Vet visit today "coccidia"

This morning I had a vet appointment to take my new little girl Camille for a "new cham" check up. Since the vet is 2 hours away I decided to take Luie, too. It's a good think that I did. Camille, my new girl, had tons of hook worms and pin worms and Luie had hookworms and coccidia. They were both given Panacur and Luie was given Albon for the coccidia. I have to take them back to the vet in 4 weeks. Both of the chams looked healthy. Even the vet said they were very healthy until he read the results of the fecal test. This shows how important a fecal test can be. Both my chams looked great and I just decided to take the new girl in for a check and so thankful that I took Luie along. I have read some awful things on here about the coccidia and the drug Albon. I know nothing about either. Any advice or comments from anyone out there with experecne would be greatly appreciated. Jann

i'm unsure how cb chams would get these kind of parasites in sanitary living conditions, did he elaborate on how they could have got them?

No he didn't, but he did say the little girl probably had them when I got her last Sat. Jann

Dankmeleon said:

i'm unsure how cb chams would get these kind of parasites in sanitary living conditions, did he elaborate on how they could have got them?

Click to expand...

My husband when with me to the vet and he said that the vet did said it could have came from a cricket carrying it. You'll have to excuse me I'm so upset over Luie, I'm not even thinking stright. Jann

I have heard horror stories about all sorts of parasites coming from petstore crickets. The conditions that some of the crickets from the petstores are kept in is disgusting, But you never see it because most of the time they kepe them in the back out of site. Where do you buy your feeders?

Lucky Lure Cricket Farms

Oh crap-seriously-that is where I get all of my crix. Guess I will be taking some poop to the vet!

coccidia is everywhere.
Mostly, it's buried deep in the soil (in cyst form).
Any soil that has any contact with fecal matter at one time or another.

During rain (or misting), the coccidia emerge to the surface.
This is particularly bad for chameleon (especially the one that loves to eat dirt).

Usually, as long as the immune system is good. The coccidia will be suppressed by itself and should live harmoniously inside your chameleon tummy.

Be careful on Albon.
Some chameleon react adversely to it and stop eating altogether.
Mine quit eating for 3 weeks and had to undergo force feeding.

So, I stop administering Albon to him.
And, currently am interested in trying a new medicine for destroying coccidia.

Albon works well, just keep him well hydrated and quarantined away from your other chams and pets. My vet went with the highest recommended dosage that needs minimal frequency (less handling stress), and everyone cleared up nicely.

as long as your feeding live pray, parasites will always be an issue..unless you raise the feeders your self..

Howdy Jann,

I didn't see this thread before I responded to your PM so I thought I'd share most of my response here too just for continuity :

Howdy Jann,

Coccidia is one of the more troublesome parasites to treat. As Gary mentioned, Albon seems to have more side effects than its almost worth at times. Some chameleons seem to tolerate it much better than others but young as well as old ones can sometimes respond poorly and on top of that, it may not clear the coccidia after a normal round of treatment. You may have to continue to give it every other day for weeks in an attempt to clear it. On the other hand, I have seen it work on some keepers' chameleons with just a week’s worth of treatments and then it was gone. Trimethoprim sulfa is another commonly used drug for coccidia in reptiles. It has fewer side effects but it too, also may not completely clear coccidia from your chameleon. It may come back in full force. It just depends... Since I have my own trinocular microscope, I was able to track the progress of these drugs. I would see the counts drop down to only 10% of the maximum count but then level-off and go no further. If the treatment is left at that point, the numbers would shoot right back up to 100% of max. Even after more than a month of treatments it was still stuck at 10%. I was in communication with keepers in the UK and the anti-coccidia drug, Clazuril (a.k.a. Appertex) was recommended as an option. It is normally used to treat pigeons with coccidia (usually expensive racing pigeons). With pigeons, it is a simple one-pill dose and you are basically done. With reptiles, it's another story. While using Appertex at a one-pill dose every other day, I watched the numbers drop all the way to about 2% of max by about day 15. Dropping below 10% was the first clue that I had something useful happening. It still took about another ~40 days(!) to see the 2% level drop to 0% I've continued to do fecal floats ever since and he has stayed clean for over a month since I stopped treatment. The "cidal" effects of Clazuril might have worked with fewer dosings per week. The half-life in the blood is something like 3 days. A dose smaller than 1 pill per dose might also be quite possible but since there were no noticeable side effects I just stayed with the one pill every other day dosage.

The pill does not dissolve in water. You have to suspend it in something thick. I used food grade vegetable glycerin (health food store). 2-3 drops of the glycerin mixed with a thoroughly powdered pill makes about 0.2ml of suspension. Carefully suck it up into a syringe and then put on an 18 gage hypo needle. Inject that in his favorite feeder worm. Silkworms, hornworms and superworms work pretty well. You must feed them off within a minute or they will be dead and he may not be interested. Make sure he is kept hungry on medicine day.

Buy Appertex here :

http://www.jedds.com/Products.asp?Ma...ategoryID=1457

http://www.globalpigeon.com/gps.php?...=showprod&id=6 (Appertex is about halfway down the page for $19.50)

There are other sources out there for it.

Today Luie had his second dose of Albon. So far he seems fine and he's eating. I'm giving him allot of extra hydration. My husband and I scrubbed EVERYTHING today....all the plants, trees, cages, everything in the cages and everything that Luie gets on. I've been just letting him roam around the house but now he's confined to 2 plants and a cage. Thanks to everyone for all the info. Jann