Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My Panther Chameleon, Louie, has had a bad case of mouth rot that will not go away. It has been like this for about 6 months now and he has been to the vet many many times including a reptile specialist from the Denver Zoo. The following is what I have tried so far:

Silvadene Cream w/Baytril drops 10-14 dys-no response
Batadine solution -no response
Itraconazole/dmso solution-Negative reaction
Tetracycline 500mg/ml solution drops-Negative reaction
Neobacimyx 2/dy Tobramycin 2/dy-slight response for a period.

He has had new UV bulbs 1/mo for the past few months and has been outside at every opertunity, his temp has 90* hot and 70* cool zones, and I use gut load and Rep cal dust on the crickets for nutrition.

He is 18 months old and has been eating very well and maintaining his weight dispite this infection until recently.

If you have any suggestions please let me know. We are desperate for knowledge!

That looks terrible! I work in a vet hospital and I have to say that is the worst case of mouth rot I have seen on a Cham! I am so sorry for your baby.
Anyway, has any of the doctors bother to run a culture to see what exactly is growing on your Cham. Basically mouth rot is a bacterial infection. If they can figure out what kind of bacteria it is exactly, they can then tell you what medications that particular bacteria is suseptible to.
When we treat mouth rot we usually use oral baytril, but with you guy's prob. he may require multiple meds at the same time.
Hope this helps a little.
Shannon

Strange! I've never seen "mouth rot" like that. Usually when a cham has even a small area of mouth infection it is so tender they won't eat. Makes me wonder if this is something entirely different like encapsulated abcesses or tumors.

Thank you for the reply.

Yesterday I took Louie to a new vet, a friend of a friend, and he is doing another culture to see if the bacteria has changed from the first culture and to see what it responds too.

After the first culture, the vet (Denver Zoo Rep Specialist) gave me tetricyclin (sp?), but that had a quick negetive reaction, so we stopped that effort and went back to the trial & Error method.

I guess you can do a culture or a biopsy, of which the latter would be to determine a cancer/tumor situation. May have to be done at some point.

I will keep you posted and add updated photos.

Thank you again and let me know if you have any new suggestions.

Dave