, pooping is NOT a problem. I thought this sounded like the kind of thing you would for a gecko or a bearded dragon. I would think that a pool would just gather bacteria abd she would never be low down enough to use it anyway so my gut says that this is bad advice for a chameleon.

Also she suggested feeding the supplements to the bugs rather than dusting them which confused the heck outta me! She said it would assure that Teal'c is getting the correct levels of vits but how can that be? Some bugs will eat more than others anyway so I really don't get it. My thoughts were that this is bad advice too, especially since our bugs are so well gutloaded and supplements are not an issue any more. The edema I suspect was caused because the powder we were given had way way too much vitA and we have stoped using it!

We agree starting up the repashy cal plus and plan to use it every second feeding along with plain calcium on the other days.

Do you guys have any feedback on the advice we were given?

Thanks :)
 
Oh and she also said humidity should be at 100%!!!! That sounds too much to me, would that not cause a respitory infection???
 
Sorry Teal'cs not well. I'm not sure I would use Repeshey calcium plus as often. I got caught up in one of the Repeshey discussions here and think Repeshey is similar to nutrabol. I now use either Repeshey or nutrabol once a week and plain calcium 3-4 times a week. Teal'c is younger than Popeye and Popeye doesn't eat as much as Teal'c but I think we both use similar gutloading and feeder inscects. Also neither get outside much due to the geography of where we stay. Perhaps your vet feels more vita and d3 would benefit Teal'c just now. As for 100% humidity I don't know how you are going to achieve that. I will be interested to hear what others think.
 
Yeah I don't know how you would get 100% humidity in the house, I don't think that even the montane species have that much. As for the cal plus, she only eats every second day so she might only get it once, twice at the most per week. We havent used any d3 or multivitamin for about six weeks now (to combat the edema) so I think she could use a little boost. She only get six feeders at the most each feeding and some don't get dusted (silkworms or butter worms) so I hope it'll balance out. we've not used repashy until yesterday so hopefully with advice we can find a good regime.

I'm not confident with this new vet. She obviously has a great general knowledge of repriles but I think the advice she gave us is a bit off. Like why would a tree dwelling animal need a pool? And about feeding the supps to the bugs, would the bugs not just process them and break them down?

I too am I interested to see what everyone thinks about our visit today :)

It's a real bummer since we've just got rid of the edema and now this! The vet didn't think it was worthy of antibiotics so we will see. She's still eating drinking and pooping so it's not too bad at the moment.
 
Calcium Vitamin

How do I give Rep-Cal calcium with Vitamin D powder to my leopard gecko?

I very recently purchased a leopard gecko. He’s a juvenile (4 or 5 inches maybe) but I’m a little unclear on this. I know you dust the crickets with the powder but is that the only way I should give him the calcium or is it fine to leave it in a small dish for him? Also, how often should I give it to him? Thanks !


He’ll ignore a pile of repti-cal in a dish, so don’t bother with that.

Best way to be sure he’s getting his vitamins is to put it on the live food.

Another way is to feed it to the crickets. “Gut loading” crickets with the repti-cal is possible. So is feeding the crickets a really good diet before they go as chow.

Easy way of dusting:
Use a Ziploc bag.
Put about a tablespoon of Repti-cal in the bag.
Shake a few of the crickets in there and give them a toss to coat.
Shake all the excess repti-cal into the bottom corner of the Ziploc bag and use your fingers to close off that corner so none of it spills.
Dump the crickets into the cage.



Was checking out something I bought today and came across this. It refers to Leo's but it says you can feed crickets with supplement !
 
She says that because we held back in the vitA for so long to combat the edema (which she agrees was the right thing to do) its possible that get immune system was down a bit and she may have had the early stages of an infection but that it hadn't come to anything serious. She said there's no need for antibiotics at present but to keep a keen eye on her behaviour.

Noisy lungs could just be fluid, you did say she had an edema so that is possible. Definitely keep an eye on her!

