R.I.P Osirus Postmortem Report

[OACham]

Our beloved Osirus passed at eleven months old. We hope the information can others before the same thing happens. He passed due to an under active pituitary gland. This condition was caused by us keeping his diet and watering as stable as clock work. His body had lost it's ability to regulate the amount nutrients in his blood due to the stable environment. When we changed from a wet gut load to a dry he wasn't receiving the the water from crickets in the manner he was used to. Normally it would have caused mild constipation. But since it had never any kind of changes in lifestyle his body panicked. The decrease of nutrients caused a process which i do not fully understand. In effort to keep the heart and brain alive it sapped the nutrients from his digestive tract and muscles. Normally, it would have taken weeks with gradual weakening of muscles. Instead, the digestive tract was hit first while then the muscles causing ascending paralysis. By the second day the damage was all ready done. By the time the physical symptoms were apparent it was too late.

Our vet told us to gradually change the diet on our other cham to give it the tools to deal with stress. Skipping a day of feeding and setting interval supplementation. Never skip watering btw. This "exercises" the gland making it work and keeping it in tune with the bodies needs without putting it in jeopardy.

 

[jannb]

I am so sorry to hear of the loss of your beloved friend. Thank you for sharing the information with us. Jann

 

[FooL111394]

Sorry for your loss, Osirus was awesome.

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

So sorry to hear about his passing. Was this the boy with the back leg paralysis and the photo that looked like something protruding from his vent? I know how concerned you were about him and that you were willing to try whatever it took to save him. Thank you for letting us know about the necropsy. That is some important information for others to consider.

 

[OACham]

So sorry to hear about his passing. Was this the boy with the back leg paralysis and the photo that looked like something protruding from his vent? I know how concerned you were about him and that you were willing to try whatever it took to save him. Thank you for letting us know about the necropsy. That is some important information for others to consider.

Yes that was him. He had inflammation from the straining against the constipation.

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

Yes that was him. He had inflammation from the straining against the constipation.

OK. thank you. Now we know that can develop, and others will know what to look for.

 

[dodolah]

So sorry for the loss.
But, thank you for this information.
It helps a ton for us to better understand about our chameleons.

 

[Chris Anderson]

Maybe I've missed your threads in the past about what has been going on but would you mind telling us how your vet determined this cause of death? What tests did he conduct, what organs and tissues did he send off for pathology, etc.? Two days after switching to a dry gutload and he had paralysis leading to death because the pituitary glad was over conditioned to particular responses due to over stability of your environment? Now he wants you to start skipping feeding days to jump start you're other chameleon's pituitary responses when supposedly the last effect took two days? I don't mean to upset you after having just lost your cham but I don't buy it in the least. Is your vet an exotics/reptile vet? His diagnosis just does not make any sense.

Chris

 

[spearsre]

Similar situation different symptoms

I have been posting about my Cham "Kumar" having an illness caused by unknown or unapparent symptoms. My veterinarian, reptile expert, determined that there were no outright causes for his decline. He wants to run more blood tests but Kumar is on his last breath at this point and more stress will just rush death to his door. Dr. Fitzgerald is convinced that there is some blood chemistry issue with my chameleon and said that he has seen and discussed with colleagues this "chemistry" issue and it is being seen more and more. He did mention this lack of uptake of vitamins and possibly calcium as what is being described below. I am curious what type of lighting you are using? I am using MV bulbs. This may be a question that needs more exploring and testing but it is interesting that it is alledgedly being found more and more in domestic bred panthers.

 

[Chris Anderson]

Spearsre,

A nutrient imbalance and an issue absorbing nutrients is completely possible and logical. I don't think we are providing anywhere near the proper nutrient levels that chameleons need and continued nutrient imbalance could effect absorption ability. Blood chemistry would show a lot of the nutrient levels and a vet could look to see what nutrients are out of whack, etc. A pituitary issue because of stable conditions resulting in an inability to regulate levels and distribution of nutrients in the blood is different and seems far less likely without pretty specific tests such as organ pathology. It being caused by a change from wet to dry gutload and the moisture content change of that seems suspicious to me. I'd be curious to hear more about how this diagnosis was formed.

Chris

 

[spearsre]

Spearsre,

A nutrient imbalance and an issue absorbing nutrients is completely possible and logical. I don't think we are providing anywhere near the proper nutrient levels that chameleons need and continued nutrient imbalance could effect absorption ability. Blood chemistry would show a lot of the nutrient levels and a vet could look to see what nutrients are out of whack, etc. A pituitary issue because of stable conditions resulting in an inability to regulate levels and distribution of nutrients in the blood is different and seems far less likely without pretty specific tests such as organ pathology. It being caused by a change from wet to dry gutload and the moisture content change of that seems suspicious to me. I'd be curious to hear more about how this diagnosis was formed.

