Panther chameleon swallowed its tongue?

[Dgood]

Hey every one I need some pretty quick advise, about my baby panther Cham. I was just feeding him and released about 9 baby crickets into his cage and as he ran down to grab some on the bottom it looks like he may have swallowed his tounge on the pull back, or something. He is still trying to eat the crickets but all I can see is his tounge rod poking out like he's trying g to shoot but no tounge comes out. I'll try and get some photos up in a moment. Please help!

 

[Dgood]

So I tried feeding a nice soft calci worm to see how his tounge would work, and what do you know his tounge shot out and grabbed it. This has never happened to my two other chams, and the other two are just as big of pigs as my juvenile panther.
I thought he swallowed it because he was shooting just fine and swallowing normal, than his next shot the tounge rod would just come out and it almost looked like the tounge was on top of the rod but in his throat. He would try and shoot but nothing would come out just the rod I almost looked like he was going to throw up. After several more attempts of trying to shoot and swallowing a lot, he eventually gave up on using his tounge and just got right up to the crickets and ate them. After waiting a couple minutes I put the calci worm in his cup to see if his tounge was still acting funny, and he shot it right out right away, but it was slightly red and irritated.
Has anyone else ever had his problem before? He couldn't use his tounge for probably a total of 5 minutes than he was just fine. I'm still pretty worried about the little guy, I'm going to be watching him closely, is there anything I can do to help his tounge? That was pretty frightening seeing that and I don't want it to happen again!

 

[djfishygillz]

They can seem to injure their tongues and sometimes the damage can be permanent. To my knowledge there is not much that can be done if he injured it but make sure to monitor him closely. If he actually does swallow it I would recommend a vet visit. I would still recommend a vet visit anyways for the possibly damaged tongue. But make sure to find a vet with some actual chameleon experience otherwise I feel it is a waste of time.

Hope the tongue pulls through. For now I would monitor him closely. Posting pictures may be able to help as well. Make sure you are gut loading the feeders and supplementing properly as sometimes importer supplementing in my experience has been linked to tongue problems.

Also worst case scenario, he may have to have the tongue amputated if it starts to hinder him from eating. In that case he will have to be hand fed or cup fed. But they can live happy and healthy lives in the case that does happen.

 

[Dgood]

Thanks for the reply, it was pretty frightening it looked like he was going to lose his tounge, but he still has full use of it, he ate all the crickets, which he had to go up and eat, than less than three minutes later when I put I soft bodied feeder in his cup, and he went right for it and his tounge slowly came out like it should than he shot and hit it dead on. I'm not going to let him eat anymore today and I'll try in the morning and get some photos than. I've actually been doing really good on gut loading my feeders, until a couple of months ago I would throw some fruits and veggies in he tank and call it good. But now I've good a good dry gut load that I bought from a member on the forums, and I have at least 10 or more fruits and veggies that I blend together and rotate them every week so they get some variety.
I'll keep you updated and get some pics in the morning, thanks again.