Now, she made a couple of suggestions that I'm not sure I agree with. She said that we should add a shallow pool to the enclosure for Teal'c to have a soak and absorb water into her cloaca to help with deification. However, pooping is NOT a problem. I thought this sounded like the kind of thing you would for a gecko or a bearded dragon. I would think that a pool would just gather bacteria abd she would never be low down enough to use it anyway so my gut says that this is bad advice for a chameleon.

Definietly do not put a pool in with her, she could drown even in shallow water. and, if it is just fluid in her lungs you don't want to risk her aspirating. Cut back on your mistings, so like instead of 4x for 5 minutes do it 3x for 2-3 minutes.

Also she suggested feeding the supplements to the bugs rather than dusting them which confused the heck outta me! She said it would assure that Teal'c is getting the correct levels of vits but how can that be? Some bugs will eat more than others anyway so I really don't get it. My thoughts were that this is bad advice too, especially since our bugs are so well gutloaded and supplements are not an issue any more. The edema I suspect was caused because the powder we were given had way way too much vitA and we have stoped using it!

I'd keep up with dusting the bugs. I don't see how feeding it to them would be helpful at all..

We agree starting up the repashy cal plus and plan to use it every second feeding along with plain calcium on the other days.

I think using the cal+ is a little much for right now, but thats just me

Do you guys have any feedback on the advice we were given?

This is all just my opinion and what I would do, I hope it helps though
 
She says that because we held back in the vitA for so long to combat the edema (which she agrees was the right thing to do) its possible that get immune system was down a bit and she may have had the early stages of an infection but that it hadn't come to anything serious. She said there's no need for antibiotics at present but to keep a keen eye on her behaviour.

Noisy lungs could just be fluid, you did say she had an edema so that is possible. Definitely keep an eye on her!

Now, she made a couple of suggestions that I'm not sure I agree with. She said that we should add a shallow pool to the enclosure for Teal'c to have a soak and absorb water into her cloaca to help with deification. However, pooping is NOT a problem. I thought this sounded like the kind of thing you would for a gecko or a bearded dragon. I would think that a pool would just gather bacteria abd she would never be low down enough to use it anyway so my gut says that this is bad advice for a chameleon.

Definietly do not put a pool in with her, she could drown even in shallow water. and, if it is just fluid in her lungs you don't want to risk her aspirating. Cut back on your mistings, so like instead of 4x for 5 minutes do it 3x for 2-3 minutes.

Also she suggested feeding the supplements to the bugs rather than dusting them which confused the heck outta me! She said it would assure that Teal'c is getting the correct levels of vits but how can that be? Some bugs will eat more than others anyway so I really don't get it. My thoughts were that this is bad advice too, especially since our bugs are so well gutloaded and supplements are not an issue any more. The edema I suspect was caused because the powder we were given had way way too much vitA and we have stoped using it!

I'd keep up with dusting the bugs. I don't see how feeding it to them would be helpful at all..

We agree starting up the repashy cal plus and plan to use it every second feeding along with plain calcium on the other days.

I think using the cal+ is a little much for right now, but thats just me

Do you guys have any feedback on the advice we were given?

This is all just my opinion and what I would do, I hope it helps though

Thank you squeak :) I didn't plan to use a pool! I just wanted someone else to confirm it was a bad idea so I can tell the new bet that experienced members had agreed with me that it's not for tree dwellers.

And the bugs, I knew that was rubbish! And plan to keep in dusting.

She's only ate 2 bugs dusted with the calcium plus on Friday. I just thought I'd better get some d3 and multivitamin into her since she hadn't had any for so long. Still trying to figure out how often to give it to her, do t want her to end up with a deficiency and have more problems.

That's a good theory with the edema making things a bit more noisy, that would explain why her breathing sounded Ok at the vets yesterday.
 
