Reptile & Amphibian Forums

okay so i was at work earlier when posting about my cham. then i come home and find my girlfriend freaking out trying to get in touch with me because my cham was on the floor of his cage not moving. so we rushed him to the vet and she gave him a mixed shot of steroids and hydration fluids and now he's just resting on a leaf not really moving. she said the steroids would make him really tired. im about to start feeding him Pedialite and pureed crickets through a syringe but im gonna wait until he wakes up little.

WISH ME LUCK!!

Why did the vet give steroids? Were you treating another problem before this happened? What was the vet's diagnosis of his collapse? Steroids could cause a lot of other problems. Hope he comes around.

I am not sure why the vet gave my cham steroids. It seemed kind of odd to me at such a critical stage in his sickness, but I thought "Who am I to judge, I'm no vet!" Anyway, my cham has been very, very weak since the injection and I have been trying to feed her pureed crickets with water whenever she allows it.

Other than that, I'm just hoping for the best. I've only had my cham for about 2 weeks now so the vet advised me to take this up with my breeder. Anyway, any advice would be welcome. Thanks

Unfortunately in the exotic herp hobby we must all question what our vets do, especially if your vet's "track record" with herps is not known to you. Vets can know a lot more about herp health issues than some keepers but it can (and does) go the other way. There are a lot of well intentioned but inexperienced vets out there who start medications without really knowing their correct useage and side effects in a particular species. At the very least your vet should explain why they take any action and give you a chance to question it first. I get very opinionated with my vets, question everything, feed them all health info I can on my species, stay active on forums, and if in doubt I opt for the most basic supportive care rather than go with medications that seem new or different. BTW I would definitely get back to the breeder with this...you shouldn't be having major health problems so soon.