Posted by:
eric adrignola
at Fri May 19 07:55:35 2006 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by eric adrignola ]
A friend of mine in PA used to use ivermectin quite often to reat filarial
worms, and other, fendbedazol resistant worms. He had very good
luck with it, in fact.
One very BIG and EXTREMELY IMPORTANT factor was th
emethods he used to treat the chameleons.
Ivermectin, if given to an animal with heavy parasite infection, will kill it
most of the time. The ivermectin will kill off almost all the worms
quickly. The chameleon will usually not be able to cope with the
resulting infections caused by the dead parasites in it's body. Just about
very time a WC chameleon was given ivermectin FIRST, it died.
In proper doese, the drug is not deadly - the side affects can be.
The only effective use of ivermectin was to use it last, as a final parasite
treatment, after all other drugs were used.
Pete was very successful at acclimating and treating melleri, which are
one of the most parasite ridden, difficult to acclimate species. He of
course hydrated them well and fed them well. First, he treated them
with "megadoses of panacur", over a period of several weeks. Every
treatment would cause a swelling in the throat, similar to a gular edema,
as the large worms in that region would die off. Treatment would
continue until the post-treatment swelling did not result.
After all fendbedazol (panacur) sensitive worms were killed off, he
woudl treat for protozoan parasites, or coccidia if necessary, then
tapeworms.
Only after everything else was killed off, and the animal recovering from
treatment, did he test for and treat for microfiliaria. If present in the
blood ( and they usually were), he'd treat with ivermectin.
On a related not, my local herp vet, when JUST starting out, used to
routienly treat all chameleons with panacur, flagyl, and ivermectin - all at
once. He had a remarkable low death rate. He dispute my claim that
ivermectin woudl kill animals due to the parasite load, as he never saw
it happen. When I informed him that all the calyptratus he was treating
were CB's, and probably devoid of most parasites, he understood.
The fact that it didnt' kill the calyptratus, which had few, if any
parasites, was interesting.
I think Pete had a good system. The animals have to be healthy, and
they have to have a VERY low parasite load, if they are to survive
ivermectn treatment.
Ivermectin kills turtles, though... be careful.
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RE: lele...ivermectin - eric adrignola, Fri May 19 07:55:35 2006