Potential RSHP in male panther chameleon - immediate help requested

[psekely17]

I need help with my male panther chameleon. I put all his medical history and what’s going on below. Sorry it’s long.

Chameleon Info: Mystery

• Your Chameleon - Panther chameleon, ambilobe, Male - Hatched Oct 2024.
• Handling - I handle him daily for his medicine, but put him back once medicine is complete
• Feeding - Crickets, red runner roaches, super worms, black soldier flies & larva, hornworms. I breed the roaches and feed them with biodude bug grub, bug jelly, and carrots. They also have constant water. All other feeders I purchase at our local reptile store and just throw some bug grub in with them if I don’t feed them off that day.
• Supplements - Rep-Cal Calcium (phosphorus and d3 free) dusted for every meal, Reptivite with d3 dusted once every 7-10 days
• Watering - Misting morning, afternoon, and night. I usually don’t mist in the afternoon but he’s drinking a lot so I started misting him more often. Fogger typically goes off at night only, but have started running it during the day on a low level because humidity is dropping to about 20%
• Fecal Description - I haven’t gotten one from him in a few days (he’s a once/week pooper) but the last one was normal but the urates were slightly more orange than usual
• History - Mystery started showing signs of an URI in September. He was foaming at the mouth & mouth breathing. We were having home renovations done and believe this caused it. There was no change in his husbandry, but our environment certainly changed a bit. I did board him at our trusted local reptile shop during the 2 weeks of the demolition, but I think I brought him home too soon after the demolition. I immediately took him to the vet and were prescribed antibiotics (ceftazidime). He improved on these, and his white blood cell count was steadily dropping. He got a clean bill of health in early November so we took him off the meds. He was good for a few weeks but had a URI recurrence earlier this month. We did one more round of antibiotics and he’s no longer showing any symptoms of URI. He also started closing his right eye in November. He had it flushed and was given eye drops. We had a follow up appt last Friday and she said he looks healthy. We decided to pause medication and see how he does. The vet called me yesterday with his blood work results which I’ll put below.

Cage Info:

• Cage Type - 2 x 2 x 40in partial glass and screen enclosure. There is a glass front and back (I struggle to keep in humidity - I live in a very dry place) with screen sides and top.
• Lighting - Zoo Med ReptiSun 5.0 T5 HO 22" Bulb for UVB, Exo Terra Sun-Glo Neodymium A19 Lamp, 60-Watt for heat lamp, and a grow light for plants
• Temperature - Branch under heat lamp is between 85-90 degrees, ambient temperature in the room is mid-70s
• Humidity - I have struggled with this in the recent months as it’s gotten cold & dry. I don’t think I was hitting his humidity requirements the last couple months. In warm months ambient humidity in the room is 45% and now it’s around 20%. I could only get his enclosure up to 60% at night with the nightly mist and fogger. I’ve doubled up on the foggers and we are now getting up to 95% relative humidity at night. His humidity is now closer to 60% during the day with the fogger running on a low setting.
• Plants - Live plants purchased from biodude. All are deemed reptile safe, and he does not eat the plants.
• Placement - In my office in the top room of our town home which is the hottest room in the house. It’s usually between 75-80 degrees in this room throughout the year
• Location - Chicago, USA

Current Problem - I got a call yesterday and there are concerns about potential RSHP. His WBC came back more elevated with indicators of chronic inflammation. Phosphorus is 8.8 and Ca is 1:1. They are starting him on amphogel, meloxicam and pipperacillin. We will recheck blood in 2 weeks. He stopped eating about 2 weeks ago, but he didn’t lose any weight between vet appointments (3 weeks apart). I was offering roaches and super worms. I went and bought crickets & hornworms on Sunday he is eating those. He ate 3 hornworms and cricket on Sunday (I was so excited he ate that I just gave him as many horn worms as he wanted), ate 3 crickets and 1 hornworm yesterday, and so far has eaten the 3 crickets I offered him today. I’m very pleased he’s eating some food, but it’s by no means his normal amount. He had an odd day last Saturday, which was his first full day off the meds & also hadn’t eaten for 2 weeks. He was laying on the branch instead of being alert and wasn’t gripping it with full strength. He did that most of Saturday and has not done that again since. I wondering if it’s because he hadnt eaten and therefore didn’t have his supplements.



The vet I go to is an exotic vet, and his specific vet is a reptile specialist who keeps chameleons. We’ve been seeing her every 3 weeks since September. She says I’m doing every thing right, and he’s very lucky to have me. But I feel like I am failing him. Please let me know if there is anything I can change or do differently to help him besides the medication.



