Reptile & Amphibian Forums

First of all, I just went through the past 12 days of posts to catch up and noticed that many people have been having problems lately with their chameleons. I guess it's safe to say that I'm having quite the number of problems myself.
My 7 month old Ambilobe has an eye problem. Here is the situation: He use to eat 10 crickets a day. Now he only eats about 5. Although he ate a 2 inch green giant worm today plus a few superworms and crickets. (When I'm talking about the eye, I mean the turret and not the pupil). At fist the eye problem didn't affect his appetite. Only recently has it affeceted his appetite

Stupid computer. It only posted 1/3 of my message. Okay, here is some more information. At first, before he started closing his eye, the turret became wrinkled. The turret went through the shedding process twice. It shed once and then again about 2 weeks later (I don't mean the Ambilobe's entire body, just the eye turret). If the Ambilobe's eye gets wet it looks glazed. Sometimes his head will jerk if his eye gets lightly misted. I'm trying not to spray him! Sometimes he will have his eye open while most of the time it is closed. I don't really know what to do. I heard that you're supposed to flush out the eye, but with what? Antibiotics? I don't mind going to the vet, but I do mind spending hundreds of dollars and getting nothing out of seeing the vet just like a lot of people have talked about in this forum. Please let me know what you think. Hpoefully I will post pictures on Friday. Thank you.

You need to have the eye flushed and cultured by a veterinarian. A culture and sensitivity would be the best in diagnosing the likely infection that is seated in the turret. The bacteria pseudomonas is a common cause of eye infections in chams, but unfortunately there are many different types, all with differing sensitivites to antibiotics. Treating a stubborn infection with shotgun choice of antibiotics is a crapshoot: you might get lucky and choose the right one, but if you don't, then the infection gets worse and the bacteria can make itself immune to more antibiotics, including the one or two that might actually have cleared the infection. A culture would be less effective if flushing and/or antibiotics have been given already.

One of my own chams started closing his eye a few weeks ago, then the turret become sunken and got wrinkly skin, etc. My vet flushed and cultured the eye, we started on oral antibiotics once the sensitivity returned from the lab stating which drugs would work, and my cham's eye was back to normal in four days of treatment.

Good luck,
~Kerry

Who did you get him from? Sounds like the eye needs to be flushed for sure but it could also be that he isn't getting the proper diet. Try to give him a luke-warm shower for 10-15 minutes for the next few days, it could help a lot. What are you using for a gutload? Any other feeders being used than crickets?

-Matt

I got the Ambilobe from Jim Nozaki back in late March at the San Diego show. I recently spoke with him in person about the problem at the Pomona show. I have been procrastinating on the problem and I hate myself for it. I am calling the Vet tomaoorow to make an appointment. By the way, Kerry, how much did the Vet bill cost you? I'm thinking of opening an account and taking all my other chameleons in when they have problems.