Reptile & Amphibian Forums

anyone ever had to deal with this? i took her to the vet and they are giving her a baytril shot once a week. it is very slowly disappearing...but it is also leaving scar tissue. do you know if it clears away completely, back to normal? is there anything else that works.

Mouthrot is a relatively common occurence in chameleons.
The main trouble with it is that if the area hasn't been cleaned out it will recur most of the time. Chameleon's pus is more like cottage cheese and the medication doesn't seem to get through it to kill all the germs. Also, although baytril is a wide-spectrum antibiotic, if the vet didn't take a sample of the pus and send if for culture you won't know if baytril is the right med. to kill the germ that is causing the mouth rot. (You are seeing improvements so it might be....but some antibiotics are better than others at killing certain germs.)

I've never heard of baytril only being given once a week. In my experience it was given orally daily.

You said..."but it is also leaving scar tissue"...do you mean where they are injecting the baytril or in the mouth? There is often discoloration around the injection site in chameleons and it usually goes away but the scars from the mouth rot take longer and may never go away completely.

Hope this helps!

Have someone posting on another forum who is attempting currettage/debridement of infected gum tissue and treatment with peroxide and betadine iodine swabs. It's harder on chameleons than on water dragons because the chams fight so darn hard to get away and stress so easily, but once you get their mouth open, use a popsicle stick or metal feeding tube to keep it open and swab with 50:1 water to betadine solution-wring the swab well before you insert it in the mouth. Then use a flat toothpick to gently scrape the infected tissue. The caseous like material will be imbedded in the gum tissue and must be removed. After the currettage, swab again. Then repeat the swabbing twice daily and the currettage every other day until the gum tissue shows no further signs of infection. Continue swabbing for a few days after the currettage treatments have been stopped. it's a lot of work and usually requires the assistance of another person (especially for a chameleon) You can use Nolvasan in place of the iodine if you have it. Good luck. diane
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dianedfisher@yahoo.com

My 3 CWD-Avanyu, Tripod and Drago

I'd be very careful regarding the use of iodine, as I have encountered more than one case of anaphylaxis with the use of such. I have found flushing an infected area with Chlorhexidine, diluted per labeling, and applying silver sulfadine to be highly effective regarding the topical treatment of oral stomatitis.
Also, oral stomatitis is often present as a secondary problem, as stress, incorrect environmental conditions, mal-nutrition or other underlying internal and external pathogen infestations are often the root of oral stomatitis. A review of husbandry practices and nutrition may be in order, as it is rare for healthy specimens being maintained correctly to become symptomatic.

Good luck,

Jeff
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Jeff Snodgres
University of Arkansas
snodgresjeffreys@uams.edu
501.603.1947

thanks for the reply. Experience is so important. I'll pass that info along to the other forum. They didn't have any Nolvasan OR Betadine and are using hydrogen peroxide as the disinfectant. I prefer to use the Nolvasan also but I'm unfamiliar with the silver sulfadine. I'll have to find some for my "first aid kit". diane
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dianedfisher@yahoo.com

My 3 CWD-Avanyu, Tripod and Drago

Nolvasan is great, but acquiring it in the generic form, Chlorhexidine gluconate, will cut your cost in half without any negative impact on efficacy. It also makes a great enclosure disinfectant!
You may want to ask your veterinarian about Silver Sulfadine, as many places do not sell it OTC..

Best regards,

Jeff
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Jeff Snodgres
University of Arkansas
snodgresjeffreys@uams.edu
501.603.1947

Does anyone know what percentage of chameleons develop mouth rot, I mean is it a very big percentage, very low percentage or thereabouts. Also, what ways can you prevent mouth rot? Thanks.

It seems that I also agree that mouth rot is secondary to another problem. I guess the first question is how did it start? Is the animal wild caught? Has it been acclimated? Wormed?
Is it in a high stress environment. What kind is it, who imported it and how long was it grouped with other males? If it is wild caught and has mouth rot, it should be getting baytril once a day at least. The problem is that the stress from handling may be even worse than the problem. If I did pull it out for treatment, I would give it the shotgun approach. De-worm heavily, give an injectible wide spread antibiotic and scrub the mouth with at least 90% alcahol. It will die or get better. Good luck...Jon

Baytril may work but to be sure that you are killing the bacteria involved you need to have a culture/sensitivity test done of some of the "pus" or you might not be killing the germ.

