I’d like to share a method that I have personally used a few times with great success, when Vitamin overdose supplementation was the suspected culprit. This is just my personal experience, and I have no medical data supporting the physiology of such method, just some basic know how and logic from the many years I’ve kept Chameleons. I have just recently pulled my Jackson's through what i feared was a Vitamin OD scenario quite successfully, so this is my 5th time turning a bad situation around using the description below.
I call it the FLUSH method. You need to flush your chameleons system of the excess vitamins and/or minerals.
This is done quite simply – if your Chameleon is still drinking the only thing they should consume for 7 DAYS is WATER .
After 7 days you can resume the normal feeding schedule …except DO NOT DUST YOUR FEEDERS FOR AN ADDITIONAL 7 DAYS. Once the total 14 days are up, resume the correct dusting schedule - which varies depending on your Chameleon's specie and age.
During the time when you are not dusting it is even more important to properly gut-load your feeders. There have been studies that suggest that the food broken down in the digestive system of the prey item make a better delivery system of crucial nutrients to your chameleon, than having to get those nutrients by way of dusting. Why this is, I can only speculate that the prey items digestive system begins processing said vitamins, making it simpler and easier on the body of the Chameleon once it eats that prey item.
Do not worry too much about the 7-day flushing period. A healthy Chameleon can go many days without eating solid food. Think about it; being feed daily is rather un-natural for Chameleons to begin with. In the wild they go days without 'finding' a meal; when you factor that in with the fact that certain prey items are only available for limited periods of the year, due to the prey items own life cycle, Chameleons are accustomed to times when food will be quite scarce. This is nature’s way of not only preventing them from gorging on food but also from overdosing on vitamins, minerals, etc.
Additionally, if you are continually giving your chameleon any food when overdosing is suspected, you are essentially adding to the toxicity level of said substances, even if you don’t dust the food item with anything at all. So for example, if Vitamin A overdosing is the issue, giving an undusted Dubia roach - which may only have a minute trace of vitamin A in its system - is adding that minuscule of Vitamin A into your Chameleons system, which may already have said vitamin present in it’s body at an already dangerous level. This is why NO Food is given during the first 7 days; only water.
Again, this is a method I have used with great success and should only be tried on Chameleons that are willingly drinking and are relatively alert. I’ve had several Jackson’s in the past that I suspected were getting too much Vitamin A, and successfully brought them back from the ‘brink’ using this method. By no means am I suggesting not going to a vet, but if your husbandry is good yet you suspect you may have been a little too generous with the supplementation, this method is a solid first step before a costly vet visit.
I call it the FLUSH method. You need to flush your chameleons system of the excess vitamins and/or minerals.
This is done quite simply – if your Chameleon is still drinking the only thing they should consume for 7 DAYS is WATER .
After 7 days you can resume the normal feeding schedule …except DO NOT DUST YOUR FEEDERS FOR AN ADDITIONAL 7 DAYS. Once the total 14 days are up, resume the correct dusting schedule - which varies depending on your Chameleon's specie and age.
During the time when you are not dusting it is even more important to properly gut-load your feeders. There have been studies that suggest that the food broken down in the digestive system of the prey item make a better delivery system of crucial nutrients to your chameleon, than having to get those nutrients by way of dusting. Why this is, I can only speculate that the prey items digestive system begins processing said vitamins, making it simpler and easier on the body of the Chameleon once it eats that prey item.
Do not worry too much about the 7-day flushing period. A healthy Chameleon can go many days without eating solid food. Think about it; being feed daily is rather un-natural for Chameleons to begin with. In the wild they go days without 'finding' a meal; when you factor that in with the fact that certain prey items are only available for limited periods of the year, due to the prey items own life cycle, Chameleons are accustomed to times when food will be quite scarce. This is nature’s way of not only preventing them from gorging on food but also from overdosing on vitamins, minerals, etc.
Additionally, if you are continually giving your chameleon any food when overdosing is suspected, you are essentially adding to the toxicity level of said substances, even if you don’t dust the food item with anything at all. So for example, if Vitamin A overdosing is the issue, giving an undusted Dubia roach - which may only have a minute trace of vitamin A in its system - is adding that minuscule of Vitamin A into your Chameleons system, which may already have said vitamin present in it’s body at an already dangerous level. This is why NO Food is given during the first 7 days; only water.
Again, this is a method I have used with great success and should only be tried on Chameleons that are willingly drinking and are relatively alert. I’ve had several Jackson’s in the past that I suspected were getting too much Vitamin A, and successfully brought them back from the ‘brink’ using this method. By no means am I suggesting not going to a vet, but if your husbandry is good yet you suspect you may have been a little too generous with the supplementation, this method is a solid first step before a costly vet visit.
