! ! MBD ! ! Help

[Jeremy l]

Cage Info:
Cage Type - screen 24x24x36
Lighting - reptisun 5.0 linier ( 5.0 is new but i dont have any way of checking the uvb output) and 75 watt for heat
Temperature - 70 cool spots, 95 warm spots, 76 at night
Humidity - 60's with a spike to 90's after automatic mister goes off three times a day for 15 mins
Plants - live scheffelera abrocola with real sticks and vines
Location - living room

Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon - veild 4 to 5 months
Feeding - crickets and, waxies
Supplements - flukers calcium suppliment with d3 dusted twice a month on crickets
Watering - automatic mister three times daily for 15 min
Fecal Description - havent seen any in a day or so
Has this chameleon ever been tested for parasites? yes none
History - No health issues until now
Current Problem - MBD rear legs are not working and cham is shaking really bad when trying to walk back legs are straight out and it is as if he has no controll over his rear legs.

i dont have pics up yet but i know this is mbd. how do you administer the liquid calcium to the cham if he is not willing to open his mouth. also how do you cure this problem i am putting him in the sun for about an hour and i am trying to get him to eat but he dosent want to. what should i do.

 

[jannb]

A trip to the vet is going to be neccessary. Jann

 

[dondeb562]

you will need to dust a baby veileds food more then 2 times a month. Could be the problem here as everything else looks ok... Also wax worms should be fed in moderation as they are very fatty...

 

[Sepioteuthis]

How long have to had him?
What do you feed the crickets?

And most importantly, have you taken him to a vet yet? If not, I really think you should.

 

[FooL111394]

Supplements are the problem you need more. CHeck out my thread called:supplement schedule?

 

[Jam]

These are MY personal Experiences with MBD (My cham broke all four of his legs and is still hear to tell ... er... hiss about it).

(1) Get him to a vet ... and get an xray done. See how bad the damage is. You'll be able to get an idea of how good or bad his bone density is. Additionally, if he's big enough you can get a blood sample to see what his calcium levels are doing in his blood.

(2) You'll want to get the high dose calcium supplement from the vet. I think it's called Glucagon (but I could be totally off) it's sticky and thick. To get hermie to open his mouth when he doesn't want to, I restrained him by putting his "conch" (top crown) between two fingers when he was sitting on my lap and then either using one hand to GENTLY pull open his mouth using their flap or use the syringe to GENTLY push down on the lower jaw ... this is difficult for MBD chams because their jaws can be weakened as well and you do NOT want a broken jaw.

(3) IMHO I got rid of anything he could climb on and if I could go back and realize he had MBD prior to breaking his legs I (we never saw any of the classic signs prior to his legs breaking) I would still do this. Herm broke his legs from being weak, climbing, falling, breaking one and then he kept trying and falling (this is what the vet says anyways we never saw it). I kept hermie in an aquarium (No lid bc there was nothing to climb with) with soft towels and even water filled exam gloves under them to make them comfortable) and rolled up pieces of paper and put them on the bottom for him to grasp onto. Is this stressful for a cham? YES, but it was the difference between life and death for hermie ... he never would have made it with casts in a real cham cage and if I could have done that to PREVENT him from breaking his legs I surely would have. I set it up with heat spots and everything. He didn't do well at catching his own food for a while but would happily eat baby foods if applied to his nose/lips.

(4) your vet may elect to get him on a drug that inhibits calcium uptake from the bones ... it's an injection and is for osteoporosis patients. BUT you canNOT start this right away ... bc his muscles (such as his heart) need calcium and if you start it right away it puts him at risk for a heart attack. I've been told to wait a week post giving him the high dose calcium supps to start but it may vary cham to cham.

Again these are just my experiences and what worked for me. <shrug>. Some of them are probably controversial but it worked and hermie is here living a happy life as a testiment to them.

Jam and Hermie (you can check out pictures of him under my album "Jam")

 

[Jeremy l]

i have had him for right at 3 months maby a little more. he has always been good and healthy and eating and growing but this last week he has taken a downfall and it has really hit him hard the last few days. i am gut loading the crickets with flukers gut load carrots and collard greens with some apples. i know a vet trip is somthing i need to do but as i have said on here befor i cant because the closest vet is 21/2 to 3 hours away and all the local vets wont see my chams i have called and tried. so with that said thank yall for suggesting the vet but thats not an option i have. i know this is somthing that can be cured even without a vet, due to all of yalls knowledge on chams that is why i am asking.

