Skye has an RI

[Lpsouth1978]

My little Skye has an RI. She is a female ambilobe panther and the vet thinks she is about 5 months old, not the 8 I was told when I got her. Anyway, when I got home from work yesterday I got her out of her cage to take her outside to enjoy some sun. While I was holding her I noticed that she was swallowing a lot and then I noticed her blowing mucus bubbles when she would open her mouth.

I immediately called the vet and got her in about 1.5 hours later. The vet confirmed that she had an RI. She then gave her a shot and I need to take her back to the vet every 3 days for the next 3weeks for additional shots. I really hope that she gets better quickly, I hate to see her unhappy.

I had put her in a glass terrarium 2 days prior, because her adult cage, that I bought thinking she was going to be older than she is, was just WAY too big for her and she was not finding her food most of the time. I had the terrarium so thought I would use it until I could get another screen cage for her. The vet thinks that she was already sick when I got her almost a month ago and the move into her new cage exacerbated the problem. The final straw was the move into the glass terrarium with poor air flow.

As soon as I got home from the vet, I began construction on a temporary, screen cage for her. It is not pretty, but it was inexpensive and should work well until she is better and has grown a little bit.

Here are some pics. You can see the white crusty around her mouth, from the mucus that dried there. I also included some pics of her temporary cage.

 

[jannb]

Sorry to hear about Skye. Here's some good info about RI's and some things you can do at home to help. I hope she'll feeling better real soon.
https://www.chameleonforums.com/theres-no-such-thing-uri-14277/
https://www.chameleonforums.com/back-vet-medication-questions-39302/
https://www.chameleonforums.com/concerns-my-female-panther-47322/

 

[spottea]

Hope S kye gets better soon. Good job on the cage though!

 

[laurie]

Your temp cage looks great and I am sure Skye is happy there. It is wonderful to see a new person see a problem, call the vet, and have the problem taken care of right away.

 

[Lpsouth1978]

Thank you for the info Jann. I read through those threads and learned a few things.

Laurie, I have been keeping chams for almost a year, but Skye is the first female I have had. I now have 2 females and 1 male. Even though it has been almost a year since I got my first Cham, I feel like there is soooooo much to learn, I think I will still discover new things 20 years from now. I was able to recognize that something was wrong because of these forums. Without them, I probably would not have noticed the problem so quickly or known how to take care of it.

Also, Skye seems to be doing better today. It looks like she still has some mucus, but not nearly as much. She is quite alert and has been moving around he cage well. She still has not eaten. It has been 3-4 days since she ate anything, so hopefully she eats soon. I put some juicy wax worms, and some small dubia, to try and entice her to eat something. The vet said she is on the low side of normal weight, so I need her to eat so she can put some more weight on.

 

[Lpsouth1978]

It has been 2 weeks tomorrow since Skye's first visit to the vet. We have been back 5 times since for additional injections of antibiotics. She is slowly getting better. She never became lethargic, or slept during the day. She has always been very alert and active. The scariest part of this has been that she went more than 2 weeks without eating. It didn't matter what I offered her, she would not eat it.

Yesterday, she turned the corner and ate about ten 1/4" crickets and a few small dubia. When I first took her to the vet she weighed 20g, yesterday she was at 22g, not a lot of weight gained, but it is a start. I am hopeful that she will continue to improve, eat more, and gain weight.

 

[Camsofcali]

Nice!

Sounds like treatment is working. What antibiotics did your vet prescribe?

 

[Lpsouth1978]

Sounds like treatment is working. What antibiotics did your vet prescribe?

I honestly don't know. I take her in every three days for an injection. I never asked which med it is.