Tongue Issue

Ren

Ren

New Member
Ok April my female veiled will hand feed and is very affectionate will come to my hand and everything, the other day I was feeding and was trying to feed Phil my male the same way... he looked interested but he is big and I'm a bit afraid to get bit, he got closer and closer and stuck his tongue out really slowly and just touched the super worm with his tongue and took it back, was weird totally dif then Ape. Now today i cup fed them and Phil went to shoot at one and stuck his tongue out all slow and basically it just drooped and fell out to the side of his mouth.... then he would pull it in and lick his chops and do it all over again... he would only get the crickets that were just in front of him...any clues as to what may have happened to make his tongue change like this?
 
This kind of thing appears usually if there is a lack of vit B in the feeders or better the mineral/vit-product you use. Take this serious,it can go worse very quick! It can even end in amputation of the tong. My vet gave me vitB and together with higher UV dose it worked well.
 
Here in Belgium when we have this problem we go to the pharmacie and get vitamin B complex.
These are tablets that you can put in water and they meld.
Then you give you're chameleon for a week(once a day) the vitamines.
I use a pipet to give him the water+the vitamines.
Then you must see if the situation is better.

Most of the time the problem with the tong is solved in a week or sometimes in two weeks.

kind regards,
Tom
 
Yeah.. my new ambilobe has the same problem! sad to see him not using his toungue to his full potential... im afraid if i keep him and use the B vitamin complex and it doesnt work.. then the garuntee week is up... what do u guys think??? he will be one hell of a screamer....
 
Howdy Tom and Dennis,

Interesting info about vitamin B complex and tongue troubles! I've heard of vitamin B complex being used as an appetite stimulate. Do you have any more info about dosages etc.? The treatment dose is probably a lot more than the vitamin B levels found in Herptivite dust levels. Has there been any discussion about the standard daily dietary requirements not being met by the typical vitamin dusts? There are often posts about tongue troubles and it would be great if there was another potential remedy to suggest trying.
 
ColorCham427 said:
Yeah.. my new ambilobe has the same problem! sad to see him not using his toungue to his full potential... im afraid if i keep him and use the B vitamin complex and it doesnt work.. then the garuntee week is up... what do u guys think??? he will be one hell of a screamer....
Click to expand...
Howdy Brian,
I'd get a hold of the breeder right away and discuss the situation. You may get an extention while you try to solve the problem or you may need to exchange him right away and let the breeder sort out the tongue problem.
 
I use crickets, super worms, meal worms,wax worms and dubias... all of which i dust with calcium with and without d3 and herptivite multivitamins... I havent seen him eat today yet, but as long as the cricket or worm was close enough his tongue would shoot almost normally, still not 100% . should i give him a bit more vitamins with his food than usual? Brad gave me his schedual some time ago anf thats what i try to use....
 
