Shedding and health status..

[Muddyfeet]

I am curious, yes shedding issues can be a humidity issue, but how about a indication on overall health?

So why I ask a observation..
I have a three year old cham.. Veild.. Before I noted some changes in weight and activity.. and appetite.. he stopped shedding large sheets like he did as a baby, still shed but kind of bit here there.. for a while.. I never thought to much of it.. as overall fat happy cham...

Last few months, thin, decreased appetite, activity.. >>
Well complete work up, at the vet, fecal- neg.. nothing specific could be found other than thin.. Not the best reptile vet BTW.. did a ok, thin but he is older.. yeh 3 male? no good enough there is something off despite the vet did not feel something was.. So doing some research, talking with my sister who does wildlife rehab and a vet, reading a bit on the forums.. I decided to work up my own plan of action as ok looks ok just thin seems healthy was not ok.. So, I decided to get somewhat aggressive about trying some ideas.. I
changed some lighting around to help support plants.. added a plant type incandescent bulb for basking vs a normal incandescent.. Plants improved, as They where doing poorly and sorry, plants not doing well not good for the cham.. not much change in him.. cage looked nicer...

then started, Added some probiotics.. I also upped his vit dusting, I did a week of daily "very light" along with the calcium w/o d3 as I was concerned he may have a vit A deficiency.. as this is not unheard of, ( I did try just using vit a.. but seemed like he "knew" there was something odd on them.. would not touch them.. ) I backed down to once a week now back to the once every once or twice a month.. Truth is I am more of a gut loading for vit type.. so did not use a vit dusting a lot.. perhaps once a month..

I did this as a systematic approach, housing/lights, probiotics then vitamins over a couple of months now..

Now suddenly he has a FULL on body shed going on.. full sheets of skin.. vs the patches.. He has not shed like this for a LONG time.. As this happened after the vit increase.. I am thinking that was part of the problem.. I will be using the dusting as a gap filler in the gut loading now on.. Deficiency's are progressive afterall,

However..
So got me thinking and a early indication of something going on.. Need to note what is normal or not as the skin has a fast rate of turn around, how the animal sheds can be more than just too dry, but also a very early indication of some sort of deficiency or medical issue?? Intresting to note he has kind of long nails too.. but may be as he was not moving around as much, not wearing them down..


note>>> He is still thin, so until he fattens up still on the fence, just found the change in shedding character really interesting.. so I am kind of hopeful, not making a suggestion on what I tried as a cure.. funny, much more active (may be change in season) but oddly now also ate out of my hand first time ever.. and even trucked over and drank from my sprayer too.. so big change in personality too.. weird..

So I don't see a lot of mention about how a Adult cham sheds mentioned as far as normal abnormal, or any health concerns about it in the forums.. perhaps that is something that should be? I see issues about shedding problems a lot in many reptile forums, this one too.. but could it be that part and a big part of it may be more than just humidity? but a bigger systemic canary in a coal mine as far as overall health? or am I grasping at straws here..

 

[villanueva11]

I totally agree with you. My first veiled was a female and I really had know idea what I was getting myself into when I walked into petco with my my daughter and niece that day. But the 3 of us left with a pretty little chameleon, $150 worth of useless crap we did not need, nothing we did need, and a 1pg. "Care sheet" that was "everything we'd need to know". Thank god I came across this forum that first week. About a year after getting her we went to the vet, again, because I just knew something wasn't right with her. It was hard to explain what it was that wasn't right, all I could really tell the vet was that she had not been as active, wasn't eating much, and had only shed about half of her skin last time. She was about ready to lay eggs for the 3rd time so that was kinda how the vet explained it all away....not to worry...he says. 9 days later she laid 93 eggs, twice as many as she had before. But she never got any better. 2 more vet trips & decided to find another vet. Anyway...after force feeding her special food for almost 2 months, daily injections for 10 days, oral meds off & on, $100's in vet bills & bloodwork, sadly I lost her. I never would have thought I might love a reptile but life is full of surprizes. Point is... I truly believe that it has much more to do with overall health and not a simple humidity problem. After all, nothing with these fascinating little creatures is simple black & white. I'm glad that your efforts to find the cause of the problem seem to be paying off. I'm sure with a little more time he'll be just fine. Good luck to you both.