Panther Chameleon Paralyzed? PLEASE HELP

[pyschadelicdustt]

I have had my panther chameleon Waldo for about 3 months and he is about 7 months old. When I go him from the breeder, he never mentioned anything about calcium or vitamins that i was suppose to be giving to Waldo so unfortunately i was not doing that the past 3 months. He has a screen cage that is about 2 and a half feet tall and a foot and a half wide. There is a 8.5 inch ceramic heat bulb, and a UVB light. There are no living plants in the cage. Before this issue came up i was just feeding him crickets usually around 8 a day,and making sure he was getting his water by misting about 6 times a day. Thursday Waldo was standing on his back hind leg on a branch, the branch moved down on the side of the cage and Waldo fell to the bottom of the cage. There was paper towel on the bottom of the cage and the drop was probably around 10 inches. After he dropped, he was laying on his back at the bottom on the cage and was visibly shaken up. He seemed to hold his back leg with one of his arms. He pooped while he was still laying on his back and it was a pale orange color,the color of it wasn't to not normal but that he did it while laying on his back was. I then tried to pick him up to set him back over or put him back on his branches but i realized his back legs were not working. They really didn't have a grasp and he wouldn't move them. I set him back down on the paper towel because I thought if i set him on the branches he could fall again. When he was on the paper towel he really just was trying to walk but he really couldn't, he would try to pull him self forward using him front arms but him back legs would just drag along. I took him to the vet shortly after that and they were very uneducated about chameleons and really were not able to help. They did take a x-ray and it looked like nothing was broken, but the quality of the x-ray was poor so its possible the x-ray might have not caught it. However they did give me Emerald Exotic Cornivore which I mix with water and give him 0.7 twice daily through a syringe. It is not monday and Waldo has not made any improvements. He just lays at the bottom of his cage on his back and will sometimes try really hard to be able to turn over and move to a new spot, however when he trys to crawl the end half of his body if just dead weight. What is going on with him? What can I do to help him recover? Is this curable? Has anyone had anything like this occur? PLEASE HELP! I feel terrible because I don't know how i can help him and its so sad seeing him just laying there.


In the picture i uploaded this is how he has been laying, I know he looks dead here but he's not you can see his eyes moving and see him breathing.

 

[seanUTD]

vet ASAP... This sounds serious to me.. I may be newer to chameleons but I have known rabbit (I know far fetched) but he fell just like this from a height equivalent to this fall and he did not last long... I'm so sorry.. All I personally can say is VET

 

[seanUTD]

Sorry I just noticed you did take him and got inconclusive results.. Does that vet specialize in exotics?? I would find one of the specialists if not..

 

[Leroux2008]

omg the poor little guy! I REALLY REALLY wish I knew what I could tell you to do but Ive never had this happen to me with any of my reptiles. I would try to find a different vet that you could see immediatly that knew more about reptiles. Sadly im not sure if there is much more you would be/ able to do to help his limbs recover if they are paralyzed. I am not trying to get your hopes down or anything and I know in your situation I would be extremely frantic. Only thing I can say is.....just make sure you cna get him to eat and keep him hydrated. Hopefully someone with a little more experience with this will come on soon and be able to give you a little more advice. I really hope you can help him. That is so sad.

 

[kinyonga]

IMHO you need to find a good exotics vet ASAP. In the meantime, make sure that he can get exposure to the UVB light. You could put him in a more shallow cage or container so you can do this. I would remove all the branches too so that he will not be tempted to try to climb.

I'm not a vet so can't tell you what's wrong with him...but he may have broken his back.

I don't think it would hurt to give him some liquid calcium sandoz or calcium gluconate until you can get him to the vets. If you can get him to take a cricket from you IMHO it would be better than giving him carnivore care.

Good luck with him.

 

[pyschadelicdustt]

what chance do you think there is for him to recover. i had X-rays taken but the quality was very bad, however you did get a decent view of the spine and it didn't look broken, so if the spine isnt broken what else could it be? I found a vet that specializes in amphibians so im taking him there tomorrow. How much of the UVB light do you think i should give him?

