Post by msmike on Oct 14, 2010 11:55:50 GMT -8
I only just found this site today but have been a member of several others for a long time. Until recently I had two iguanas, one 7 yrs old and one was 18. They both came down with a skin problem which their vet treated as some kind of mysterious infection. After months of their not getting better, I took a piece of skin and overnighted it to a lab in Dallas, Tx. The very next day, I had my diagnosis...CANV. It is a very little known fungal infection which prior to this has been only diagnosed in the bearded dragon population of Australia. The only thing that is known about it's arrival to the US is that it came in with a shipment of beardies into Southern California. Somehow, it is now beginning to run rampant through the reptile population of the US. Perhaps it is because for so long it has been misdiagnosed such as what happened to mine. I ended up losing my wonderful 18 yr old Kirbygirl about 5 months ago but my little Mimi is still hanging in there on a regimen of Voriconazole (anti-fungal), Fortaz injections (anti-biotic) and Silvadene cream. It is very long term and very expensive treatment. I am trying to get the word out there that this disease is threatening our wonderful and loving little green children. The symptoms of this disease are a change in skin texture, constant shedding with dark spots or areas where there were none before, moisture that you can feel between the layers of skin as they come off and they pretty much stop eating or eat very little. If your iguana shows any of these symptoms, go onto the Bing search engine and type in "CANV in reptiles". You will come back with a lot of information that you may want to print out and bring with you to the vet because approximately 80% of vets are completely unaware of this disease. Good luck to all and if there is any way I can help, just let me know.