Hi, I'm sorry this is so long, but I really don't know what to do or think about my chameleon at this point...
Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon - Male Veiled Chameleon. A little over a year old.
Handling - Before he got sick, almost never as he is evil. Now slightly more, though he still hisses and lunges at my hand so I don't actually have to touch him to force feed him his food and medicines.
Feeding - I was feeding him primarily crickets, about 36 every week/week and a half. Occasionally superworms if I run out of crickets and can't get more immediately. I don't really gutload the crickets as I get a new batch weekly, but they are offered flukers cricket quencher and cricket food while they are alive.
Supplements - I have Rep-Cal phosphorous free calcium with VitD3, and Reptivite. Luckily I had been using the reptivite only because I thought it was calcium and didn't realize it until all of this began...I dusted each new batch of crickets when I got them.
Watering - I have a spray bottle that I use several times a day for 30 seconds to a minute. Some days I see him drink from the leaves, some days he runs from the water and I don't see him drink. Other days he runs to the screen and lets me squirt water into his mouth and I do this until he turns away.
Fecal Description - His feces lately has not been normal. It is very runny as opposed to nice and firm like it used to be. The urates are also runny, but very white. I have attributed the runny feces to being fed a ton of water and liquid food....it started getting runny when he started being force fed.
History - I have always watched for the color of his urates. They have NEVER been orange, and when I notice them appearing more yellow than normal I always upped his mistings. He also lived from may-september in an outside cage. It rains heavily and almost every day during the summer in Florida, and I would spray his cage down with a hose at least once a day, more if it hadn't rained. One thing I was concerned about was that the shape of his casque changed during these summer months. I saw him much less frequently while he was outside, but when I caught him to bring him back to Tallahasse I saw his normally perfectly smooth casque had a dent in it. It is only visible from the side though, from the front and back the casque is still perfectly straight and symmetrical.
Cage Info:
Cage Type - Large mesh screen. 4.5ft tall X 3ft wide X 2ft deep
Lighting - Reptisun 10.0 UVB ( I got the 10 because the nearest perch is about 8-10 inches below the light, and the light is at an angle since the top of my cage comes to a point). Lights come on at about 7:45 and stay on for 12 hours.
Temperature - Basking spot is 90-95 degrees. The rest of the cage about 75 during the day, falling below that at night depending on weather. Never lower than about 68. I have a temperature gauge to measure these temps.
Humidity - Between mistings it falls to 40-50%. I mist several times a day to get it up around 80-90. I have a humidity gauge for this also.
Plants - I have a rubber plant and a golden pothos.
Placement - Cage is located in the corner of my living room currently because it is getting too cold outside, but is on a screen porch when the weather is warm.
Location - Split between Tallahassee and Tampa, Fl. Tallahassee is where the problems have manifested.
Current Problem - Okay first thing you need to know. I was forced to move my adult veiled chameleon Ozone from the cage described above to his baby cage (16X16X20 I believe) because he had not been finding his crickets in the feeder bowl for almost a month. When I moved him to the smaller cage I put crickets in with him and he immediately ate about 8 of them, clearly his issue wasn't with not wanting to eat in the other cage, but not understanding where the food was.
So a few weeks had elapsed with my chameleon in this small cage. I was fattening him up again (he had lost weight while not eating well in the other cage) and trying new bowls to see if he would eat out of any. I didn't want to move him back until I knew he would find food. This was all going well until the last week in October. On this Friday/Saturday he was greedily devouring superworms (I had run out of crickets but had 50 superworms in a container I was trying to get rid of) and drinking. He was even coming down and eating the worms out of the bowl before I could add new ones. On Sunday I noticed he still had worms in his bowl, but wasn't too concerned. Monday I woke up and found him sleeping on the bottom of the cage. I freaked out, went out and bottom him crickets; no interest. I decided to wait another day and see how he was doing, but on Tuesday he had still not eaten or had anything to drink, and was still sleeping during the day. I called the vet and got an appointment for that Thursday.
I take him to the vet and they weighed him. He was 179g and the vet said he was a bit thin and definitely dehydrated (I had not seen him drink since the previous Friday/Saturday). She gave him subcutaneous fluids and a prescription of panacur to kill any parasites and baytril incase of an infection. I was to bring him back in two weeks for a follow up. In the mean time, he was to be given a dose of panacur for three days in a row, none for ten, and then again for three more. I was instructed to give the baytril for 10 days along with the panacur. The vet also gave me the powdered carnivore care to feed him while he still refused to eat.
I fed him and administered the drugs dutifully. Around the end of the course of baytril, say day 8-10 since vet visit, I noticed he was dangling his forelegs. I didn't realize this was symptomatic of anything though, at first. The day after the baytril was complete I also noticed swelling around his neck. Thanks to the lovely internet I had established that my chameleon was dying of kidney failure.