I also don’t really know what much of the bloodwork means. They said that if he responds to the medicine and his numbers improve in the next 2 weeks, his prognosis is good. Is it possible that the bloodwork could show a low Ca because he hasn’t really had his calcium supplement in 2 weeks due to not eating much. Ifany of you can shed some light on this that would be great. I’m including photos of Mystery and his enclosure. I just took these today. The vet said he looks like a healthy chameleon. Do you guys see any signs that I’m missing?

 

[MissSkittles]

Hi. Give me a little bit to look and go thru all of your info.

 

[MissSkittles]

• Your Chameleon - Panther chameleon, ambilobe, Male - Hatched Oct 2024.
• Handling - I handle him daily for his medicine, but put him back once medicine is complete
• Feeding - Crickets, red runner roaches, super worms, black soldier flies & larva, hornworms. I breed the roaches and feed them with biodude bug grub, bug jelly, and carrots. They also have constant water. All other feeders I purchase at our local reptile store and just throw some bug grub in with them if I don’t feed them off that day. Good variety of feeders, but I suggest adding silkworm to your staple feeders. They are just as nutritious as roaches, but are much more hydrating. It’s been debated, so I can’t state it as fact, but some believe that diets high in roaches increase uric acid levels which affect the kidneys. I’m not familiar with bug grub, but a quick glance at the ingredients and I’m not terribly impressed with it. There are better options, like Repashy bug burger. The jelly pots are not worth much nutritionally. Fresh carrots are good, along with other fresh veggies, greens and a tad of fruit. (Avoid spinach).
• Supplements - Rep-Cal Calcium (phosphorus and d3 free) dusted for every meal perfect, Reptivite with d3 dusted once every 7-10 days not perfect - you’re giving a bit too often. It should be one feeding every other week, or twice a month.
• Watering - Misting morning, afternoon, and night. I usually don’t mist in the afternoon but he’s drinking a lot so I started misting him more often. How long is each misting? Fogger typically goes off at night only, but have started running it during the day on a low level because humidity is dropping to about 20% I understand about the low humidity, but running a fogger during the day when temps are warm greatly increases risks for respiratory infection. If you must run a humidifier, place it a decent distance away from your guy’s enclosure. How are you measuring your humidity? Have you tried another device to measure to ensure your readings are correct? Do you have super realistic fake plants or are they all as real as they look? I do see a good number of small plant pots. Those aren’t going to hold much moisture. I would suggest replanting into larger pots and see if that helps maintain some humidity.
• Fecal Description - I haven’t gotten one from him in a few days (he’s a once/week pooper) but the last one was normal but the urates were slightly more orange than usual Urates really shouldn’t be orange except maybe at one end. Either he hadn’t pooped in a while or heis needing more hydration. Urates should be a cream or white color and can have yellow or orange at one end.
• History - Mystery started showing signs of an URI in September. He was foaming at the mouth & mouth breathing. We were having home renovations done and believe this caused it. There was no change in his husbandry, but our environment certainly changed a bit. I did board him at our trusted local reptile shop during the 2 weeks of the demolition, but I think I brought him home too soon after the demolition. Chameleon lungs are very fragile, like tissue paper. Heavy dust, chemicals or other things in the air can be very harmful to them. I immediately took him to the vet and were prescribed antibiotics (ceftazidime). He improved on these, and his white blood cell count was steadily dropping. He got a clean bill of health in early November so we took him off the meds. He was good for a few weeks but had a URI recurrence earlier this month. We did one more round of antibiotics and he’s no longer showing any symptoms of URI. He also started closing his right eye in November. He had it flushed and was given eye drops. We had a follow up appt last Friday and she said he looks healthy. We decided to pause medication and see how he does. The vet called me yesterday with his blood work results which I’ll put below.

