Vitamin A Supplementation

[HawkPotato]

Ever since we bought Poe from PetSmart a little over a week ago, we've noticed her dealing with some relatively minor eye issues. She'll periodically close her eye(s) and sometimes she'll roll it around for a second. There seems to be no swelling or fluid or anything... We think her to be just about three or four months, and she's a veiled chameleon -- we've read that adult male panthers are most susceptible to vitamin A deficiencies, but we're wondering if that's the case with Poe... She's drinking like normal, her urate is white, she hasn't shown any signs of shedding (eating like normal etc.), and we thought at first she might've had something else in her eye, but then she started doing it with her other eye, so we're thinking it must be a vitamin A deficiency... Especially considering that the day after we gave her a multivitamin (which had preformed A in it), she was doing it a lot less often and only in one eye, but the next day it picked up again. We're nervous about doing a saline rinse because she's so small, and we just figured we could try the vitamin A supplementation first and if it didn't seem to help, we'd try the saline rinse... Anyways, after much reading and such, we wanted to get some more direct opinions from you guys.

Supplementing vitamin A seemed to be the working solution for multiple cases on the forums that described the exact same problem... We read that chams only need about 1/20th of a drop to get enough... We were wondering if the dosage is different for juvies? We got some vitamin A capsules from GNC (the only ones they had) and they're in the form of cod oil... we read that that has Vitamin D in it, too, so should we just order some powdered vitamin A and dust a feeder, or is the cod oil okay? Rather, would it be okay for us to just dust a feeder with the multivitamin that seemed to help (it's without D3) for up to 5 days? We're open to any other suggestions or opinions... Thanks in advance!

 

[carol5208]

What kind of chameleon do you have? Could you post some pics? It is not true that adult male panthers are more prone. I have seen many species both female and male have eye problems. What kind of lighting are you using?

 

[HawkPotato]

She's a veiled.

Right now we're using a Reptisun 5.0 compact, but we ordered a linear last week that will be here tomorrow.

 

[jannb]

I recommend using Reptivite for your multi vitamin. If you already have D3 then get the Reptivite without D3.

I also recommend some nice long warm mistings to give her a chance to clean her eyes. My guys roll their eyes all around allot when I'm misting them. That's how they clean their eyes.