Gular edema?
- Thread starter Joseph 1233
- Start date
Here are some links...
https://www.chameleonforums.com/search/573876/?q=Gular+edema&o=relevance&c[node]=7
https://www.chameleonforums.com/search/573876/?q=Gular+edema&o=relevance&c[node]=7
kelly_girl199
Avid Member
Get him off any vitamins and calcium asap. I've dealt with this before. It's usually overdose and harms the kidneys. What are your supplements like and what are you gutloading bugs with?
kelly_girl199
Avid Member
Calcium may not have to do with edema. But all of the vitamins are too harsh on his system. Completely taking him off of supplements to let his system clean out is necessary
kelly_girl199
Avid Member
Give him lots and los of water to flush the system
kelly_girl199
Avid Member
Taking him off calcium for a week is not going to cause MBD.
kelly_girl199
Avid Member
I would recommend you do call around to find a vet who has experience with chameleons. Gular edema is normally caused from overdose on Vit A. When I went through it I changed my gutload on crickets up, took him off supplements for about a week, flushed him with as much water as I could get into his system and it went away. I began dusting with plain calcium again.
Ferritinmyshoes (a veterinarian) says..."it can take 6 months or more to resolve.I suspect many edema cases are due to over supplementation of vitamin A, which is fat soluble so stored in the liver and other organs. It takes quite a long time for that to be used up.
In veiled females they can get edema when gravid."
I've also found veiled females and even panther females are prone to it when gravid.
In veiled females they can get edema when gravid."
I've also found veiled females and even panther females are prone to it when gravid.
carol5208
Chameleon Enthusiast
Do you have evidence to support this? Links, websites, veterinarian articles? Caused by Vitamin A? How so? There has been great debate over the years in what causes this. I took in a rescue years ago that had it horribly and come to find the previous owner used calcium here and there with no vitamin supplementation So explain that? For whatever reason it is commonplace for gravid females to get it also. To the OP, do you have a laying bin in your cage for your female? She might have eggs
carol5208
Chameleon Enthusiast
Again though, it is really speculation. I don't think there is not one piece of solid research or concrete evidence to prove it. Like I said, how did my chameleon have it and was never given vitamins?. He was fed crickets that were fed lettuce and not even the good green leafy kind!
Joseph 1233
Member
She may also be gravid she is 6 months and showing blue and orange spots I don't over supplement I do plain calcium everyday and vitamins plus d3 and without d3 once every two weeks but she has not been eating as much as usual as well. Got load may be the cause because I started using flukes dry gutload .....I will look over ingredients but I also use fresh veggies
jajeanpierre
Chameleon Enthusiast
I disagree. I've found plain calcium to be a problem and have gular edemas on and off just by giving or withholding calcium. I can control it and the only variable is Repashy plain calcium. I have had problems with Repashy vitamins but never suspected their plain calcium. I'm switching to human plain calcium tablest that the pharmacy ordered for me (whenever I can figure out how I want to grind it) and Rep-Cal plain calcium.
Plain calcium is not just plain calcium. It has lots of garbage in it like lead, even human-grade calcium products. What's in a calcium supplement depends on what it is made of. Calcium supplements are made from sources such as oyster shells, dolmite, limestone, bone meal, egg shells and synthesized calcium.
jajeanpierre
Chameleon Enthusiast
@Joseph 1233 I've found most edemas to be caused by diet. Some crickets have caused me grief but lately I've found that plain calcium is a problem.
Try feeding smaller feeders. I believe--my unproved, untested, unscientific and unsupported theory--that something builds up in the bodies of crickets. Smaller feeders have less time to build up whatever it is that is causing the problem. Switch feeders. Avoid soy based foods. Just a hunch.
I've found I will sometimes get edemas in a large number in my collection when I get a new order of crickets. I feed my crickets really well before I feed them off, so it isn't in their gut. It seems to me that it doesn't matter how long I feed my crickets only fresh food (not commercial cricket food), as long as I use those particular crickets, I have edemas.
It seems to go in cycles. Once I get a "bad" batch of crickets, I keep getting edemas for weeks or months (I buy crickets from a cricket farm every two weeks). My gut feeling it is something in the feed that builds up in the crickets. I've talked to the cricket farm's production manager about what they feed their crickets. They give a local feed mill an order with a recipe. Included in that recipe is a standard vitamin supplement powder that is used in all the mill's feeds from cricket food to chicken/pig/horse feed. I wonder if once in awhile they just add too much vitamin supplement to the recipe. Or, there is contamination of some other additive given in say pig feed that my chameleons can't tolerate. I know this can happen as there is a problem in the racehorse industry with racehorses testing positive for a pig-feed additive that is not supposed to be in the horse feed but is in trace amounts and shows up in standard drug tests. It happens when they run the pig feed through the mill and then the horse feed. I imagine the same sort of thing could happen with cricket feed--something ends up in the cricket feed because of what was milled immediately before the cricket feed was milled.