 

[Jeremy l]

good news, i have found somewhat of a herp vet. and i am taking zuse in today. i think this is going to be a long road to recovery but i hope he is a fighter.

 

[Jam]

When you don't have an expert herp vet in the area sometimes you can do with a vet who is willing to and interested in helping. When Hermie has been sick our local emergency vet did not see herps ... but the emergency vet 2.5 hours away did. (a lot of vets in our area aren't open after hours/weekends ... most towns have an emergency center). It was winter (in MIchigan) and I was afraid of driving hermie 2.5-3 hours with it being cold out when he was sick so if he needed things like fluids I could take him to the local one, they would call the farther away one and talk about him and sometimes the herp emergency vet would fax them diagrams of things that they needed to do or give them directions over the phone.

Jam

 

[Jeremy l]

well thats the thing, hes just a reg. vet but he has seen some reptiles, and he did say he is familure with MBD so this may be a good thing.

 

[veiledchamguy]

I think the best advice your gonna get is take him to the vet! otherwise PM some of the senior memebers/admin who have more knowledge about this case.

 

[bearhart]

My first cham developed horrible MBD and my wife and I were able to get solid recovery in 3-4 weeks. My vet was so impressed with our results he raved about it for ages. Of course, the MBD was my mistake so I don't have bragging rights. I'm only trying to convey that it was a very good success in hopes that other people will take it to heart and benefit.

Background:

Looking back, it was obvious that our little guy had been developing his disease for some time. He was very active and healthy but that had begun toning down for some time. Then, a few weeks went by where something clearly wasn't right with him. His movements became progressively slower and less confident. Finally, I decided something had to be wrong and began to research. I forget the exact symptoms at the time but it only took me 30 minutes to become convinced it was MBD.

The disease started slow but accelerated at an amazing rate. Within days from my diagnosis, the tremors started and his health went downhill more than it had in several weeks prior. I did not have a UVB meter at the time, but he had a 100W MVB only 8" away (through nylon). On the other hand, his vitamin intake was definately questionable. Based on that, I reasoned that his problem was due to diet.

Our error:

We purchased Kermit as a hatchling from a long time exotic pet store that has a better than average reputation and good knowledge about the animals they sell. Their biggest fault is that they don't do enough to direct newbies to additional information resources. Unfortunately, our initial husbandry was based entirely upon a quick brief from the manager that was distracted by a rush of customers in the store. He told us to give the little guy vitamins daily. We did this for a while but I eventually discovered that this advice was not only in direct conflict with the package instructions, but that hypervitamintosis was a danger.

In order to avoid hypervitamintosis, I backed his multi-vitamin dusting back from daily to twice-a-week. What I didn't do was fill in the missing days with a calcium supplement.

Symptoms:

Initially, the main symptom was slowly increasing lethargy. The next stage, which is what tipped us off, was an uncharateristic passiveness. Kermit was always a good sport about being handled, but he would always make you work a little bit to get him out. On the "diagnosis day", I got him out and he came so easily and I took him outside into the sun and he just looked up at me while he flopped his rear half over on its side and kind of half layed in my hand.

The most stunning part was that within days from my diagnosis, he developed serious tremors when moving his limbs. Every movement was very slow and his legs shook during the whole time. Furthermore, he seemed to be unable to gauge where to put his foot when walking, so each step usually involved several misplacements of his feet before he got it right. He frequently caught his own rear claws on his side simply because he just couldn't guage where his feet were. In addition, all of his vines suddently seemed like they were coated with glue because he frequently got his claws stuck in them as well. Whenever he got his claws stuck it took him a long time to finally get it sorted out and he frequently came very close to falling. A couple of times he did fall from his vines.

In addition, Kermit developed numerous large bumps in all of his legs from the bone fractures. He appeared to have one or two minor fractures in his spine, but luckily those did not become an issue.

Treatment:

We can't take all the credit. It seemed that no matter how painful and difficult his life was, Kermit stuck to his daily routine as best as he could. Also, he was always very OK with being handled and, luckily, the disease made him even more passive. This, in turn, made treating him even easier.

