My first cham developed horrible MBD and my wife and I were able to get solid recovery in 3-4 weeks. My vet was so impressed with our results he raved about it for ages. Of course, the MBD was my mistake so I don't have bragging rights. I'm only trying to convey that it was a very good success in hopes that other people will take it to heart and benefit.
Background:
Looking back, it was obvious that our little guy had been developing his disease for some time. He was very active and healthy but that had begun toning down for some time. Then, a few weeks went by where something clearly wasn't right with him. His movements became progressively slower and less confident. Finally, I decided something had to be wrong and began to research. I forget the exact symptoms at the time but it only took me 30 minutes to become convinced it was MBD.
The disease started slow but accelerated at an amazing rate. Within days from my diagnosis, the tremors started and his health went downhill more than it had in several weeks prior. I did not have a UVB meter at the time, but he had a 100W MVB only 8" away (through nylon). On the other hand, his vitamin intake was definately questionable. Based on that, I reasoned that his problem was due to diet.
Our error:
We purchased Kermit as a hatchling from a long time exotic pet store that has a better than average reputation and good knowledge about the animals they sell. Their biggest fault is that they don't do enough to direct newbies to additional information resources. Unfortunately, our initial husbandry was based entirely upon a quick brief from the manager that was distracted by a rush of customers in the store. He told us to give the little guy vitamins daily. We did this for a while but I eventually discovered that this advice was not only in direct conflict with the package instructions, but that hypervitamintosis was a danger.
In order to avoid hypervitamintosis, I backed his multi-vitamin dusting back from daily to twice-a-week. What I didn't do was fill in the missing days with a calcium supplement.
Symptoms:
Initially, the main symptom was slowly increasing lethargy. The next stage, which is what tipped us off, was an uncharateristic passiveness. Kermit was always a good sport about being handled, but he would always make you work a little bit to get him out. On the "diagnosis day", I got him out and he came so easily and I took him outside into the sun and he just looked up at me while he flopped his rear half over on its side and kind of half layed in my hand.
The most stunning part was that within days from my diagnosis, he developed serious tremors when moving his limbs. Every movement was very slow and his legs shook during the whole time. Furthermore, he seemed to be unable to gauge where to put his foot when walking, so each step usually involved several misplacements of his feet before he got it right. He frequently caught his own rear claws on his side simply because he just couldn't guage where his feet were. In addition, all of his vines suddently seemed like they were coated with glue because he frequently got his claws stuck in them as well. Whenever he got his claws stuck it took him a long time to finally get it sorted out and he frequently came very close to falling. A couple of times he did fall from his vines.
In addition, Kermit developed numerous large bumps in all of his legs from the bone fractures. He appeared to have one or two minor fractures in his spine, but luckily those did not become an issue.
Treatment:
We can't take all the credit. It seemed that no matter how painful and difficult his life was, Kermit stuck to his daily routine as best as he could. Also, he was always very OK with being handled and, luckily, the disease made him even more passive. This, in turn, made treating him even easier.
So, our basic strategy was simple: pack him full of calcium until it was coming out his ears (so to speak). In addition to that, we also focused on helping him out with drinking and eating which had clearly become difficult.
Calcium:
1) We began dusting all food items with a phosphorous-free calcium supplement. Twice a week, all food for the day was dusted with a multi-vitamin that contained D3.
2) We began administering calcium glubionate (brown syrup stuff) orally once or twice a day. We didn't bother with measuring out some appropriate dose. We just squirted it in there and gave him a mouthful each time.
3) Even though we suspected diet, we did increase his sunlight exposure somewhat. But, this was not a focus of the treatment.
Food/Water:
1) At the earliest stages when things were still getting worse, we were very concerned about weakness due to decreased food intake. We gave him three doses of high-calorie food paste (a product made for reptiles) over a period of 6 days.
2) Right before he got sick, Kermit started displaying an interest in eating greens. However, once he got sick, he wouldn't touch them. Aside from the few doses of food paste, his diet consisted entirely of crickets. He couldn't hunt them down, but his tongue worked fine so he could just wait for them to come too close.
3) We fed him water by hand at least twice a day - usually whenever he looked like he wanted it. He drank willingly from a dropper and, I should note, he drank alot of water every day. During his treatment (and previous life) he was given distilled water exclusively. I do not think the use of distilled water was a significant factor, but I thought I should add it for completeness. Since then, we've switched to using store-bought "drinking water" for all our reptiles. (To be honest, they all seem to be OK with either.)
Progress:
One of the biggest things is that even after we started our treatment, he continued to get worse for about a week. After that, it leveled off, but he stayed in his worst state with almost no signs of improvement for at least a week. Finally, the tremors started to die down and he basically recovered from the initial symptoms in reverse order. In a couple more weeks, he was back to his old self, but still somewhat physically subdued. I would say the 100% recovery took a couple more weeks from that. So, in summary, we got basic recovery in 4 weeks and full recovery in 6 weeks.
To this day, you can still see some deformity in Kermit's legs from excess bone built up around the old fractures. However, he does have full movement and you have to really look to notice them. To some extent, I think the fact that he continued to grow for several months after his recovery helped alot, if only because he got bigger while the bumps remained the same size.
i feel like i let him down because hes in this condition.
