Tape Worm Advice

lbesok

Avid Member
A little history about my chameleon Vega from a previous thread:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/veterinary-insurance-4608/
07-08-2007, 11:22 AM
I have definitely had my share of problems with this guy but he wants to live! Most recently he had worms in his fecal, and was prescribed Pancur. I think he still has worms b/c his feces is still not as solid as I hoped. After further consultation w/ the vet (who is not a reptile specialist but has dealt w/a few of these guys and is willing to help me as much as she can) I will give him Pancur again Monday. Previous to this, he had a battle w/ abscessts of the mouth/teeth......which I think I have pretty cleared up, but he is left with an area of permanent puffiness between the eye and nostril. No signs of abscests now when he opens his mouth...... In addition to all of this, when he was diagnosed w/ worms he also had this black discoloration under the chin that we are trying to get rid of that has mostly gone away. I give him the Chlorhexadine solution 2x daily for this and a bit of trauma around his mouth. He gets injections of Baytril every other day until we have this area around his mouth cleared up completely. He is practically done shedding now for the first time since the discoloration, most of the blackness pealed off resulting in hard yellow looking skin underneath, which appears to be getting better after a fresh dose of Chlorhex. He also has had/is having eye problems. The L eye gets goo in it and he is favoring it this morning. I am afraid that he has something else not diagnosed and the Baytril is just keeping it under control........
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This morning's fecal revealed this long nasty worm pictured below:
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n22/lbesok/P7120140.jpg
I think it's a tape worm???
Any referrals to more information about these worms?
I'm worried because the vet prescribed Vega, pancur liquid. 6/2 was the first dose, 6/16 was the second dose....the third dose was scheduled for 4wks after the second. I called the vet last week though b/c he still had diarrhea and she told me to dose him again, so I did on monday 7/9. Does this usually what happens when you de-worm?? I was wondering if anyone knows of another commonly used de-wormer for these types of worms, and if he gets prescribed a different de-wormer how long you have to space it out from the previous?? I am thinking a week.
I scheduled the next available appt @ the vet 4 Tues afternoon, but I'm thinking about walking him in b4 then. These worms only live in him and his feces, or can they crawl out?? Any helpful advice would be greatly appreciated.
A pic of Vega this morning:
http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n22/lbesok/P7120138.jpg
 
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If nothing else I would take that worm in for I.D.
You may not need to bring the cham in ...just the fecal sample and those urates with that ominous looking parasite.
Good Luck!

-Brad
 
Hey,

That is not a tapeworm. It is some sort of nematode. It probably came out because of the deworming. If you don't mind, could you post the weight of your cham and the dose of panacur you are using? and how often.

You might also ask your vet to look up Zylafen as a adjuvent topical for wounds and abscesses. You might be able to get by without as many baytril injections.

Remember, I have not seen the animal, so these are merely suggestions to discuss with your vet. Your vet might have already taken these things into account and has chosen the present treatment over these suggestion for other reasons.

Matthew
 
This is what a tapeworm looks like...they are segmented...can't see the one in your picture to see if it is...
http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/wormstapewormphotos.htm

Its teeth...
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/optics/intelplay/gallery/pages/rheinberg/tapeworm.html

I know this is for dogs...but it tells you a little about the life of a tapeworm...
http://www.cdc.gov/NCIDOD/DPD/parasites/dipylidium/factsht_dipylidium.htm

More...to the best of my knowledge a tape worm attaches itself to the inside of the intestine and doesn't let go unless its dying....
http://www.bioweb.uwlax.edu/zoolab/...a/Tapeworm_Life-Cycle/tapeworm_life-cycle.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diphyllobothrium

If there is goo coming out of his eye, the vet should be able to culture it and find out if there is something that will work better than the baytril.

The chameleon is lucky to have someone who is willing to do what you are doing to try to get him back to good health! Hope you succeed!
 
Matthew,


Pancur is just in a syringe at .1ml. 6/2 was the first dose, in 2 weeks, 6/16 was the second dose....the third dose was scheduled for 4wks after the second. I called the vet last week though b/c he still had diarrhea and she told me to dose him again, so I did on Monday 7/9.
On 6/23 he weighed 160g I believe, and since then he looks even heavier.....has had a healthy appetite, and has recently discovered horn worms. So deff 160+ I'll post some confirmation l8r.
Thanks for your helpful suggestions I'll discuss, Zylafen w/ the vet when I visit. And to tell you the truth I HATE the baytril every other day....but I don't know what the alternative would be.
 
Oh,

Couple other questions?

Where did you get your cham? Wild caught?

Do you feed insects from outside? or only from a supplier?
 
kinyounga,

No ridges, so I think maybe not tape worm.. Thank you for the useful references though. Thankfully his eyes seem to be both open and ok today. I think I would have to take the culture from the eye into the vet for analysis, because it is kind of sporadic. Thanks, I hope so too!
 