So, our basic strategy was simple: pack him full of calcium until it was coming out his ears (so to speak). In addition to that, we also focused on helping him out with drinking and eating which had clearly become difficult.

Calcium:
1) We began dusting all food items with a phosphorous-free calcium supplement. Twice a week, all food for the day was dusted with a multi-vitamin that contained D3.
2) We began administering calcium glubionate (brown syrup stuff) orally once or twice a day. We didn't bother with measuring out some appropriate dose. We just squirted it in there and gave him a mouthful each time.
3) Even though we suspected diet, we did increase his sunlight exposure somewhat. But, this was not a focus of the treatment.

Food/Water:
1) At the earliest stages when things were still getting worse, we were very concerned about weakness due to decreased food intake. We gave him three doses of high-calorie food paste (a product made for reptiles) over a period of 6 days.
2) Right before he got sick, Kermit started displaying an interest in eating greens. However, once he got sick, he wouldn't touch them. Aside from the few doses of food paste, his diet consisted entirely of crickets. He couldn't hunt them down, but his tongue worked fine so he could just wait for them to come too close.
3) We fed him water by hand at least twice a day - usually whenever he looked like he wanted it. He drank willingly from a dropper and, I should note, he drank alot of water every day. During his treatment (and previous life) he was given distilled water exclusively. I do not think the use of distilled water was a significant factor, but I thought I should add it for completeness. Since then, we've switched to using store-bought "drinking water" for all our reptiles. (To be honest, they all seem to be OK with either.)

Progress:

One of the biggest things is that even after we started our treatment, he continued to get worse for about a week. After that, it leveled off, but he stayed in his worst state with almost no signs of improvement for at least a week. Finally, the tremors started to die down and he basically recovered from the initial symptoms in reverse order. In a couple more weeks, he was back to his old self, but still somewhat physically subdued. I would say the 100% recovery took a couple more weeks from that. So, in summary, we got basic recovery in 4 weeks and full recovery in 6 weeks.

To this day, you can still see some deformity in Kermit's legs from excess bone built up around the old fractures. However, he does have full movement and you have to really look to notice them. To some extent, I think the fact that he continued to grow for several months after his recovery helped alot, if only because he got bigger while the bumps remained the same size.

 

[Jeremy l]

i took Zuse in yesterday to a vet that would see him. after the vet said it looked like MBD to him after i already told him that, we started talking up a treatment. We ended up calculating a dose of a liquid calcium and gave it to zuse with a shot. ( Zuse was not too pleased ! ) I then took him home and completely removed his cage so he wouldent try to climb on and of his trees. I placed him in a shallow sided plastic tub and placed his uvb and heat light above him and put some foilage in there to make him as comfortable as possible for the next few weeks. ill keep updating his progress until he is well.
thanks all for the help. im sure is any other questions arise i'll be asking

jeremy

p.s. the x-ray showed no breaks or fractures of his bones !

 

[Jam]

I'm glad that he has no breaks and that it sounds like you are on a road to recovery.

Just be careful about the temperatures in his new home ... I had multiple temperature gages set up to monitor hermies because he could no longer travel "up and down" only side to side and I was worried that it might heat up too much.

Jam

 

[Jeremy l]

pics of my poor guy i feel like i let him down because hes in this condition.
i have lost 3 nights of sleep because i keep feeling like i have doomed his life when he really has not even got a fair chance.

 

[Jam]

I felt guilty as well ... but ... bottom line was I couldn't change it and all I could do was work to fix it and make his life as good as possible. Get some sleep .... you wont be able to take care of him if you wear yourself down!

Is he still eating and drinking?

 

[Jeremy l]

yes he is still eating and drinking but not as much

 

[bearhart]

I can totally understand. My wife and I were sick to our stomachs with grief and guilt for a couple of weeks. It was almost perverted how Kermit could look so completely ready to die, yet keep on.

All I can say is keep your head up and do your best and - good luck!

 

[Julirs]

Jeremy-can you go buy a plastic tote a little bigger for him-he won't be able to climb but that tiny thing will heat up very fast with the light over it. He must be stressed due to the close quarters.

 

[Jeremy l]

julirs, i do have him in a big toat that was just to transport him to the vet and back.