eye wont open

[choriona]

okay okay, i know what you are going to say...take him to a vet!!! BUt, besides that, what can I do in the mean time? My male veiled (I just acquired a few weeks ago) has always had his one eye shut more often than open. His owner said he does that when he's stressed, so I let it go for a while. He has a shower every 2 days, as I was trying to flush it out. BUT, just last weekend he began rubbing it on sticks. NOW it is fully shut and a black "bruise" is on the lower part of the lid. So, until a vet trip can be arranged, what can I do to clean it? What products work? Can I use a Q-Tip? How about an eye-dropper? Shoud I try opening it up to see if it is pussy, or red or something? Do bacterial infections attack the eye, and do they usually take about 2 weeks to spread into something terrible??!

[Zoe]

I don't know what it is, but it is definately bothering him. Chams don't close their eyes from stress. It sounds like an infection, or maybe something is stuck in there.
There is not much you can do at home except maybe put some saline (the stuff for contact lenses) on his eyelid with Q-tip and of course bring him to the vet, which you seem to know you need to do but haven't done yet. His eye could be getting worse and worse (and it sounds like it is) so don't put it off any longer, I don't think you would want to have an eyelash or worse stuck in your eye for weeks and weeks?

Zoe

[DarkHunter]

Hello,

Polysporin(sp?) eye drops seem to work well for almost anything related to eye problems. Try applying this to the eye to hold him over untill your vet trip!!!!!!

[eyespy]

I disagree, polysporin is rather harsh (although gentler than gentamicin) and if there's a corneal abrasion it can actually cause ulcers. Most of the vets I know use gentler drops such as Ciloxan or Tobrex. Plus, if it's a fungal infection antibiotics will cause it to bloom by killing off the beneficial bacteria that help to keep fungi under control. Don't mess with meds until you know if it's bacterial. Just flush the eye with sterile saline and keep him in a very clean environment. Use paper towels or newspaper instead of a particulate substrate. If there are plants in the enclosure, wrap the pots in heavy plastic sheeting to keep mold spores from erupting out of the soil and becoming airborne.

[Wuntu Menny]

It sounds like some sort of infection or irritation was present before you aquired him. The fact that he's rubbing it on perches likely compounded the problem. They wipe their aZZez on the perch after defacating! Now an abrasion is forming on top of the already afflicted eye. This is not good.

Linda Davison of Sticky Tongue fame suggests long tepid showering to open the eye. This is followed by the manual approach of gently wiping the area with a Qtip soaked in saline solution. Once the eye has opened and been cleared of any debris or cheese, the application of teramycin or in stubborn cases, Gentocin is suggested. Both meds are to be prescribed by vet only.

We lost over half a clutch of neonate calyptratus one time after their eyes started closing and they were unable to feed. After consulting Ardi Abate, she suggested the possibilty of mold spores in the environment. Wouldn't you know it, the landlord had ripped up all the moldy carpet in the basement suite below us not two weeks before! The airborn spores got pulled into the ventilation system and spread all over the house. We installed an O3 generator to combat the spores and have never had similar problem since.

Ultimately, there are numerous possible causes for your cham's eye trouble. The initial cause has now been overshadowed by the secondary infection etc. The situation has advanced further than it should have, but it sounds like there's still every reason to believe he'll make a full recovery. The previous owner should have addressed the problem as soon as it became apparent instead of blowing it off as a stress response.

WM

[choriona]

Thanks for the replies. I am on it today.

[choriona]

well, we've been to the vet and are on treatments now. His eye is swollen now, with a diameter of 1.5cm!! Poor guy. The vet thinks something scratched his cornea, which then got infected somehow to create the swelling. SO, my little guy is getting a opthalmic ointment (bacitracin) twice a day, and baytril oral meds once a day. He has shown a bit of improvment, but the black marking on the lower part of his eye-lid is getting bigger. I think the pressure has squeezed off the blood supply to that tissue. But hopefully, it is just a bruise or "black eye".
He was originally housed in an aquarium with a sand substrate, so I am thinking that he may of got some sand under his eye-lid. Or, he had also been in a fight with a female about 3 months back....and she might of scratched his eye. She did bite his foot and make it bleed. The sore eye may of gotten further irritated while at the reptile show. Lots of people were touching him, and perhaps I should have had some sanitizer for them to use at the table. I say this because the minor irritation (where he just bulged his eye out once in a while) turned into him rubbing his eye on different surfaces the day after the show. A week later, his eye was shut and the swelling began.
This is all just guessing, but maybe also a lesson to re-learn. Always wash your hands before and after handeling a reptile. Especially prized animals shown at reptile shows! They are very fragile. Lots of people that come to the shows also have reptiles at home.
But he could of picked up the infection for any number of surfaces, and being at the show just stressed him to the point that the infection overwhelmed him.
Hopefully my poor little guy wont lose sight in that eye.

[Trace]

Well that's good news... sort of! LOL! As you say, who knows how he got the eye problem, but at least you now know what it is and how to combat it and that's the most important thing.

Good luck with him. I've got my fingers crossed for a speedy recovery. Keep us posted.

Trace