A Veterinarian For Your Chameleon with Dr. Tom Greek DVM

Your veterinarian can be one of the most important partners in your chameleon keeping life! But chameleon experienced vets are still, unfortunately, rare and so it is a good idea to find one before you need one. Dr. Tom Greek of Greek and Associates in Yorba Linda, California talks about what we can do to be the most effective clients for your chameleon’s sake!

Dr. Tom Greek is a veterinarian that has expertise in chameleons.and other exotics. This interview is was specifically for the beginner who is looking for a chameleon-experienced veterinarian for the first time.  Below are some excerpts from the interview. You can watch the entire video podcast interview in the embedded player above. You can also listen to this podcast on any of the major podcast listening apps.

If you would like to contact Dr. Greek you may reach him at his website here: https://www.gavh.net/

“Potentially even before you get your first chameleon. When you’re doing all your research to find out how to take care of them properly, watching podcasts like this to know what you need to do, on that list, Find a Veterinarian should be on there.”

“The one thing you may want to try is if you’ve got a reptile shop close to you that you trust, find out who they use because they have invested in all their stock and all their animals. They want to take the best care of them. Chances are if one of them gets sick, they’re going to take it to a local veterinarian, give them a call, find out who their favorite veterinarian is or a couple different veterinarians and have those numbers ready.”

“If this is your first chameleon you’ve ever had, …, you may not know those little subtle signs that we would know looking at them. So it can be worthwhile when you get your brand new animal to get it checked out. That’s a way we can look at it, look for any injuries, look for any bone problems, maybe do a fecal looking for parasites. But we’ve got the experience and expertise.to find those little subtle changes that you may not notice simply because you just haven’t seen as many as we have. So it can be money well spent.”

“

“It’s probably the best way to go. The tough part is, and this happens in human medicine as well, by now we’ve been around long enough, we’ve probably had some friends in the past, and they were doing great up until the day that they got sick. And the same thing with our pets. They can be doing absolutely fantastic until the one day that we notice that our dog has a basketball-sized tumor in his abdomen.

We never noticed any of the signs, never showed anything. So unfortunately, that is part of life where we may not pick up on those real subtle cues. But if you notice something and you’re worried, get them checked out. Better to have them checked out. Everything is 100% normal. That way you’re gonna sleep better and know that your animal’s okay as opposed to waiting until it’s too late.”

“And that’s where I tell the people “I get to see them for 15 minutes, but I trust what they observed at home”. So if I did a physical exam and everything came back, looked 100% normal, but you’re seeing something at home, then we start talking about some other options. Typically, it’s doing some sort of testing, whether it is a blood panel, whether it’s a fecal, whether it’s an x-ray, something that’s going to give us a little more detail on what’s going on other than what I’m seeing or feeling during that physical exam.

But I’m really going to trust those owners of what they are seeing at home. Sometimes it is the environment. One thing that we’ll see a lot is when the weather starts changing. And we’ll start seeing slow down a little bit because it’s getting colder. And your house is getting colder. And we don’t think about that because we’ve got the same heater on day in, day out. But you’re going to get those ups and downs inside that room unless it’s completely isolated or you’ve got it heated and cooled exactly the same every single day, but they will feel those fluctuations at night when it gets colder. And sometimes those are the little subtle things that the owners may not think about that, wow, maybe slowing down because it just we’ve just got a cold spell this past two weeks, and they may be slowing down because of that. So there’s so many factors that can go into why my chameleon is, unfortunately, acting off.”

The time to find a chameleon experienced veterinarian is before you need one! Just put that action item on the list as you are getting everything gathered for welcoming your chameleon. It may actually take a while so it certainly does not hurt to start looking even before your chameleon comes home with you!

If you haven’t already, please listen or watch to the entire interview as we touch on some great information!

As mentioned in the episode, if you are interested in joining the Chameleon Academy email newsletter then click this link! Newsletter sign-up  The newsletter is sent out at the beginning of every month and, randomly, when there is news to share. It covers everything that is going on with the many Chameleon Academy outreaches.

I hope this was a useful review of veterinarians for your panther chameleons. This page is the partner to the podcast episode on the top of the page. The Panther Chameleon Podcast is part of the Chameleon Academy Outreach. On this Panther Chameleon Podcast, I take on aspects of starting with panther chameleons that will directly benefit a person just starting off. Please note that you have an entire detailed panther chameleon care summary here on chameleonacademy.com.  This has been put together as a free resource to ensure the widest number of people can get a good start with their panther chameleon. If you would like to support this outreach you can do so at the Chameleon Academy Patreon page linked below and that helps keep this all running.

Getting a panther chameleon is a step to an incredible new world and an experience you will remember for your entire life. And I am going to do what I can to make sure it is a great one. If you would like to ask questions about any of this, check the Chameleon Academy home page for the schedule of when I do live interactive sessions on YouTube and Instagram.