Ziggy keeps closing his eye

[Starman]

Hi everybody,

This is my first post this this forum, and unfortunately it's about a health problem with my chameleon. So far this forum has been an amazing help to me and I hope you can shed some light on the problem I am having

Chameleon Info:

• Your Chameleon - 8/9 month old male panther chameleon (Furcifer Pardalis Ambilobe Blue Bar) Has been in my care for about 5 months now.
• Handling - Multiple times a week.
• Feeding - I feed my chameleon everyday, usually a mix of crickets, locusts, calcium worms and the occasional wax worm. I gutload with oranges, carrots, bell peppers, a mix of frozen veggies made up off a lot of stuff recommended by sandrachameleon. Other than that I feed my crickets Vit-All by Sticky Tongue Farms and Nutrogrub by Vetark.
• Supplements - I dust my crickets with Minerall without D3 4/5 times a week. Once or twice with Minerall with D3 and with Vita Totaal by Repco once every 2 weeks.
• Watering - My main watering technique is with a little dripper, but I also offer water through a plastic bird watering cup. I've often seen him drink from the leafs, haven't seen him drink from the cup. I mist about 6 times a day for about 60 seconds every time.
• Fecal Description - Ziggy usually poops 2 or 3 times a week, usually fairly large droppings which are solid. The urinate is generally pretty white, except the last dropping had quite some orange in it. He has been tested for parasites and tested negative for them.
• History - This is my first chameleon so I do not have a lot of information to compare it against. From what I can tell he seems to be doing good. He gains weight every week, has a strong grip and nice coloration.

Cage Info:

• Cage Type - Mesh Reptibreeze XL cage (24" x 24" x 48)
• Lighting - Currently using a 100W halogen bulb which is on a dimmer. For the UVB I use a 24W 6%UVB Arcadia T5 D3 reptile lamp. The lights go on at 7:15AM and go out at 7PM.
• Temperature - The temperature at his basking area is about 35 degrees Celsius, the bottom of the cage not lower than 20.5 degrees Celsius during the day (because of a thermostat) and no Lower than 19 degrees during the night. I measure the temperate with an analog meter in his cage and use the thermostat to measure room temperature.
• Humidity - During summer humidity is generally 65% to 85% (humid Dutch summers), currently humidity is somewhere between 40% and 60%. I heavily hand spray the cage in the morning before I go to work, the rest of the day I rely on my misting system. I use an analog meter to measure the humidity levels, which is mounted in the top of the cage.
• Plants - I am using 2 types of live plants, mainly a Pothos and a small Ficus Benjamin.
• Placement - The cage is located in the living room, no drafts. The cage is placed on top of a small table, with the bottom being about 50cm of the floor, which puts the top of the cage about 170cm of the floor.
• Location - I am located in the west of The Netherlands.

Current Problem
Ziggy has been occasionally having some problems with his eyes, for which I took him to a herpetologist twice.

The first I noticed a lot of blinking, bulging of his eyes and rubbing it on twigs. I took him to the herp ans she thought it had something to do with a piece of skin getting stuck in his eye, so she subscribed me an ointment (Chloramphenicol with Vit. A) to put on his eyes, 3 times a day (this was about 2,5 months ago).

The problem seemed to go away for a while, until about 5/6 weeks later he started to blink, bulge and rub a lot again. I took him to a different herp, who noticed that there was a lot of old skin left around his eyeballs (in the socket) which might have been irritating him. He cleaned it up as good as he could and sent me home, since there was no obvious other issues with his eyes. He really inspected them thoroughly.

Now for the problem I am asking help for; Recently I've spotted Ziggy basking or resting in his cage with one of his eyes closed. He rubs it on branches occasionally but mainly he just rests. He is still hunting and not lethargic. Whenever I take him out of his cage he keeps both eyes open for the whole duration. Whenever I put him in his cage he usually takes a while to settle, but when he does, he closes his left eye again. When I shake the cage a little he usually opens it up, only to close it again not long after. There is no visual discharge coming from his eye, so I am pretty sure that it's not infected.

From what I've read on these forums I am leaning to a Vitamin A deficiency, but I am really interested to hear your opinions.

Many thanks in advance, I hope I did this right.

