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Surgical
Removal of Temporal Gland in Jackson's
Chameleon
During late fall 2001, a client
brought me his Chamaleo jacksonii with the complaint of a
swollen lip. The chameleon is a 2 year old CB male that was
purchased at a pet shop and since he was a baby had been
unable to shoot his tongue. No obvious signs of trauma or
nutritional deficiencies were noticed and the lizard had
adapted very well to hand feeding.
Upon examination a soft tissue
swelling was noticed in the left commissure of the mouth.
The swelling was quickly identified as an inflamed temporal
gland. I questioned the husbandry and nutrition provided to
this chameleon and the only thing out of the ordinary was a
possible superworm bite a few days earlier.
It was decided that surgical
debridement/removal was the best option to treat this
condition. General anesthesia was achieved using isoflurane.
With a small scalpel blade, the whole gland was surgically
removed. Bleeding was minimal and was controlled by applying
slight pressure to the area. Upon recovery from anesthesia,
the chameleon was disoriented for a while, but was able to
move around.
The chameleon started eating 2 days
after the surgery and the swelling decreased considerably.
Everything seemed fine until seven days post-surgery when
the chameleon started to close its right eye for long
periods of time and stopped eating as enthusiastically as
usual. Having already bad experiences with "closed eyes", I
decided to check his mouth and I found a small abscess in
the palate. the abscess was drained and the chameleon was
given Baytril for a period of 7 days.
By day 5 of therapy it was apparent
that the antibiotic was not working properly since the
abscess kept returning every day. I decided to change
medicines and tried a new product called Zymox on the
abscess. This product is not an antibiotic, but a
combination of 3 natural enzymes that are supposed to work
by dissolving the cell membrane of bacteria.
Two days into the therapy, the abscess
disappeared. the treatment continued for 5 more days and to
this day there are no signs of the abscess. It is unknown if
the abscess was related to the temporal gland inflammation
but at least both conditions were controlled.
This case report is not intended to
send the message to use medications indiscriminately and
without the directions of a licensed Veterinarian. The
purpose of this report is to show that quick intervention by
a veterinarian can make a big difference in the eventual
outcome of a medical condition in an animal. Another thing
worth mentioning is that microbiological culture was not
performed on the gland or the abscess.
Ivan Alfonso, DVM
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