To be continued…

 

[MissSkittles]

Cage Info:

• Cage Type - 2 x 2 x 40in partial glass and screen enclosure. There is a glass front and back (I struggle to keep in humidity - I live in a very dry place) with screen sides and top. What I suggest trying is covering the screened sides, but make sure to leave about 4” or so uncovered at the bottom to promote chimney effect ventilation. You could try something like insulating window film or shower curtain to cover the screen.
• Lighting - Zoo Med ReptiSun 5.0 T5 HO 22" Bulb for UVB, Exo Terra Sun-Glo Neodymium A19 Lamp, 60-Watt for heat lamp, and a grow light for plants all perfect. How often are you changing your uvb bulb?
• Temperature - Branch under heat lamp is between 85-90 degrees a bit too warm. Try to keep it at 85 or below. This might also add a little to improving humidity, ambient temperature in the room is mid-70s
• Humidity - I have struggled with this in the recent months as it’s gotten cold & dry. I don’t think I was hitting his humidity requirements the last couple months. In warm months ambient humidity in the room is 45% and now it’s around 20%. I could only get his enclosure up to 60% at night with the nightly mist and fogger. I’ve doubled up on the foggers and we are now getting up to 95% relative humidity at night. His humidity is now closer to 60% during the day with the fogger running on a low setting. I’ve offered a few ideas to help. While none of them are going to make a big difference, hopefully all together they will make enough difference.
• Plants - Live plants purchased from biodude. All are deemed reptile safe, and he does not eat the plants. Should have read ahead closer. Do try repotting into larger pots though. Maybe even try adding some houseplants to the room.
• Placement - In my office in the top room of our town home which is the hottest room in the house. It’s usually between 75-80 degrees in this room throughout the year Running heaters in winter is very drying to the air.
• Location - Chicago, USA

More to come….

 

[psekely17]

• Your Chameleon - Panther chameleon, ambilobe, Male - Hatched Oct 2024.
• Handling - I handle him daily for his medicine, but put him back once medicine is complete
• Feeding - Crickets, red runner roaches, super worms, black soldier flies & larva, hornworms. I breed the roaches and feed them with biodude bug grub, bug jelly, and carrots. They also have constant water. All other feeders I purchase at our local reptile store and just throw some bug grub in with them if I don’t feed them off that day. Good variety of feeders, but I suggest adding silkworm to your staple feeders. They are just as nutritious as roaches, but are much more hydrating. It’s been debated, so I can’t state it as fact, but some believe that diets high in roaches increase uric acid levels which affect the kidneys. I’m not familiar with bug grub, but a quick glance at the ingredients and I’m not terribly impressed with it. There are better options, like Repashy bug burger. The jelly pots are not worth much nutritionally. Fresh carrots are good, along with other fresh veggies, greens and a tad of fruit. (Avoid spinach).
• Supplements - Rep-Cal Calcium (phosphorus and d3 free) dusted for every meal perfect, Reptivite with d3 dusted once every 7-10 days not perfect - you’re giving a bit too often. It should be one feeding every other week, or twice a month.
• Watering - Misting morning, afternoon, and night. I usually don’t mist in the afternoon but he’s drinking a lot so I started misting him more often. How long is each misting? Fogger typically goes off at night only, but have started running it during the day on a low level because humidity is dropping to about 20% I understand about the low humidity, but running a fogger during the day when temps are warm greatly increases risks for respiratory infection. If you must run a humidifier, place it a decent distance away from your guy’s enclosure. How are you measuring your humidity? Have you tried another device to measure to ensure your readings are correct? Do you have super realistic fake plants or are they all as real as they look? I do see a good number of small plant pots. Those aren’t going to hold much moisture. I would suggest replanting into larger pots and see if that helps maintain some humidity.
• Fecal Description - I haven’t gotten one from him in a few days (he’s a once/week pooper) but the last one was normal but the urates were slightly more orange than usual Urates really shouldn’t be orange except maybe at one end. Either he hadn’t pooped in a while or heis needing more hydration. Urates should be a cream or white color and can have yellow or orange at one end.
• History - Mystery started showing signs of an URI in September. He was foaming at the mouth & mouth breathing. We were having home renovations done and believe this caused it. There was no change in his husbandry, but our environment certainly changed a bit. I did board him at our trusted local reptile shop during the 2 weeks of the demolition, but I think I brought him home too soon after the demolition. Chameleon lungs are very fragile, like tissue paper. Heavy dust, chemicals or other things in the air can be very harmful to them. I immediately took him to the vet and were prescribed antibiotics (ceftazidime). He improved on these, and his white blood cell count was steadily dropping. He got a clean bill of health in early November so we took him off the meds. He was good for a few weeks but had a URI recurrence earlier this month. We did one more round of antibiotics and he’s no longer showing any symptoms of URI. He also started closing his right eye in November. He had it flushed and was given eye drops. We had a follow up appt last Friday and she said he looks healthy. We decided to pause medication and see how he does. The vet called me yesterday with his blood work results which I’ll put below.