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

It may not have been that the quality of the xray was bad. The reason you couldn't see many bones on the xray is because your chameleon probably doesn't have any minerals in his bones that would make them visible on a xray. Your chameleon is almost guaranteed to have metabolic bone disease. Without enough calcium or an imblance of calcium and phosphorus in the diet your cham has been pulling all the calcium out of the bones to be able to survive because calcium is needed for many very important functions throughout the body.

UVB is only one piece of the puzzle. UVB is needed for your cham to synthesize vitamin D3, which helps absorption of calcium from the gut. He should be getting UVB for at least 10-12 hours each day and those bulbs only last about 6 months. Even if they're still shining they lose the ability to emit UVB after that long.

The other critical part is diet. What are you feeding the crickets before you give them to your cham? With good gutloading you can almost meet the vitamin and mineral needs that he should have gotten with supplementing. But is young and growing so he needs a lot of calcium.

The xrays probably were fine in quality and what you're seeing is your chameleon's disease (MBD) in his lack of bone structure. Because his bones are lacking the minerals to make them strong it is very possible that he could have broken his back - which can sometimes be very difficult to see on an xray, esp with MBD. Is his tail now a darker color than the rest of him? The color changing ability of the skin is neurohormonal as well, so if there is nerve damage sometimes the skin is a different color behind where it's damaged. Not all the time though.

What your chameleon needs right now is a calcium injection and oral calcium gluconate to help him rebuild his bones and continue his other metabolic processes so he stops pulling calcium out of the bones. I agree that it would be much better to have him eating gutloaded crickets dusted with calcium powder that does not have D3 or phosphorus than carnivore care. Force feeding is stressful and at this point unneccessary imo. He is not starving, he just needs the correct nutrition, and carnivore care is high in animal proteins, which can be damaging to the kidneys.

I hope you can find a knowledgable vet to help you. With good care there is a chance of getting him back on track, but it's impossible to say how much internal damage there is from the fall. There may be nothing you can do, but if you want to try then he needs good nutrition and calcium supplementation starting now. We can't really do anything to fix the break if it's there, we can only provide him with the nutrition and care to do so himself.

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

How is he doing today?

 

[EvilLost]

Is he ok now?? Don't panic, it could just be SHOCK.

The same thing happened to my boy and I *freaked*. He is normally on a free range and somehow (i have NO idea how) he climbed off his free range and outside onto my patio (i noticed him through the window.)

Just as I saw him, he fell about 4 feet onto the concrete floor (he was roughly 4 months at the time). I ran and grabbed him, and he seemed paralyzed from the waist down. He had absolutely no grip on his feet (but his hands moved weakly) and had absolutely no reaction of any kind when I touched his feet. I genuinely thought he was paralyzed.

I simply held him comfortably for about 45minutes (I basically just held him "upright" while putting minimum pressure on his legs) and very very slow he began to move his legs again. This incident happened over 3 months ago and he has fully recovered with no problems, but I can tell u at the time it happened his legs gave ABSOLUTELY no response.

Luckily....he recovered and it turned out to be the shock of the fall more than anything. In my case my guy was both younger than yours and fell from much higher onto a CONCRETE patio!! Hopefully your guy is just in shock too and will recover :X Although my guy was thoroughly supplmemented so he did have strong bones...but hopefully all is ok for you!

Has he started to move his legs?

 

[Kansascity]

OMG man sorry, let everyone know how he is doing please!

 

[JFT80]

I hope you are as fortunate as Evillost, but I had the same thing happen and I still am dealing with a panther that can't move from midway down. He is also black from that point down. I didn't witness a fall, but that means nothing. I was giving him the proper supplements and following the rules. My vet said they use a dental xray for animals that small and it wouldn't have the detail to see a break. She was certain is was a pinched or severed nerve and I am giving him oral calcium (liquid) and getting him to open his mouth so i can get him water and crickets. I can't get him to poop and I am afraid that is going to be what does him in. The vet told me 50/50 on recovery, but she didn't seem that educated on chameleons either. How many days are you at now? I am a little over one week and can send you pics of his set up that I use to keep him well lit, hydrated and not climbing. Sorry I can't help more.