Hi Dave and Ren,

the tongue prob is very common and to my opinion it comes down to the vitB in most cases. I had three cases of tong disfunction in the last five years(veiled and pardalis),one had to be amputated after the animal swallowed and started to digest it(panther). It usually appears in a period in which the chams grow pretty fast,sometime between two and seven month. At least in two cases I only used one mineral/vit product,which I always thought to be great(and it is for the mineral side of nutrition). Taking a closer look,I found out that there wasn't any vitB in it at all. After using a second(german) product with vitB I never had probs again. The most heard of cure for this problem in europe(to my knowledge) is ,like Tom said ,to give a vitB complex with a pipet every day. The complex is made for humans and can be bought at every pharmacie(tablets or liquid). Im pretty shure the vet told me that vitB can't be overdozed cause it will not get stored in the body,so no worries(but maybe you ask a vet again). First stage of the tong problem is that they can't shoot as far. In a further stage the tong always seems to pull upwards and even close feeders (3cm) are missed. A even worse case is ,that the whole tong "falls" out of the mouth and can't be retracted? without problems by the animal. If they manage to get it back in again ,its often not proper positioned on the bone of the tong(sorry for my bad english,dont know the right words...).In this case it can be swallowed and will be digested, so the animal tries to let's say vomit it out.. If the tong isnt affected at this point vets sometimes fiddle? the tong on the bone and position it with a stich for a couple of weeks. Together with the vitB therapy and high UV showers(High UVB Output Mercury Vapour Lamp) this often does the job,but to be honest, in a lot of cases it will not get better after a certain point. To my opinion the key to sucess is to get active at first time the problem showes,waiting to look how things develope doesn't make things better,usually anyway. This is just the experience I made with the topic,but I'm no vet.
If the tong has to be amputated the animals learn to catch theire food like other lizzards like beardies. The main problem isn't to catch the feeder,but to swallow it,as the tong has a major part in transporting the food down the throat. Same prob with drinking. It takes a while for the animal to understand(if ever) that the tong is missing. My panther tried to shoot at crickets for over a year after amputation,always did this four or five times before catching them with his mouth.
Ive heard about using vitB for appetite stimulation too,but most of the people who use this(the ones I know) give it by injection in the muscles of a leg. I never had to do this,so ive got no personel experience with this.
By the way i never ever use additional vit-products next to the mineral/vit-products I use. To my opinion these pure vits are often to high in dose. Who knows how much a chams liver or kidney can handle? Most time these products are made for herps in generall,I doubt that beardies require the same amounts then chams... I trie to give the good stuff by gutloading the feeders with a lot of different things,works well for me.. Whats youre opinion on this?
regards
 
Colin said:
Hi Dave and Ren,

the tongue prob is very common and to my opinion it comes down to the vitB in most cases.
...It usually appears in a period in which the chams grow pretty fast,sometime between two and seven month.

...After using a second(german) product with vitB I never had probs again.

The most heard of cure for this problem in europe(to my knowledge) is ,like Tom said ,to give a vitB complex with a pipet every day. The complex is made for humans and can be bought at every pharmacie(tablets or liquid).

Im pretty shure the vet told me that vitB can't be overdozed cause it will not get stored in the body,so no worries(but maybe you ask a vet again).

I trie to give the good stuff by gutloading the feeders with a lot of different things,works well for me.. Whats youre opinion on this?
regards
Click to expand...
Howdy Colin,

I think keepers on this site will be eagerly waiting for the next tongue problem post so that we can experiment (with their vet's help :eek:) with vitamin B complex (usually B1 (thiamine), B2 (riboflavin), B6 (pyridoxine) and B12 (cobalamin)) treatments on someone else's chameleon :eek:.

Many of us use fresh veggies as well as some of the fancy custom-made gutloads from places like www.cricketfood.com and others. This may be why we don't see this problem as often as we see it with others who have not yet started a similar gutload process.
 
vit B

To my knowledge, Vitamin B12 is used as an appetitie stimulant. A different preparation, Vitamin B Complex, is used for overall supplementation or for example in case of loss of vitamins because the kidneys don't work well.
 
Dave Weldon said:
...
Many of us use fresh veggies [...] This may be why we don't see this problem as often as we see it with others who have not yet started a similar gutload process.
Click to expand...

I think it a better idea to have a healthy gutload than to rely on supplements. vitamin Bs are found in several of the things I and others commonly include in gutload, such as sunflower seeds, nuts, wheat bran, egg, beans, green leafy vegetables...
 
B12?

I have the same problem with a parsons Chameleon, I have liquid B12, would this help, or do I need a B complex????
 
Sebastiaan said:
To my knowledge, Vitamin B12 is used as an appetitie stimulant. A different preparation, Vitamin B Complex, is used for overall supplementation or for example in case of loss of vitamins because the kidneys don't work well.
Click to expand...

OOPS, should have read the whole thread.
 
omg!! my veiled have this issue right now! vit b and uv can heal the tongue? can he eat normal again?
 
Two fold issue: either quit getting critical of old threads popping up or quit telling people to do their research on their chams. You can't have it both ways. Me personally, I don't care if the thread is from 43 BC. If someone is doing there homework, I am all for it. Not everyone is a forum guru. I still can't do half this site offers after a 1 1/2 years here. Want to see something funny? Watch me try and upload a pic.:mad:
 
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