To be continued…

Thank you! I look forward to the rest. The vet actually recommended last September that I increase the multi vitamins from every other week to 1x/week. I will try going back down to every other week again!

The fogger during the day was also a very recent vet suggestion (as of last Friday), so it hasn’t been long that I’ve been using it during the day. I only have it running in the bottom 2/3 of his enclosure, so he’s not sitting in the fog when he’s basking.

I mist him for about 2min every morning and night. The afternoon ones are more to get some water on the leaves for him to drink. I have one 10in and 2 6in pots on the ground that I water every time I mist, along with the smaller ones hanging. They are all real plants expect for a small fake one in the upper right corner that I just added. The vet suggested he may be squinting due to the light, so thought I’d try adding a little shade by the heat lamp. Do you have any other recommendations on how to keep up humidity during the day? It drops to as low as 20% ambient humidity in the winter.

As for temperature readings, I have a thermal gun for exact areas. I also have a Bluetooth hydrometer stuck in the center of the back wall that trackers the ambient temp and humidity. I attached a photo of the output.

For the basking temp, I originally had it at about 80, but vet said that was too low. I lowered the lamp to be a little closer to the enclosure (I have it hanging) but I can raise it again to lower temp.

I change the UVB bulb every 6 months. He is due for a new one in February.

Also just ordered the Repashy! Should come tomorrow.

 

[MissSkittles]

Current Problem - I got a call yesterday and there are concerns about potential RSHP. His WBC came back more elevated with indicators of chronic inflammation. Phosphorus is 8.8 and Ca is 1:1. They are starting him on amphogel, meloxicam and pipperacillin. We will recheck blood in 2 weeks. He stopped eating about 2 weeks ago, but he didn’t lose any weight between vet appointments (3 weeks apart). I was offering roaches and super worms. I went and bought crickets & hornworms on Sunday he is eating those. He ate 3 hornworms and cricket on Sunday (I was so excited he ate that I just gave him as many horn worms as he wanted), ate 3 crickets and 1 hornworm yesterday, and so far has eaten the 3 crickets I offered him today. I’m very pleased he’s eating some food, but it’s by no means his normal amount. He had an odd day last Saturday, which was his first full day off the meds & also hadn’t eaten for 2 weeks. He was laying on the branch instead of being alert and wasn’t gripping it with full strength. He did that most of Saturday and has not done that again since. I wondering if it’s because he hadnt eaten and therefore didn’t have his supplements.


The vet I go to is an exotic vet, and his specific vet is a reptile specialist who keeps chameleons. We’ve been seeing her every 3 weeks since September. She says I’m doing every thing right, and he’s very lucky to have me. But I feel like I am failing him. Please let me know if there is anything I can change or do differently to help him besides the medication.



I also don’t really know what much of the bloodwork means. They said that if he responds to the medicine and his numbers improve in the next 2 weeks, his prognosis is good. Is it possible that the bloodwork could show a low Ca because he hasn’t really had his calcium supplement in 2 weeks due to not eating much. Ifany of you can shed some light on this that would be great. I’m including photos of Mystery and his enclosure. I just took these today. The vet said he looks like a healthy chameleon. Do you guys see any signs that I’m missing?
I’m not a vet or anything close, so can’t offer anything more than my opinion. I had to Google what RSHP is (renal secondary hyperparathyroidism to save others the time). I’ve offered suggestions to improve your husbandry, but really, your care isn’t bad and shouldn’t be causing this. Have you been feeding primarily roaches until recently?
I’ve got to wonder about the demolition you had done. I assume you then had some sort of restoration done of the demolished area. Many materials have fumes or gases (some which our noses don’t even detect) that could be damaging, maybe to organs. I don’t know what materials (other than the obvious paints, plastics and such) and am just throwing this idea out there. Another thought is that maybe your guy just has poor kidneys. We assume our animals are perfectly healthy but they are prone to the same diseases we are.
The imbalance of his calcium and phosphorus is due to his kidneys, which your vet has already probably told you. Increasing hydration is important. Adding silkworms to his diet, twice weekly hornworm treats, keeping up humidity at night when cool the best you can, maybe add a dripper for not just added hydration but help humidity during the day.
I would not increase the multivitamin. Besides the D3, ReptiVite also has preformed vitamin A and both of these are fat soluble, meaning they are not so quickly processed and excreted like water soluble vitamins. These can build up to dangerous levels if overdone. It is possible his calcium and phosphorus are imbalanced from not eating, but I’m not sure.
The meds he’s on can be a bit hard on the kidneys, which is just another good reason to increase hydration with wormy feeders and treats. Correcting your humidity the best you can will also have some impact on hydration. Either add a dripper for maybe 30 mins during the day or continue the mid day misting for 2 minutes. Maybe another forum member will have better input than I.
Your guy does look healthy and is quite beautiful and I do hope he improves.

