Surgical Removal of Temporal Gland

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.

Photo 1	Photo 2	Photo 3	Photo 4

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.

Photo 5	Photo 6	Photo 7	Photo 8

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
On-Staff Exotic Veterinarian and Herpetoculturist