Tartar in my cham with radiographs/pics-dentals?

[dinomom]

Last month Angela Lennox DVM from Avian and Exotic Animal Clinic of Indianapolis was visiting and I wanted her to have a look at my Meller's mouth, he has always had some irregularities in the lip line.

Previously I had found a small pocket of infection, cleaned and treated it, and it has resolved completely.

First we took rads to see if there were any lesions in the bone where the teeth sit. The first one is the teeth which look normal. We also got a full body which is interesting..she said unless there are females with eggs on board they are "empty". All you can see on Pellinore is some food product in the stomach, the kidneys are back in the hip girdle between those bones. Not seeing liver or kidneys is good as they only become enlarged when they are problematic.

Then she worked on the mouth. Shockingly, there was yellow tartar along several of the teeth!! She said they are seeing this more often in Bearded Dragons, and it must have something to do with what we are feeding. They actually do dentals on beardies! You can see it easily in the pic, it looks soft but is actually hard.

This can be treated by rubbing on a chlorhexidrine gel:

Bright Bark & Meow Tooth Gel​

This can eventually make it go away and will keep bacteria from forming.

If I had to make a guess, it could be the dubias we feed with their mushy parts. So I am trying to go more towards flying insects and silkworms.

I would love to hear anyone else's feedback or experiences, and if anyone can get pics of their cham's mouth.

 

[jannb]

Very interesting. Thank you for sharing Donna! My Florida vet almost always used the dental X-ray machine when x-raying the chameleons.

 

[dinomom]

Very interesting. Thank you for sharing Donna! My Florida vet almost always used the dental X-ray machine when x-raying the chameleons.

Hopefully you will get a chance to look at Santo's mouth at some point; interesting if siblings the same age have the same.