I decided to try cutting my calcium completely and the edemas went away. I added calcium (Repashy plain) and got the edemas back. Cut calcium completely, edemas went away. I did it enough to see a relationship between the calcium and edemas.
I tried replacing Repashy calcium with Zoomed. Still got edemas. I talked another serious chameleon keeper and he talked to me about using ground egg shells or Rep-Cal. I think that is the brand he recommended based on the description of the label. I just received my Rep-Cal so will be trying that.
It would help to know what is causing the edema but no one really knows. There are known disease processes that will cause edema but there is more edema out there that seems to benign than that seems to have been caused by a disease process.
Am I correct that you have a gravid female veiled? Being gravid sometimes causes edema that will go away once she is no longer gravid. If she is gravid, I would not cut her calcium.
Back to your original question: What do you do about it?
I've heard natural sunlight will help. I'm playing around with that and tend to think it helps some. It certainly never hurts. So, I would get her out in natural sunlight. You can get her out even if it is cold by putting a solid sided cage in a warm corner and adding extra light. You can get really strong heat lamps (250 watts) and appropriate hoods/sockets from feed stores. They are used for baby chicks and need to keep chicks really warm (90F) in a barn in winter. You have to be really careful about monitoring the heat but it can be done even in winter. Vitamin D is manufactured in the skin but the skin actually has to warm up.
Cut out all supplements except calcium. Personally, I think reptile vitamins are garbage anyway. I would also add human Vitamin A.
That is what I would do if she were mine.
Try feeding smaller feeders. I believe--my unproved, untested, unscientific and unsupported theory--that something builds up in the bodies of crickets. Smaller feeders have less time to build up whatever it is that is causing the problem. Switch feeders. Avoid soy based foods. Just a hunch.
I've found I will sometimes get edemas in a large number in my collection when I get a new order of crickets. I feed my crickets really well before I feed them off, so it isn't in their gut. It seems to me that it doesn't matter how long I feed my crickets only fresh food (not commercial cricket food), as long as I use those particular crickets, I have edemas.
It seems to go in cycles. Once I get a "bad" batch of crickets, I keep getting edemas for weeks or months (I buy crickets from a cricket farm every two weeks). My gut feeling it is something in the feed that builds up in the crickets. I've talked to the cricket farm's production manager about what they feed their crickets. They give a local feed mill an order with a recipe. Included in that recipe is a standard vitamin supplement powder that is used in all the mill's feeds from cricket food to chicken/pig/horse feed. I wonder if once in awhile they just add too much vitamin supplement to the recipe. Or, there is contamination of some other additive given in say pig feed that my chameleons can't tolerate. I know this can happen as there is a problem in the racehorse industry with racehorses testing positive for a pig-feed additive that is not supposed to be in the horse feed but is in trace amounts and shows up in standard drug tests. It happens when they run the pig feed through the mill and then the horse feed. I imagine the same sort of thing could happen with cricket feed--something ends up in the cricket feed because of what was milled immediately before the cricket feed was milled.
I decided to try cutting my calcium completely and the edemas went away. I added calcium (Repashy plain) and got the edemas back. Cut calcium completely, edemas went away. I did it enough to see a relationship between the calcium and edemas.
I tried replacing Repashy calcium with Zoomed. Still got edemas. I talked another serious chameleon keeper and he talked to me about using ground egg shells or Rep-Cal. I think that is the brand he recommended based on the description of the label. I just received my Rep-Cal so will be trying that.
It would help to know what is causing the edema but no one really knows. There are known disease processes that will cause edema but there is more edema out there that seems to benign than that seems to have been caused by a disease process.
Am I correct that you have a gravid female veiled? Being gravid sometimes causes edema that will go away once she is no longer gravid. If she is gravid, I would not cut her calcium.
Back to your original question: What do you do about it?
I've heard natural sunlight will help. I'm playing around with that and tend to think it helps some. It certainly never hurts. So, I would get her out in natural sunlight. You can get her out even if it is cold by putting a solid sided cage in a warm corner and adding extra light. You can get really strong heat lamps (250 watts) and appropriate hoods/sockets from feed stores. They are used for baby chicks and need to keep chicks really warm (90F) in a barn in winter. You have to be really careful about monitoring the heat but it can be done even in winter. Vitamin D is manufactured in the skin but the skin actually has to warm up.
Cut out all supplements except calcium. Personally, I think reptile vitamins are garbage anyway. I would also add human Vitamin A.
That is what I would do if she were mine.
jajeanpierre
Chameleon Enthusiast
Vets generally have no clue as to why an otherwise healthy chameleon develops gular edema.
There are things that are known causes--cardiac disease, liver or kidney failure, being gravid, low protein levels from parasites, Vitamin A hypovitaminosis (thats a Vitamin A deficiency not an overdose), etc.--but much of the rest is speculation. Gular edema is not normally caused by a Vitamin A overdose and most chameleons are deficient in Vitamin A to begin with. I will agree reptile supplements are problematic.
Joseph 1233
Member
My pet store has switched too banded from brown crickets
kelly_girl199
Avid Member
I found this link very useful.
