Jackson's Agitated or Issue?

I am buying a T5 Reptisun and Reptiglow CFL to replace my current ones on Tango's setup. The CFL is at the end of its life (and a reptisun) and the tube I have is an old Reptiglow (which from my readings would probably do better as a reptisun), so hopefully new bulbs will make her feel a bit better. Not sure that they would cause these reactions, but wouldn't hurt to update. They are ordered and shipping Prime.
 
SO glad to hear she's doing better! Did the vet say anything about that second spiky-looking BM? I was curious why that one is as black as it looks in the image.
 
SO glad to hear she's doing better! Did the vet say anything about that second spiky-looking BM? I was curious why that one is as black as it looks in the image.

Just that it was very, very dry. Probably due to her not drinking. Hopefully we don't see anymore of those!
 
SO glad to hear she's doing better! Did the vet say anything about that second spiky-looking BM? I was curious why that one is as black as it looks in the image.
Luckily there was a better BM yesterday, so whatever caused it, I think its out of her system.

Tuesday Morning Update:


We started medicine yesterday. Two different, unfortunately unnamed concoctions. The one was SMZ/TMP SUSPENSION, the other is "Critical Care Individual Packets". From my understanding the vet was very knowledgeable and knew a decent amount about chameleons. It seems that the medicine descriptive on her bill and notes at the office are a bit generic.

She hasn't been eating well so we had to administer manually; open the mouth aim for the back of the throat, far behind the windpipe opening. We kept her head tilted up so it would all go down. I came in last night to check on her and where she decided to sleep upside down to begin with, she repositioned and there was a foam at the side of her mouth. Where I thought this was mucus last night, the dried crust appears to be medicine so I think she unfortunately spit up most of what she took in. Hopefully what was left in her has begun to make a difference.

I've been trying to make food readily available to her with free range crickets, but I think if I can inject a cricket and have her eat it, it may go better. I moved her cool air humidifier (which was initially pumping in overhead by PVC) away from her enclosure while still running as her breathing has continued to look labored. Thinking it could possibly be an RI, but I honestly have no clue as the vet said she didn't appear to be showing symptoms. Her mouth has been occasionally, slightly mucusy and she alternates slow puffed up breathing and what looks to be breathing from her chest instead of diaphragm although the latter may be because of an empty belly (which could be a reason the medicine didn't stay down well). I moved her warm air humidifier up closer. It gets awfully warm, but it seems these tend to help a lot during RI problems.

Will continue to keep you all posted.
 
That last update was supposed to be Wednesday morning. My phone won't give me the option to edit a post.

We are going to try more medicine around 4:00 today so she doesnt go to bed on medicine like last night. If I can't get her to eat ahead of the dosing, I think we are going to try giving her some "bug juice" so she has something on her stomach.

What I am lacking is ratios and amount. I have eggs to pull the whites from, Pedialyte, and Ensure. How much would I mix of each and about how much should I be feeding a 6-9 month old Jackson's?

Thanks everyone.
 
Medicine for today was taken. She does not like it at all. I placed the medicine in the crease of her mouth and let her drink it to start her moving her mouth then went way back into her throat for the other two. I don't think Ill be using the medicine on the lips method anymore as shes been salivating a lot gasping on occasion (monitoring very close and removing liquid if there gets to be amounts enough to bubble). She's lethargic and leaves her eyes shut or mostly shut for the majority of the day from what my fiancee has told me. I got 1ml of bug juice down that hasn't come back up yet so I have my fingers crossed. When I got home she spit up a whole cricket, presumably an attempt to eat today. Im cutting out all offered food and making sure she gets fed. I would have gone for more juice, but shes also getting 1.7 ml of other liquids and I don't want to fill her up too much. We may go for 1.5 or 2 tomorrow. Some advice would be really helpful :(.

I went ahead and did my own fecal as she has had 2 movements since she came home the other day. I found pearlite in her feces which probably explains the dry movement the other day (most likely soil). I still have no idea what is bothering her (I've thrown out every possibility at this point I feel), but Im worried it was something in the dirt now. I had just started using a dripper more often and didn't think to worry about draining the water dishes sitting under my plants. This water kept the soil quite moist and probably could have harbored bacteria, fungus, etc. Its possible too that she was drinking the sitting water, but hopefully not. Im amazed the vet didn't say anything about the pearlite though. I found it in both BM's and imagine they would have too. The second of my two bare plants were removed today.

I feel like this outreach for help has very quickly become me just talking to myself, but hopefully if we pull through we'll help someone else out down the road.
 
Breathing has seemed to stabilize. No regurgitation as of yet. She has her eyes closed and is very loosely gripped to her basking area, but this has become somewhat normal over the past few days. Temps are in the low 70's. Basking is 81. Humidity is boosted way up from remote instead of direct sources. I hate to put extra stress on her, but I may start a twice a day juice feeding so I can make sure she is getting enough food. 1 ML of juice is packed with a lot of goodness, but it still feels like not a lot of calorie.
 
I imagine its the taste of the medicine, but she has been exhibiting what I could only really describe as dry heaving. She will sway her head side to side open her mouth and extend her tongue. I've seen it several times now. Has anyone else experienced this? Id say its her trying to get the taste out of her mouth, but I'm not sure.
 