Calcium Vitamin

How do I give Rep-Cal calcium with Vitamin D powder to my leopard gecko?

I very recently purchased a leopard gecko. He’s a juvenile (4 or 5 inches maybe) but I’m a little unclear on this. I know you dust the crickets with the powder but is that the only way I should give him the calcium or is it fine to leave it in a small dish for him? Also, how often should I give it to him? Thanks !


He’ll ignore a pile of repti-cal in a dish, so don’t bother with that.

Best way to be sure he’s getting his vitamins is to put it on the live food.

Another way is to feed it to the crickets. “Gut loading” crickets with the repti-cal is possible. So is feeding the crickets a really good diet before they go as chow.

Easy way of dusting:
Use a Ziploc bag.
Put about a tablespoon of Repti-cal in the bag.
Shake a few of the crickets in there and give them a toss to coat.
Shake all the excess repti-cal into the bottom corner of the Ziploc bag and use your fingers to close off that corner so none of it spills.
Dump the crickets into the cage.



Was checking out something I bought today and came across this. It refers to Leo's but it says you can feed crickets with supplement !

Thanks for that Kate :) Leo's get a lot more d3 and multivitamin than chameleons. We have to give our Leo's d3 3x a week so maybe when your doing it so often it'll work that way. I'm going to keep up with the dusting for now unless anyone here can tell me they've done it and it works. She's had a rough time of it lately and it all started with the stupid edema so I'm really trying to work out the best supp schedule.
 
Jann- John, Teal'c and I thank you so much for that info! We were thinking to put her in the steamy bathroom with the shower running to see if she has phlegm that needs shifting. The baytril is still available if we need it too, even though the new vet said no!

Her edema is gone for now and I'm pretty sure it was the Komodo calcium powder that caused it so we are focusing on trying to get the correct supplements back on track and keep an eye out for this infection.

I realise that the new vet has given us some incorrect advice and I think we may return to our original vet, even though he had less experience with exotics. They both work at the same practice (the only practice) so I hope it doesn't cause friction at our next visit.
 
Angie. Was that Komodo cricket dust you used? Plain calcium.

It was Komodo calcium with d3 and multivitamin. But it has way more vitA and d3 than recommended, vitA is 1450000 iu per kg and d3 is 145000 iu per kg. compared to repashy plus which vitA is 440000 iu per kg and d3 is 44000 iu per kg. So if repashy is too much to use all the time, Komodo is still way too much to use twice a month!
 
That is a hell of a lot. I will stick to calcium plus or nutrobal. Glad you found out now. Both veiled that I had had lots of problems due to over supplementation, but that was in the days pre forum and by being guided by those who thought they knew best.
 
That is a hell of a lot. I will stick to calcium plus or nutrobal. Glad you found out now. Both veiled that I had had lots of problems due to over supplementation, but that was in the days pre forum and by being guided by those who thought they knew best.

Eeesh tell me about it! 'twas the local pet shop that gave it to us when we got her. They also gave us the wrong sized house, bugger all leaves for hiding, and a 125 watt mercury vapour bulb with a thermostat. Thermostats don't even work with a mv bulb!!!! And to start with they gave us a pulse stay that was for ceramic heaters and it wouldn't have worked with any bulb!

So glad we found the forum, don't know what would have happened to poor Teal'c otherwise :(
 
Eeesh tell me about it! 'twas the local pet shop that gave it to us when we got her. They also gave us the wrong sized house, bugger all leaves for hiding, and a 125 watt mercury vapour bulb with a thermostat. Thermostats don't even work with a mv bulb!!!! And to start with they gave us a pulse stay that was for ceramic heaters and it wouldn't have worked with any bulb!

So glad we found the forum, don't know what would have happened to poor Teal'c otherwise :(

Was that your local pet shop or mine?:D
 
Lol! Pick a shop, any shop! It was your local that sent the equipment with her right enough but mine that gave us the calcium :D
 
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