Chris

I agree but it is an interesting topic to explore. I am still sorry that he lost his Chameleon. Kumar died about three hours ago now.

 

[ToniandGizmo]

I'm so sorry to hear of your loss. The diagnosis is an interesting one. For what it's worth, it makes sense to me. I'd like to hear more opinions about this from our Forum members...

 

[Julirs]

It makes absolutley no sense to me as far as a diagnosis without major tests and within a few days. If the animal was being watered adequately then a switch in cricket gutload should have nothing to do with it. There is just sooooo much out of whack about that diagnosis. (Degree in Biology conentration in molecular genetics plenty of study in metabolic pathways.) I agree with Chris that it would take some pathology testing amongst other things to get any kind of diagnosis but even then it still doesn't pan out. Sorry for both your losses.

 

[Chamgirl]

Sorry for both the losses I have read about on this thread

 

[OACham]

Maybe I've missed your threads in the past about what has been going on but would you mind telling us how your vet determined this cause of death? What tests did he conduct, what organs and tissues did he send off for pathology, etc.? Two days after switching to a dry gutload and he had paralysis leading to death because the pituitary glad was over conditioned to particular responses due to over stability of your environment? Now he wants you to start skipping feeding days to jump start you're other chameleon's pituitary responses when supposedly the last effect took two days? I don't mean to upset you after having just lost your cham but I don't buy it in the least. Is your vet an exotics/reptile vet? His diagnosis just does not make any sense.

Chris

Ok, Chris...There was no pathology exams, this is all theory. Maybe there was something you missed. It wasn't two days after switching to a dry gutload, it was two days after the physical symptoms were obvious that he died. The lack of water from the wet gutload is what she -thinks- caused the dehydration, leading to constipation, which made him not eat...not eating was cutting back his nutrients, and his pituitary gland wasn't ready to substitute those chemicals ASAP so his body was robbing his muscles of the nutrients he needed (mainly calcium) leading to paralysis. Make more sense?

SHE (our vet is a female) doesn't want us to skip feeding days, she wants us to cut back on feeding days of manufactured gutloaded crickets. In other words, segregate our crickets into a vegetable-only-fed group and a store-bought-gutload-fed group and vary our girl's diet like that. She was going to do bloodwork tests and such on Osirus, but by the time she got around to it (we live in a really small town and NOBODY was willing to help us, there aren't any herps around, any herps we got a hold of said they wanted to see him and were 500+ miles away from us) he had already passed, and we decided we didn't want to bother his dead body anymore. So she went through extensive research to try and find a reasonable answer for us which is far more than what most people did for us anywhere else. She wasn't quick to assume it was MBD like most people on the forums were, or to give up and say "i don't know what is killing/has killed your family member".

On the other hand, thanks for all the kind thoughts to all...

 

[OACham]

sorry, we know how you feel..

 

[Julirs]

Were the signs of dehydration obvious? Yellow urates? Sunken eyes? I feed my crix on commercial gutload (from the crix suppliers) as a staple and then give them a variety of fresh veggies for moisture. How did/do you sustain your crix on a normal basis. Chameleons can go months without eating-so this still all seems strange.
We are all just trying to learn, so no offense is meant here. All this being said, it was nothing you did at all but in theory there was something wrong with your chameleon in the way he metabolized, etc.

 

[Sepioteuthis]

First off - OACham, I'm sorry for your loss.

Chameleons can go months without eating

Months? Really? Without eating anything? In normal temperature, non-brumation, situations? Sounds like a bit of a stretch to me.

 

[kinyonga]

I would expect that Chamaeleo chamaeleon may go months without eating. Its going to depend on availability of food in the wild in the area where the chameleons live.

 

[OACham]

Were the signs of dehydration obvious?

Sadly, no. At the first sight of his eyes being the least bit sunken we were on him with water and electrolytes. His feces seemed "normal" (well, what we assume is normal, compared with our girl's) up until those last days before his constipation.
The crickets are kept in an aquarium with a mesh top for ventilation in two groups, group one has water pillows in there as well as Nature Zone food bites (some green stuff) and the other group has water pillows and potatoes/veggies.

And it's not so much that we're offended as much as it is feeling being talked down at...This, as we thought, was a learning forum with knowledgable people, and we were just looking for help. And for someone to come at us and tell us that our vet sounds unknowledgable is in a way offensive to us too---in a matter of us being bad judges of character. I didn't mean to bark, but this whole process has been hard, and it's even harder when someone is telling us we don't make sense and have degrees thrown at our faces.....we're just saying what we know, and we can't help it if it's not the full story. Who do we trust in the end but our vet??