 

[werecat]

Hello, and welcome to the forums! I'm sorry your chameleon is having an eye issue. These are actually somewhat common, although the cause can really vary. I would not necessarily conclude that it is a vitamin A deficiency. I feel that a lot of people jump to that, but it isn't always the case. Other causes include debris in the eye causing irritation and leading to infection, or even a genetic degenerative eye disorder.

I had a similar situation with my chameleon. He is also a panther and he began closing one eye. After researching here on the forums I tried flushing the eye with a sterile saline solution to remove any possible debris. I also took him to the herp vet several times and tried a couple of different meds to no avail. I asked my vet about a possible vitamin A deficiency and he said that if that were the case I would likely be seeing an issue with both eyes, not just one. He did give vitamin A shots on two separate occasions (I think just to make me feel like we were doing everything we could). My panther never responded to the meds and the vet told me to stop and see how things went without.

In your case, it sounds like you have done similar. It's good that you've had him checked out by a couple of herp vets and treated with meds. When you treated, do you remember for how long? I assume you followed the vet's advice on how long to treat, but I know sometimes reptiles are slow to heal and take a little longer to respond to meds. You can try flushing the eye with saline or giving long warm showers. This helped open my cham's eye, but only temporarily. It is mainly to help flush any debris out if there is any. If this does't help I wouldn't continue it for more that 5 days to a week.

In the end, the vet decided that my chameleon probably just has a degenerative eye disorder. He has since gone mostly blind in that eye, but with time has adapted very well. He still hunts on his own and though his accuracy took a dive for a while, he has gotten much better. He still rubs his eye on a branches from time to time and he keeps the one eye closed a lot of the time.

If you want to pursue it further, you could see the herp vet one more time or an exotic ophthalmologist if you can find one. Discuss your concerns with them and see what they think about vitamin A deficiency. I would caution against dosing with vitamin A yourself as it can easily be overdosed and cause more problems. You might just have to let things play out.

I wish you luck and if you have any questions about flushing the eye or anything else, feel free to PM me.

 

[Craigwyatt]

You should go to a vitamin store and get some vit A with retinyl palmititate gel caps. I know you said you got vit A ointment but I'd try this if I were you. Just bust open a gel cap and put a little on a feeder. Put it in his favorite food whatever it may be and make sure he eats it. Then do it a couple more times with 5 days in between.
Hope this helps. It has helped me before.

 

[Starman]

@Werecat, the herp that initialy gave me the ointment for his eye told me to apply this 3 times a day, for 2 weeks in a row. I followed her suggestion that time (this was a few months ago though).

She did gave me a saline solution back then, in case he got a mucky eye. I have no idea how to apply it properly though? Do I just put a drop on his eye and let him rinse or do I have to apply it in a different way?

@craigwyatt, I am currently not using the ointment for his eyes, I read a lot about the vitamin A gel caps, but the kinds that seem to be popular in the states seem a little harder to get my in The Netherlands.

 

[werecat]

Hi Starman, I'll explain the eye flushing technique that my vet and another experienced forum member taught me:

*Be sure to use the solution your vet gave you since some saline solutions are not appropriate for eyes.

The technique:
(If you can make this a two person operation it will work better. One person holds the cham, the other squirts) While we have tried doing this with the chameleon standing upright, it sometimes works better to turn the chameleon on his side. He will hate this. (Some wrap the cham in a towel to make this easier and keep them from squirming. We don't since the towel freaks my cham out even more). *Tip - you want to hold the chameleon firmly enough to disable most squirming but not so hard you are squishing him. I try to make a firm "cage" with my fingers but I don't necessarily bear down on his body too much.

With the chameleon on his side and the eye facing up at you, squirt a firm stream of liquid into the eye. You must be more firm than you would think as the stream must fill/inflate the skin of the eye turret. This is how my vet does it and it is the only way to be effective. If the turret does not inflate then there is really not enough liquid getting under the skin to flush the eye. The stream may even come out the chameleon's nostril and this is ok. I used to think it was bad, but my vet corrected me, saying this is helping to clear anything out of the nasolacrimal duct (which would occur if there was an infection). The squirt should last for a second or two. You can stop once the turret inflates (it will go right back down). We usually repeat once so that we get two good squirts in. Allow him to stand upright as soon as you are done since the side position is very uncomfortable for them. We were told to do this as often as once a day for a week, but even one or two treatments may help if it is just debris.

