Weening sick chameleon off liquid diet??

[makkatfloof]

Hi, recently my male veiled chameleon of about 6 months got a major eye infection. He’s doing better, but while his eyes were closed and he couldn’t hunt, the vet made me force feed him carnivore care.
Now, while I have heard good things and bad things on carnivore care for chameleons, I can say it’s helped him gain his weight back and was good for him. Plus, i trust his vet along with all the other reptiles I’ve had that have seen her throughout my life. So please, no backlash for that.
Anyways, he’s hooked on this stuff. His favorite thing to eat is hornworms, so in order to try and ween him off, i got him some. It so far isn’t working. He’s basically trying to go on hunger strike.
So, while I don’t wanna feed him anymore carnivore care due to him relying on it, I also don’t want him to starve.
I’ve never actually had a reptile before through ALLLL of the bunch that I’ve had had to go on a forced liquid diet due to sickness, so I have no idea how to ween him off.
Help!

 

[JacksJill]

You will have to let him get hungry enough to get over the lazy way of eating. I would start by getting a baseline weight on him so you will know if making him skip meals is affecting him. I would begin to skip a day try live food, if no them feed liquid diet. Then skip two days try live food, if no then liquid etc. Weigh him daily and continue to give him water. Track his weight to be sure it doesn't nose dive. If he maintains his weight then it is a hunger strike and you will have to out stubborn him. He may have to go a week to get hungry enough but I would try smaller intervals first so he doesn't lose the progress you made.

 

[makkatfloof]

You will have to let him get hungry enough to get over the lazy way of eating. I would start by getting a baseline weight on him so you will know if making him skip meals is affecting him. I would begin to skip a day try live food, if no them feed liquid diet. Then skip two days try live food, if no then liquid etc. Weigh him daily and continue to give him water. Track his weight to be sure it doesn't nose dive. If he maintains his weight then it is a hunger strike and you will have to out stubborn him. He may have to go a week to get hungry enough but I would try smaller intervals first so he doesn't lose the progress you made.

Thank you so much! He was already underweight at the vet due to not eating from the infection, and still is a bit underweight so I guess that’s my biggest concern with him being stubborn.