Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My chameleon burnt the tip of his tail about 3 weeks ago on his basking lamp when he was out of the cage. It didn't look bad, the skin was somewhat discolored but it didn't look serious. I figured it would heal up and color would come back after the next shed. But within the last 2 days it has gotten bad. I've put two pictures up, one from about 8 days ago and one from today. Should I take him to the vet? I don't want it going farther up his tail.

Pic from today

Soak it in betadine solution, and then put some silver silfadiazine cream on it - you probably need a vet's perscription for it. It looks like it'll heal with topical antiseptic creams. SS cream is great for burns.

Thanks. I'm guessing an OTC antiseptic like neosporin or something is no good? I have no problems taking him to the vet, but if I can save the visit, I'd rather do it. My cham just shed 4 days ago, and since then thats when its really started to look bad. For two weeks it looked like the first picture..just brown. Could this have been prevented had I put antiseptic on sooner?

Just go to the vet and get the perscriptions. The longer you wait the less chance it has to heal/worse it could get.

To me, the tip looks too far gone and it will eventually fall off and the area does look infected. The SS cream Eric mentioned does work well with burns among other things and you need to get it from the vet so you may as well make an appointment to have the tail looked at. The SS cream is really cheap so don’t walk away with a little bit of it – ask the vet if you can just buy the tub. Its good stuff to have on hand for MINOR burn/wound situation.

-roo