New findings. It appears Tango's "heaving" may be due to some trapped food that came back up. There's a blob looking object at the top of her palate that does not look like it belongs. We'll try to get this out soon. May require a vet visit.

I gave her .3ml juice this morning. Its all she would let me get in her by myself. I realized that the syringe I was using to feed her was in decimals of ml instead of full ml so she only had .1 ml last night. 1-2ml should be enough to carry her through. The big issue is taking my time with the process vs the stress I'm inducing. There inevitably is some that makes it into her mouth instead of throat and we have a moment of heavier breathing and then we start back up. I can normally go about .1 - .2 ml at a time and she hates the whole process.
 
So every time I try to give her medicine or bug juice she seems to catch some in or around her wind pipe and we spend a bit of time removing saliva and monitoring her, which cannot be good. I normally am only giving her .5 ml or less and aiming down her throat so nothing can pool at the front of her mouth. It always seems to happen though.

Any advice?
 
Friday: No food this morning. I think I may just do two bigger juice feedings tonight. ~4:00 and ~7:00 (maybe all at once? We'll see). Tango is moving a decent amount today. There is still a noticeable weakness to her, but she went to water on her own today, which I believe is promising!
 
Responsive enough to find water and drink from the drip on a plant. Still thirsty so she's drinking straight from the main drip. I imagine this is evidence that she is attentive and on her way back to good health!

She's not the happiest shade of green Ive seen today, but I imagine that is at least half basking, which is nice because this is the first day she's had regulated basking colors in a few days.

It rained this morning and will be warming up so she's going to get some real sun. Bulbs came in yesterday. The repti glo is in (23W 5.0 CFL). I was a dummy and got the T5 instead of the T8 tube (I compared it to a T12 on accident and decided it needed to be smaller, so hey, T5 it is... right? Wrong :p). I'd get a new fixture, but the T8s are still so much more affordable. It will arrive Saturday.
 

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One step forward. Two steps back. She was doing great things morning. This evening she was bad. Sunning later she got worse. We're running out to the vet now for an emergency check up. Not looking good right now.
 
Tango unfortunately did not make it to the vet's. We live 45 minutes away from the exotics vet in our area. All other vets around here with "exotics expertise" are semi-versed in birds.

Her condition rapidly diminished over the course of this morning to this evening. She went from drinking and moving quite well to weak gasping in a matter of hours. The vet attempted to find a pulse and was unable, we figured we had lost her before we even made it in to the office. The vet made the observation that her tongue had beige splotches all over it and that she probably had a fungal infection (likely from the potting soil, which slowly infected the rest of her systems). I though the splotched were traces of the medicine we were giving her as it was mealy and practically the same color.

We opted against blood work and an x-ray when we initially took her in a few days ago. The blood work would have not come back in until at least today and the x-ray would not have found anything. I'm disappointed that we didn't ask the vet about the splotches and that they didn't catch it initially or at least suggest it from the potting soil discovery. The medicine they gave u,s I was told, was more to stabilize and would treat bacterial and fungal, but better medicine would have probably been necessary if it was a serious infection of either, especially fungal. Chances are even if we got her to the vet earlier in the day, she would not have made it as I'm fairly certain most fungal infections are like bacterial where its the toxicity from waste and metabolizing more than the actual intruder that does the real damage. I would have never imagined her to eat the dirt since she wasn't a species prone to eating cage decor or I would have never left those open pots in there. Its such a shame and I am incredibly sad to see her go. Chameleons are wonderful reptiles, but they are so fragile. She will be missed.
 
Tango unfortunately did not make it to the vet's. We live 45 minutes away from the exotics vet in our area. All other vets around here with "exotics expertise" are semi-versed in birds.

Her condition rapidly diminished over the course of this morning to this evening. She went from drinking and moving quite well to weak gasping in a matter of hours. The vet attempted to find a pulse and was unable, we figured we had lost her before we even made it in to the office. The vet made the observation that her tongue had beige splotches all over it and that she probably had a fungal infection (likely from the potting soil, which slowly infected the rest of her systems). I though the splotched were traces of the medicine we were giving her as it was mealy and practically the same color.

We opted against blood work and an x-ray when we initially took her in a few days ago. The blood work would have not come back in until at least today and the x-ray would not have found anything. I'm disappointed that we didn't ask the vet about the splotches and that they didn't catch it initially or at least suggest it from the potting soil discovery. The medicine they gave u,s I was told, was more to stabilize and would treat bacterial and fungal, but better medicine would have probably been necessary if it was a serious infection of either, especially fungal. Chances are even if we got her to the vet earlier in the day, she would not have made it as I'm fairly certain most fungal infections are like bacterial where its the toxicity from waste and metabolizing more than the actual intruder that does the real damage. I would have never imagined her to eat the dirt since she wasn't a species prone to eating cage decor or I would have never left those open pots in there. Its such a shame and I am incredibly sad to see her go. Chameleons are wonderful reptiles, but they are so fragile. She will be missed.
i just read this whole thread hoping for a good ending. Im so sorry for your loss, it sounds like you did everything in your power for tango and were good parents. So sorry again for your loss:(
 
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