Veiled Chameleon with a large growth on her head

I have a female veiled chameleon who is about 3 years old and has a large growth that is continously growing on her head. She has had this growth for about 8 months now and started off small, white, and hard and is now large, white, hard, and has a weird orange thing forming off the top of the growth. I took her to a reptile vet around 3 months ago and she had no idea what it was. She has been eating her crickets and mealworms with calcium powder, drinking water, no abnormalities in her poop and shes been acting normal. If anyone can give me any ideas or answers, I would really appreciate it!
This is a recent picture of her

What vet did you go to? What did they say exactly? Did they give you meds? Can you get any better pics?

Dustin

Where are you located exactly?

Looks like a spiny-headed worm to me you need to get a fecal done by your vet A.S.A.P ! The spiny headed worm is a parisitic worm found in reptiles !

maybe is some sort of a wart... at least thats what it looks like from just looking it through a picture

Find another vet now.

Why didn't your vet remove it?

A better picture would be good. Maybe then some of the experts could get a better feel for what it might be.

Jeffro, I googled that and didn't come up with anything that looked like this, which doesn't mean much. Do you have any experience with that worm or pictures you can share?

The vet told me that she wasn't sure what it was. She thought it could be the pox virus, but she said she'd never seen something like that before so she took a picture to put in a reptile vet forum. Its been a couple months since then and she never got back to me. I talked to the local reptile store and they want me to bring her down there so they can give me some kind of medicine for her. I also went to Petsmart and talked to a lady there and she thought that it could have been a calcium deposit from too much calcium but I only powder her crickets and mealworms before she eats them. I don't think that would be the cause though. Its been a bit of a rollercoaster ride trying to find answers and I really don't want to lose my chameleon.

I will take some closer pictures and post them a.s.a.p.

I sincerely doubt that's calcium....I think chameleon's usually disperse excess calcium through mucus membranes, so around the nose, mouth and vent. And, from what I've seen, it's just spots or "stains"...nothing that grows and gains color.....

The growth looks a lot like a wart, but from what i've been reading it seems like it could be a parasitic infection of some sort. I'm going to try to get in contact with another reptile vet near me.

Its not like any pox virus that I've ever seen in chameleons...the lesions in pox are usually round and sort of yellowish and look like a cross between a pimple and a blister....close as I can describe it.

I have seen a round white growth on the side of a chameleon...but it was very smooth and not bumpy like that...and the chameleon died in the end. Unfortunately it was one of a few that I couldn't take for an autopsy.

Closest I can find...
http://books.google.ca/books?id=hhO...QQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=pox AND reptiles&f=false

I really hope she doesn't die. I just found a few reptile vets in the bay area that are about 45 mins away so I will be taking her soon for sure. I found a few posts on different forums about 2 chameleons with the same thing as Bettie, the only reply said it could be an absess or a tumor.

LilMissBettiePaige7 said:

I really hope she doesn't die. I just found a few reptile vets in the bay area that are about 45 mins away so I will be taking her soon for sure. I found a few posts on different forums about 2 chameleons with the same thing as Bettie, the only reply said it could be an absess or a tumor.

Click to expand...

This is an excellent vet in Berkeley.

http://www.berkeleydogandcat.com/site/edit/65853_DrKenHarkewicz.pml

Please let us know what the vet says.

We do care.

Oh my gosh! I hope that you can get that figured out and removed ASAP! I have a 3 Month old male veiled and getting a new 11 month old female veiled soon! I hope that I don't run into problems like this. How old is Bettie? And also to whoever said what kin of worm it might be how do they get them?!

Alright, here we go.

I've looked at your image

it would have been much better to have given us several from different angles
so as well as some frame of reference to measure the growth.

I've shortened down a long story.
There are papilloma virus's that infect chameleons.
I had it on both one female veiled as well as a male panther.

It was brought in on a infected veiled female,
I got from another breeder at a show.
She started to develop a thickened lip on one side of her fact a month or two after I brought her home.

So they do exist.
My vet called to inform me of it's being the first verified case.
(imagine my joy at hearing that on the phone).

This virus I had was spread by saliva and only infected the lips around the mouth. The virus caused thickening of the outer mouth lining with horn like projections. - it was very specific.

Transfer was by wet saliva only. The virus had not show itself to be able to survive in a dry state. So the carrier animal I got was infected by either licking a leaf, pipette or drinking from a glass used by another infected individual. I suspect that this "established breeder" sold me an animal they did not breed themselves. The veiled I got must have picked it up via being directly exposed to another carrier animal. Most likely by being kept in a "group holding bin" from a wholesaler mixed with wild imported animals.


Anyway,
In my case, simple isolation of wet materials stopped all transmission to the rest of the colony. Otherwise, the infected animals were healthy. The female veiled eventually cycled though the infection and was either without symptoms or completely eliminated the virus.
It wasn't transferrable to her offspring. The eggs hatched clean and the f1 adults show no signs of infection or did the male that mated with her.



I'm thinking that you may just have another papilloma virus causing growths on your animal.

Thank you everyone for helping me figure out what this thing could be on Betties head. I really appreciate it. I have taken a few more pictures of her growth today and posted them below.

Awwww.. poor betty! Sounds like you love your animal. I'm sure this isn't an easy thing to deal with. Hopefully there is a vet who is willing to help you out somewhere. Good luck with her!