I took him to the vet again for his 2 week follow up. He had gained a ton of weight in the two weeks. He went from 179g to about 240g. I was a little disturbed by this, but the vet didn't react. I had not seen Ozone sleeping during the day since taking him to the vet for the first time, and I had also moved him back into his big cage. Anyway, I told her he wasn't sleeping during the day, but obviously now he had this edema and what was probably gout. He was also no longer dehydrated since I had been force feeding him water like a mad woman. Since we still didn't know what was wrong, we decided to take bloodwork and xrays. She said that his bones looked good in the xrays, but that there was something in his abdomen she wasn't quite sure about, and that she would consult some specialists and get back to me. I still have no idea what was in those xrays as the experts' only response was that he must be a female holding eggs. He's not. At the end of this visit she sent me home with liquid calcium and told me to give it to him once a day.
A week later she called me with the bloodwork. His kidney level were very high she said, indicating they weren't doing so well (surprise), that his uric acid levels were high, his calcium/phosphorous balance was off, and that he had elevated white blood cell counts. Pretty much she said that most likely his kidneys were failing due to chronic dehydration, and that if this was the case there was likely nothing that we could do, but that the high white blood cell count meant he was fighting off an infection, and that the best case scenario was that he had a kidney infection. She said that if it was an infection causing the kidneys to not work probably, there was a chance he could recover. So she put him back on the baytril for a 3 week course. This Friday will be the third week, and he is still not eating or drinking on his own. His right leg is obviously swollen and he still favors it, and he still has the gular edema.
Now he has definitely not gotten any worse. And he is only favoring his right foreleg while he used to favor both. I also do believe his grip has gotten stronger/almost normal as he causes scratches again when I'm forced to handle him. He is also MUCH more active when I get him out of his cage. At the beginning of all of this he used to fall asleep in my hand.....now he tries to flee/launch his body from my hands. He is also very capable of moving, has no difficulty or weakness, doesn't fall, but I think he isn't as active as normal because his leg hurts.
So this is where we're currently at. I have another vet appointment this Friday, and next week I will be returning to Tampa for winter break.
What do you all think? It's just heartbreaking for me because I hate to see the little guy in pain, and I feel like I'm just torturing him with all the force feeding and that his death is inevitable. I just don't know what to do at this point.
Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon - Male Veiled Chameleon. A little over a year old.
Handling - Before he got sick, almost never as he is evil. Now slightly more, though he still hisses and lunges at my hand so I don't actually have to touch him to force feed him his food and medicines.
Feeding - I was feeding him primarily crickets, about 36 every week/week and a half. Occasionally superworms if I run out of crickets and can't get more immediately. I don't really gutload the crickets as I get a new batch weekly, but they are offered flukers cricket quencher and cricket food while they are alive.
Supplements - I have Rep-Cal phosphorous free calcium with VitD3, and Reptivite. Luckily I had been using the reptivite only because I thought it was calcium and didn't realize it until all of this began...I dusted each new batch of crickets when I got them.
Watering - I have a spray bottle that I use several times a day for 30 seconds to a minute. Some days I see him drink from the leaves, some days he runs from the water and I don't see him drink. Other days he runs to the screen and lets me squirt water into his mouth and I do this until he turns away.
Fecal Description - His feces lately has not been normal. It is very runny as opposed to nice and firm like it used to be. The urates are also runny, but very white. I have attributed the runny feces to being fed a ton of water and liquid food....it started getting runny when he started being force fed.
History - I have always watched for the color of his urates. They have NEVER been orange, and when I notice them appearing more yellow than normal I always upped his mistings. He also lived from may-september in an outside cage. It rains heavily and almost every day during the summer in Florida, and I would spray his cage down with a hose at least once a day, more if it hadn't rained. One thing I was concerned about was that the shape of his casque changed during these summer months. I saw him much less frequently while he was outside, but when I caught him to bring him back to Tallahasse I saw his normally perfectly smooth casque had a dent in it. It is only visible from the side though, from the front and back the casque is still perfectly straight and symmetrical.
Cage Info:
Cage Type - Large mesh screen. 4.5ft tall X 3ft wide X 2ft deep
Lighting - Reptisun 10.0 UVB ( I got the 10 because the nearest perch is about 8-10 inches below the light, and the light is at an angle since the top of my cage comes to a point). Lights come on at about 7:45 and stay on for 12 hours.
Temperature - Basking spot is 90-95 degrees. The rest of the cage about 75 during the day, falling below that at night depending on weather. Never lower than about 68. I have a temperature gauge to measure these temps.