Also, I like to monitor him for a few minutes after treatment just to make sure there are not complications like choking on the liquid. This has never been an issue, but I think it's good practice.

Hope that helps you.


Quote:
Originally Posted by mantra

 

[Starman]

Thanks for the very clear description!

Luckily Ziggy is an absolute charm when I grab him, even when I tilt him on the side. There's one problem though, as soon as something comes near his eye he closes it and keeps it shut. How do you deal with this problem? Do you just put the plastic syringe on the turret and blow liquid in it, or do you wait for him to open the eye and then quickly go for it?

This is the type of plastic syringe I am talking about.

 

[werecat]

I would avoid touching the eye with the syringe. We usually had to wait until he opened it an then went for it (sometimes it took longer than we wanted). He got very wise to all of this and when we turned him on his side he would close his eye immediately! Upright he would open it (like one of those baby doll toys).

Sometimes if the syringe is close enough to the eye, the force of the stream will open it enough to get the liquid in, but I recommend waiting until the eye is open. You will go through a lot of the solution either way, but might as well make sure it's going to be effective.

Tips:
My husband and I went to great lengths to hide the squirt bottle from him until we were ready.

When he would not open his eye, I would gently touch another part of his body like his hand or his back. Since he's very shy, he would instinctively open the eye to look around and see what was touching him. Not sure if that will work for you.

Patience. Sometimes you just have to wait.

Eventually we would do this while his was upright because it seemed to stress him out less.

 

[Starman]

Okay, I will have my father help me out tomorrow and see if we can get it done, patience is the key I guess. I will let you know how it went

 

[werecat]

Great! Hope it goes well!

 

[Starman]

I just tried flushing his eye out. Handling wise it went moderately well. He wasn't very stubborn about keeping his eye closed luckily. He did keep rolling it around when we came close with the plastic syringe though.

We tried a few forceful squirts, but we did not manage to get his turret to inflate. It did definitely seem like he got some saline solution in there though, so I will observe him in the morning to see if anything has changed.

What kind of tool do you use to squirt the water in the eye of your chameleon if I may ask? A similar syringe?

 

[werecat]

Yes, this is all a bit tricky because of their eyes being so small and always rotating (be happy you don't have a carpet chameleon or other smaller species). It's all about timing because they might close their eyes or rotate their eye away from you. With a few tries you'll probably get it.

For squirting, we actually use the bottle the solution came in. We used contact solution from the warehouse store Costco. The bottles have a very small squirt type opening. We would just give it a good squeeze and the solution would come out in a strong narrow stream. I'm not sure what type of bottle the solution from your vet comes in. If it has a squeeze tip you could just use it straight out of the bottle. Just make sure the tip does not touch the eye or it will contaminate it. I don't think there's anything wrong with the syringe you are using though, as long as you can get a strong consistent stream. I've posted a picture of what I used below.

How is the eye doing? Any discharge or crustiness?

 

[Starman]

Thanks for the description

The solution I got from my vet came in a small plastic ampule (not the same brand, but as an example)

There has been no discharge so far, unfortunately I cannot check how his eye is doing at the moment because he is sleeping. He seemed fairly stressed afterwards, but had a nice big drink so let's hope he feels a bit better.

I will check how he is doing in the morning, and if he still has problems I will try and rinse it again in the afternoon.

I just feel it is just going to be tricky to inflate his eye, but it sure looked like I managed to get some fluid in the eye. If I don't succeed tomorrow I will give my herp a call and ask him if he could possibly help me rinse it

 

[Starman]

No real change this morning unfortunately. I made an appointment with a herp for tomorrow night, hoping he can shed some light on the issue and help me fix it.

I will keep you posted

 

[werecat]

Ok, I hope it goes well! Hope the little guy feels better soon.

 

[Starman]

Just got back from the herpetologist. He thoroughly inspected his eye. There were no signs of infection or inflammation. He suspects something might have gotten stuck in his eye during his most recent shed.

He gave me a salve with some Vitamin A in it that I need to apply to his eye for the coming 7 to 10 days, twice a day.

I guess it's "good" that nothing bad could be found, now I have to keep my fingers crosses that the salve will give him some relief.