Calcium Kinds

One of the veiled chams that we rescued is on a lliquid calcium, but it is an oral calcium. Whenever i hear people talk about their chams that have calcium defiency they say they got a calcium that is an injectable. Are these 2 different kinds of calcium? And is one stronger or different than the other? Any why would they use one over the other? Just curious.

Debby

Yes, they are two different products and work different ways.

1) Oral liquid Calcium- I have not looked at everyone out there, but usually this is a liquid containing only calcium (phosperous free and D3 free.) This is something you could add to the diet or water (if directed) every day without having to worry about getting too much calcium into the body
This would be like adding calium powder w/o D3 to the insects every day. Unless there is D3- excess calcium will NOT be absorbed and just pooped out. If UVB is provided, the reptile will make only the necessary D3 and turn off once the right amount of calcium is absorbed.
The only concern would be if you were supplementing with too much D3. The body would not be able to stop the absorption of too much calcium and you would get hypercalcemia.

2) The shot of calcium gluconate is injected right into the body with access to the bloodstream increasing blood serum concentrations of calcium. When an animal with nutritional secondary hyperparathyroidism (a form of MBD), they need the calcium fast and can't wait for intestinal absorption. So at the beginning, they need a boost so that we can then supplement with nutritional forms of supplementation to get the calciumhos ratio to 2:1.
You should not be doing this without veterinary help.

Hope that helps.

I'm not. Like i said one of the rescues i got in came with a bottle of liquid calcium, but he does not have MBD, he has tongue issues. In fact yesterday when we went to force feed him, his tongue came out to try to get the cricket but then he couldn't seem to use it and closed his mouth on it. We had to force his mouth back open and literally push the tongue back in. Since then he has been sticking his tongue in and out, kinda like he was practicing with it. I recently stopped giving him the calcium liquid because the old vet will not fax up the records and i didn't want to keep giving it to him without knowing why. My vet doesnt know what to do with the poor guy so we are punting. I was just wondering why he would have prescribed one over the other. Thanks for replying.

Debby
Shellhaven Tortoise and Chameleon Rescue and Sanctuary