Humidity - Between mistings it falls to 40-50%. I mist several times a day to get it up around 80-90. I have a humidity gauge for this also.
Plants - I have a rubber plant and a golden pothos.
Placement - Cage is located in the corner of my living room currently because it is getting too cold outside, but is on a screen porch when the weather is warm.
Location - Split between Tallahassee and Tampa, Fl. Tallahassee is where the problems have manifested.
Current Problem - Okay first thing you need to know. I was forced to move my adult veiled chameleon Ozone from the cage described above to his baby cage (16X16X20 I believe) because he had not been finding his crickets in the feeder bowl for almost a month. When I moved him to the smaller cage I put crickets in with him and he immediately ate about 8 of them, clearly his issue wasn't with not wanting to eat in the other cage, but not understanding where the food was.
So a few weeks had elapsed with my chameleon in this small cage. I was fattening him up again (he had lost weight while not eating well in the other cage) and trying new bowls to see if he would eat out of any. I didn't want to move him back until I knew he would find food. This was all going well until the last week in October. On this Friday/Saturday he was greedily devouring superworms (I had run out of crickets but had 50 superworms in a container I was trying to get rid of) and drinking. He was even coming down and eating the worms out of the bowl before I could add new ones. On Sunday I noticed he still had worms in his bowl, but wasn't too concerned. Monday I woke up and found him sleeping on the bottom of the cage. I freaked out, went out and bottom him crickets; no interest. I decided to wait another day and see how he was doing, but on Tuesday he had still not eaten or had anything to drink, and was still sleeping during the day. I called the vet and got an appointment for that Thursday.
I take him to the vet and they weighed him. He was 179g and the vet said he was a bit thin and definitely dehydrated (I had not seen him drink since the previous Friday/Saturday). She gave him subcutaneous fluids and a prescription of panacur to kill any parasites and baytril incase of an infection. I was to bring him back in two weeks for a follow up. In the mean time, he was to be given a dose of panacur for three days in a row, none for ten, and then again for three more. I was instructed to give the baytril for 10 days along with the panacur. The vet also gave me the powdered carnivore care to feed him while he still refused to eat.
I fed him and administered the drugs dutifully. Around the end of the course of baytril, say day 8-10 since vet visit, I noticed he was dangling his forelegs. I didn't realize this was symptomatic of anything though, at first. The day after the baytril was complete I also noticed swelling around his neck. Thanks to the lovely internet I had established that my chameleon was dying of kidney failure.
I took him to the vet again for his 2 week follow up. He had gained a ton of weight in the two weeks. He went from 179g to about 240g. I was a little disturbed by this, but the vet didn't react. I had not seen Ozone sleeping during the day since taking him to the vet for the first time, and I had also moved him back into his big cage. Anyway, I told her he wasn't sleeping during the day, but obviously now he had this edema and what was probably gout. He was also no longer dehydrated since I had been force feeding him water like a mad woman. Since we still didn't know what was wrong, we decided to take bloodwork and xrays. She said that his bones looked good in the xrays, but that there was something in his abdomen she wasn't quite sure about, and that she would consult some specialists and get back to me. I still have no idea what was in those xrays as the experts' only response was that he must be a female holding eggs. He's not. At the end of this visit she sent me home with liquid calcium and told me to give it to him once a day.
A week later she called me with the bloodwork. His kidney level were very high she said, indicating they weren't doing so well (surprise), that his uric acid levels were high, his calcium/phosphorous balance was off, and that he had elevated white blood cell counts. Pretty much she said that most likely his kidneys were failing due to chronic dehydration, and that if this was the case there was likely nothing that we could do, but that the high white blood cell count meant he was fighting off an infection, and that the best case scenario was that he had a kidney infection. She said that if it was an infection causing the kidneys to not work probably, there was a chance he could recover. So she put him back on the baytril for a 3 week course. This Friday will be the third week, and he is still not eating or drinking on his own. His right leg is obviously swollen and he still favors it, and he still has the gular edema.
Now he has definitely not gotten any worse. And he is only favoring his right foreleg while he used to favor both. I also do believe his grip has gotten stronger/almost normal as he causes scratches again when I'm forced to handle him. He is also MUCH more active when I get him out of his cage. At the beginning of all of this he used to fall asleep in my hand.....now he tries to flee/launch his body from my hands. He is also very capable of moving, has no difficulty or weakness, doesn't fall, but I think he isn't as active as normal because his leg hurts.
So this is where we're currently at. I have another vet appointment this Friday, and next week I will be returning to Tampa for winter break.
What do you all think? It's just heartbreaking for me because I hate to see the little guy in pain, and I feel like I'm just torturing him with all the force feeding and that his death is inevitable. I just don't know what to do at this point.
