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My older female has been doing this some lately...more than she used to. She'll blow up the skin in her eye socket (for lack of better words) and then rub it on a branch. She's eating fine...I'm misting 3 times a day, but I discontinued the dripper. I remember a thread about this awhile back, but I can't remember what the general concensus was. Thanks!!!
Kristen

Ok, I found some old posts on it, and it seems like this was a fairly normal thing for them to do. However, now that it was puffed up HUGE and has since gone back down, it's only partially open, slightly sunken in, and she's not using it as much as her other eye. Her other eye looks perfect...not sunken in and she's using it to look all over...she's been sitting in the same place all morning.

When it first went back down it was kind of shrively looking...does that make sense? It seems from the skin being so stretched out that it was not as "tight" as it was before...it's starting to look less like that, but still sunken.

Any advice? I've been trying to keep humidity up by misting.
Thanks
Kristen

Hi Kristen,

I think it is just them trying to get something out of their eyes, Bart did it a few times (beofre all the other problems) and it is pretty weird, huh!! Here is an article that briefly discusses it: www.chameleonjournals.com/faq/health.html

and here is another more at length. Hope this helps you out until the "experts" get home from work and reply BTW, did you find a vet near you?

later,
lele

Eye Problems

It's pretty much been closed all day, but the other one is just fine. I'm starting to worry....she's moved, but not all over her enclosure like normal.

Going to read those articles...thanks Lele...

Any other ideas???
Thanks
Kristen

While Bart was ill (assuming he is on the mend) his right remained closed for a couple days but seemed fine and now it's OK.

Did those articles help? Did you try spritzing her? I know it sucks to do this b/c they seem to hate it. I am still spraying Bart with pedialyte and I let it warm up in the sun first but he still sucks in and then pushes out just like we do when the shower is too cold!

I would think (hope) that unless you see swelling or discharge it is nothing serious. Take a look with a handlens or magnifying glass (you probably picture me with a handlens attached to my eye! LOL!) to see if anything looks amiss. Hopefully an expert will wiegh in soon!

lele

>>It's pretty much been closed all day, but the other one is just fine. I'm starting to worry....she's moved, but not all over her enclosure like normal.
>>
>>Going to read those articles...thanks Lele...
>>
>>Any other ideas???
>>Thanks
>>Kristen

this is normally your chams way of getting debris or foriegn matter out of their eye. a few things that you can do to help;

1 mist directly with warm water, be gentle. your cham may bubble it out while the water is going over him/her.

2 get some saline and clean q-tips. warm up a little bit of saline, and dip a q-tip in. gently rub back and forth over the little ones eye. you may be able to pull the debris out that way.

3 no matter what, get your cham to a vet, ASAP. it could have an infection as well, so no matter what happens, go to the vet.