If the bacteria has gone into the chameleon's system, then you are not going to kill it by only treating the mouth with a topical ointment and disinfectant. It will take an antibiotic too. You need to be very careful what disinfectant and strength of it you use or you could kill the chameleon....especially if it swallows much of it. The topical ointment needs to be one that will cause no harm if ingested, BTW.

A shotgun approach to killing parasites is not the best idea either. If a fecal isn't done, you might not even be killing all the parasites since any medications will only kill certain parasites. If the chameleon has a very heavy parasite load, you may kill the chameleon. Once the parasites inside the chameleon are killed they become waste and the chameleon's system may not be able to handle getting rid of that much waste all at once if the load is heavy.

Cleaning a small bit/area of mouth rot out without putting the chameleon out may be tolerable...but the pain/stress if the amount of "digging" you have to do is inhumane. The pain that they have to withstand AFTER the area has been cleaned out can be more than enough without having to withstand you doing it to them while they are "awake".

I am no advocate of the "shotgun" method of medicinal administration, as doing so can cause more harm than good. I further agree that a fecal examination is in order, preferably both a float and acid fast stain, as some of the smaller Coccidian spp. can be easily overlooked when using only a single method.
It would be best to use a sample of the infected tissue for culture, not simply the puss, as this will allow a veterinarian to realize the full scope of bacterial colonization.
Also, I believe the use of amoxicillin or cephalosporin would be more effective in the treatment of oral stomatitis, as the two bacteria associated with necrotic oral stomatitis are pseudomonas and aeromonas. Baytril has shown to be effective in combating Pseudomonas in extremely high dosages, which would have a negative impact upon a chameleon in the form of dehydration, which in turn would lead to acute end stage renal disease. However, should aeromonas be the culprit, Baytril will work just fine.
You have already been given enough information to take an extended period of time to digest and you are to be commended for taking your charge to a veterinarian…

Good luck,

Jeff

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Jeff Snodgres
University of Arkansas
snodgresjeffreys@uams.edu
501.603.1947

Are you a vet?

she gets the baytril shot, she ways about 8 grams and the vet gives her 22.7mg once a week. but that weight was before she laid eggs, so im thinking they should weigh her again. and they just shoot it in her side, intramuscularly. i think i have gone 4 times now. of course the first day i took her they did a fecal and she did not have any parasites. i took her because she wasnt opening her mouth, and there was the pus in there..so they said oral infection that could have been from anything, including a bite from a worm. then after that the mouth rot happened. so, could the primary problem could have been the infection in her mouth, and the secondary effect was the mouth rot?? anyways, the infection and pus inside her mouth cleared up almost immediately and the mouth rot is lasting longer. i think the mouth rot just got so serious so suddenly and thats why its taking so long to go away. like i said it is showing signs of getting better, just seems like its taking a long time.

You sid..."could the primary problem could have been the infection in her mouth and the secondary effect was the mouth rot??"...mouth rot is the common name for reptile mouth infections.

I have no idea what the dose of baytril is for injections.

Glad they did a fecal...but one clean fecal doesn't necessarily mean that the chameleon is parasite free. Usually you need a couple to be sure since the parasites can shed inttermittently.

You said..."it is showing signs of getting better, just seems like its taking a long time"...I hope it will get better and not return.

Mouth rot or stomatitis can be caused for many different reasons (bacterial, viral, fungal) but usually is secondary to some other problem, i.e. trauma to the mouth, nutritional deficiency, improper husbandry/caging. As for treatment, baytril is usually a good empirical treatment while awaiting results of culture of the area for bacteria/fungal agents (10-20mg/kg once daily or divided into twice daily dosage....weekly administration is definitely not doing any good). Then antibiotics can continue unchanged or changed to an appropriate antibiotic for the organisms present. I also tend to treat with topical 3x daily applications of 2% chlorhexadine solution via cotton tipped swab onto the lesions after all exudate has been removed. (I wouldn't advise the 90% alcohol, it can be very dehydrating and cause more unneccesary damage to oral mucosa..no offense to whomever suggested it please). Proper treatment can be expensive and time consuming and I've found that client compliance is not great. Hope this helps.

Todd