Matthew,
I got him from a reptile show in Orlando, Feb. of last year, he is 2 WC. He also had parasites when we got him and 4 or 5 were removed. Our crickets most recently came from mulberry farms with the horn worms but usually we get them from the pet stores, but.....I kind of prefer to order but we will get more tomorrow at the FIRE reptile show in Orlando!! Don't really catch feeders....
 
The dose of panacur is correct. Certainly if you look at a couple exotic formularies, they say different things. I like to treat at that dose, 1x day for 3 days then repeat in 2-3 weeks if you are having a chronic problem.

You might ask your vet if that is the protocol she likes, or was just one of the options she happened to pick. If so, maybe she'd agree to a more frequently dosed beginning (please do not deviate from her plan without discussing this with her.)

Matthew
 
Yeah, I am deff willing to discuss all the options with our Vet. Unfortunately she is not a specialist, but she has treated chams before, is not astronomically priced, and cares about Vega. And now that you mention it, I remember at the old Vet that moved they were dosed by a similar regimen as you described. Thank you for your help.
 
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As Dr. Wheelock pointed out, the worm is a nematode, most likely a roundworm (ascarid) and it could have likely originated from any food item as those worms tend to use insects as intermediate hosts.
Panacur is the treatment of choice although different protocols might need to be used as also established by Dr. Wheelock.
If you continue to see worms or suspect them, make sure to have a fecal exam done on him as sometimes you can't see the worms but you can see the eggs and if that is the case, then do ask your Vet about the 3 days in a row treatment with a follow up in 3-4 weeks.
It might not be a bad idea to have your Vet submit a fecal culture as you could have a mixed problem with worms and maybe other organisms like flagellates or overgrowth of noxious bacteria. The tests can get pricey but definitely worth it if they can detect what the problem is a fix it.

Good luck with Vega.

Ivan
 
Thanks Dr. Wheelock and Dr. Alfonso for your much respected input, I will raise some of these topics with Dr. Webster and see what she thinks. I believe that it is almost time for another fecal anyhow.... Any ideas on why only the cham has parasites and not the beardie or gecko if the origin is food....Maybe when I went to my parent's house only with Vega, I got a bad batch of crickets..... Are there any preventative measures to take to ensure the other reptiles do not get infested.....especially if I get another cham......Obviously they would have to have to stay separate, as they all do now, but could they share the same plants and stuff??
 
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...Any ideas on why only the cham has parasites and not the beardie or gecko if the origin is food....
Howdy,

As far as where these parasites came from, my money is on the fact that he's WC, so they came from Madagascar :rolleyes:. Even if he didn't show signs of the roundworms etc. when you got him; now that he's out of the wild, it's likely that any natural balances that kept them from overloading are disrupted by captivity. Combine that with stress and you can easily get parasite loads to increase exponentially :eek:. As others have said, Panacur is the common (and effective) medicine of choice for that class of parasite. And, as was suggested, get a careful fecal exam done to track down any other parasites that might require additional medicines like Flagyl and Albon etc. The good news is once you get this infestation wiped-out you're likely to not have as a big of a problem like that again. (Get to be friends with someone who has a microscope.)
 
That picture you had is definatly a round worm. Roundworms resides in wild insect like grasshopper, locust, mantis, roaches basically anything that accidentally ingest a round worms' eggs will be the surrogate (vector) parent for the worm. Feeder insect are the primary host for worms. They need to get into a bigger permanent host to fully develope into adult. To be on a safe side; send in some fecal sample to the vet every 6 month or so. Or you can buy a microscope and be a investigator on poops.:D
 
...Or you can buy a microscope and be a investigator on poops.:D
Howdy,

DIY poop inspection :):

EggsCroppedIMG_3418.jpg

ProtozoanCroppedIMG_0013.jpg

Pinworm2.jpg
 
Those are ascarid eggs if i am not mistakes... other square looking thingy and weird shaped around the slides are just crystal, carbonates .....etc.
 
wow that is really neat that you can do it yourself. How high quality of a microscope do you think I need? Anyone close by want to be friends?? I think I should be able to go over to USF and investigate some poop w/ one of their scopes if they are good enough..... but I don't really know what to look for. Dave did you put your camera up to the microscope to get those pics?
 
you need a microscope that can magnify 1000X. 10X Ocular and 100X Objective lense. 1000X can let you identify microorganisms like salmonella, E. coli etc etc...(with proper staining). 1000x will also allows you to see eggs produced by worms.

To be able to take picture of the eggs, you will need a special kinda of microscope with a camera attachment (cost a lot of $$$$). All you need to do when you need to identify worms and eggs is to Google search or Yahoo search Parasitology.:D
 
Awesome, thanks for your helpful 411. I'm excited to try it, but I don't really know when that will happen. That camera attachment for the microscope is really cool!
 
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