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Help! One of my male anoles has something wrong with his eyes! They both appear to be swollen shut. At first, we thought he just had dirt on them so we carefully removed the dirt but noticed that it is more than that. His eyelids appear to be crusted shut. The rest of him looks good and our other anoles are healthy. He does notice bright lights.

Lizardman may be able to help you more with this one, but...

If you are using sand as a substrate, that can be the root of this problem. Fine sand particles can become lodged under the eyelids and a bacterial infection can result. This condition is called bacterial conjunctivitis. Treatment is flushing the conjunctival sac and application of broad-spectrum topical antibiotics.

The condition can also be caused by a vitamin deficiency. This is normally seen in chelonians, but occasionally in lizards also. It is usually associated with vitamin A. The condition is called Hypovitaminosis-A.

Conjunctivitis can also be caused by an injury to the eye, but you normally would not expect that to be bilateral.

We've been feeding him and the other anoles gutloaded crickets with cricket feed which states that it has Vitamin A included--but it doesn't say how much.
Also: The substrate is made up of desanitized potting soil.

A little more info:
* For light, there are 2 full-spectrum lights and a general light for viewing.
* The tank is 55 gallons and consists of 4 green anoles (2 of each sex), 3 green tree frogs and 2 other critters we rescued from someone that was going to release them in the wild (a brown tree frog and what appears to be a very small house gecko).

Any more info would be greatly appreciated.

or someone with more lizard experience than I have on this one.

We decided to bring our green anole to a vet and we found out that he has a respiratory/sinus infection, which is apparently quite common in green anoles. He's currently on Baytril and will be for 10 days. Let's hope it works.

Thanks!

Sounds very similar to what happened to my cat gecko, he's doing great now.
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Peter: It's OK, I'll handle it. I read a book about something like this.
Brian: Are you sure it was a book? Are you sure it wasn't NOTHING?

Sorry to respond late. Glad to hear that your vet diagnosed the problem. Oldherper's probable diagnoses were right on track. Lizards very rarely have vit.A deficiencies. Many times, these "eye infections" are sinus related; esp. with bulging. Crusting & eyelid closure(s) are usually bacterial conjuctivitis.

In this case, I would suggest that the substrate be replaced with known sterile substrate & the caging sterilized with standard cleaning procedures found throughout these forums. Separate the three different species of reptiles/amphibians into their own unique caging & environmental requirements.

Baytril should get rid of the infection; however, if the bacteria is not in the sinus cavity, topical Terramycin optical ointment should suffice to solve the problem. If the infection is resilient, then Gentacin occular drops are usually prescribed.

Goodluck & hope the anole recovers.
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I would like to emphasize the need to separate all the species. It is impossible to recreate the necessary climates and microhabitats needed by each of those very difference species in one tank. If anything, I hope you have separated the sick anole from the rest of the animals.
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