need help on giving meds

[Pia]

Does anyone have any hints on how to get a lizard's mouth open to get liquid medication in?

[Kyle Barker]

Depends on specie. i prefer putting meds (in liquid form) on the inside of the lips, or in their food. Way less stressfull, and if they are sick the last thing they need is more stress. Usually i have injected it into a mouse or rat (smaller sizes).

[Tim and Julie B]

I use a special curved eyedropper, fill it with the required amount of meds, then gently rub it along the side of the mouth. Some will take it right away, some you have to press lightly between their lips and gently force their mouth open.

[enso]

What kind of lizard? What medication? Whats the dosage? Is he eating anything, and what does he eat? His illness is?

[V.hb]

gently open its mouth using the dewlap under its jaw.. dont pull hard, have someone insert a card (like a credit card) into the mouth after its slightly pulled open to give you enough room to open it the rest of the way with a syringe... if its liquid be sure to massage its throat afterwords so it doesn't spit the liquid back out.

[Wuntu Menny]

I'll often inject the dose into an insect or food item and serve it up. Of course, this only works if the animal hasn't gone off it's food already.

I can't stress enough the importance of triple checking your dosage. OD's can be fatal! Outline the required ratio to someone else and get them to verify your math before administering the meds. Missing a decimal point or forgetting to dilute to the right concentration will have dire consequences.

Sorry for the intensity, but having made the mistake once myself, I feel compelled to pass along the warning.

WM

[eyespy]

You should check with your vet or a pharmacist before injecting meds into a food item, it can significantly affect the way the meds are absorbed and you can lose a lot of effectiveness.

I usually just gently part the side of the animal's mouth, work the syringe tip around to the front of the mouth, and squirt the med down the throat. Most antibiotics are absorbed in the small intestine, but if you inject it into a protein-based food item that isn't broken down until it gets to the large intestine so most of the med is just wasted.

[Pia]

Thanks for the info everyone. I realized last night that, unless I grow a third arm, I will have to recruit some help. I will persevere!! :-)

[Wuntu Menny]

This is true.

All of my animals are masticators, so there's no danger of the meds not being available for absorption. The only thing I have to watch for is the prey bursting and expelling the meds before ingestion.

You should also be careful about squirting down the animals throat. If they are overly stressed by all the handling and manipulation, they will often aspirate the fluid and then your problems will be compounded.

Another trick I use is to mix fluids. Again, this is only useful if the meds aren't affected by being combined. To administer pedialite to a less than cooperative blue tongue skink, I found that by combining equal volume of the pedialite with his favorite cactus fruit, the whole ordeal became totally voluntary.

WM

[Pia]

Thanks for the input everyone. It went much better today. It takes a while but with patience he comes around. He is a wc helmeted iquana (corytophanes cristatus - I put in the scientific name since I have found they have several common names including forest chameleon, helmeted basilisk, etc). I not a fan of wc herps, but I couldn't resist this one. He has been at the pet store for four months and was eating well and has eaten for me well in the three days I have had him at home. I took him to a vet for an exam and a fecal, since being wc I suspected he would have parasites and he does - coccidia and another one I can't remember the name of. The vet weighed him and worked out the proper dosage and went over everything with me so now it's just a matter of getting him to open wide and say aaahh when I want him to :-).

[eyespy]

Originally posted by Wuntu Menny
[B]This is true.

All of my animals are masticators, so there's no danger of the meds not being available for absorption. The only thing I have to watch for is the prey bursting and expelling the meds before ingestion.



It doesn't matter if they chew it or not, the fluids tend to get absorbed by body tissues and/or plant proteins of the food item and only digestion releases them. Very few meds are saliva-soluble which is the only scenario that would allow for full use after chewing.

Half-life studies of how much meds are excreted 12 to 48 hours after dosing show that very few antibiotics should be injected into food items as too much is eliminated without ever being used by the patients' bodies. Most anti-parasitic drugs are actually antibiotics and also fall into the not-great-to-inject category.

Panacur is the only med that I ever saw pass the half-life testing but because most folks use the paste or powder forms it's one of the least likely to be injected.