 

[psekely17]

Current Problem - I got a call yesterday and there are concerns about potential RSHP. His WBC came back more elevated with indicators of chronic inflammation. Phosphorus is 8.8 and Ca is 1:1. They are starting him on amphogel, meloxicam and pipperacillin. We will recheck blood in 2 weeks. He stopped eating about 2 weeks ago, but he didn’t lose any weight between vet appointments (3 weeks apart). I was offering roaches and super worms. I went and bought crickets & hornworms on Sunday he is eating those. He ate 3 hornworms and cricket on Sunday (I was so excited he ate that I just gave him as many horn worms as he wanted), ate 3 crickets and 1 hornworm yesterday, and so far has eaten the 3 crickets I offered him today. I’m very pleased he’s eating some food, but it’s by no means his normal amount. He had an odd day last Saturday, which was his first full day off the meds & also hadn’t eaten for 2 weeks. He was laying on the branch instead of being alert and wasn’t gripping it with full strength. He did that most of Saturday and has not done that again since. I wondering if it’s because he hadnt eaten and therefore didn’t have his supplements.


The vet I go to is an exotic vet, and his specific vet is a reptile specialist who keeps chameleons. We’ve been seeing her every 3 weeks since September. She says I’m doing every thing right, and he’s very lucky to have me. But I feel like I am failing him. Please let me know if there is anything I can change or do differently to help him besides the medication.



I also don’t really know what much of the bloodwork means. They said that if he responds to the medicine and his numbers improve in the next 2 weeks, his prognosis is good. Is it possible that the bloodwork could show a low Ca because he hasn’t really had his calcium supplement in 2 weeks due to not eating much. Ifany of you can shed some light on this that would be great. I’m including photos of Mystery and his enclosure. I just took these today. The vet said he looks like a healthy chameleon. Do you guys see any signs that I’m missing?
I’m not a vet or anything close, so can’t offer anything more than my opinion. I had to Google what RSHP is (renal secondary hyperparathyroidism to save others the time). I’ve offered suggestions to improve your husbandry, but really, your care isn’t bad and shouldn’t be causing this. Have you been feeding primarily roaches until recently?
I’ve got to wonder about the demolition you had done. I assume you then had some sort of restoration done of the demolished area. Many materials have fumes or gases (some which our noses don’t even detect) that could be damaging, maybe to organs. I don’t know what materials (other than the obvious paints, plastics and such) and am just throwing this idea out there. Another thought is that maybe your guy just has poor kidneys. We assume our animals are perfectly healthy but they are prone to the same diseases we are.
The imbalance of his calcium and phosphorus is due to his kidneys, which your vet has already probably told you. Increasing hydration is important. Adding silkworms to his diet, twice weekly hornworm treats, keeping up humidity at night when cool the best you can, maybe add a dripper for not just added hydration but help humidity during the day.
I would not increase the multivitamin. Besides the D3, ReptiVite also has preformed vitamin A and both of these are fat soluble, meaning they are not so quickly processed and excreted like water soluble vitamins. These can build up to dangerous levels if overdone. It is possible his calcium and phosphorus are imbalanced from not eating, but I’m not sure.
The meds he’s on can be a bit hard on the kidneys, which is just another good reason to increase hydration with wormy feeders and treats. Correcting your humidity the best you can will also have some impact on hydration. Either add a dripper for maybe 30 mins during the day or continue the mid day misting for 2 minutes. Maybe another forum member will have better input than I.
Your guy does look healthy and is quite beautiful and I do hope he improves.

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond and providing some small tweaks. I’m reassured knowing that my husbandry isn’t causing this. I love him so much and I’m trying everything I can possibly think of.

The renovations were for our kitchen & master bath. Both were completely gutted and redone. Both on different floors than my reptile / invert room. As I mentioned, I boarded him during the demolition. I also got all my inverts out of the house. I did have a room purifier running in my room once he came home and kept the windows open. I ended up also buying a massive air purifier that is always running next to his enclosure.

Again, thank you for taking the time for such an in depth and thoughtful response and I will make these tweaks.