Supper wobbly Jackson’s, urgent help!!

GanonPascal

New Member
Hello everyone.


I’m in need of some urgent help at the moment. I have a ten-month old female Jackson’s Chameleon, very sweet and social. She loves to sit at the very edge of her branch and watch everyone in the room, and if she can’t see you, she leans as far as possible to get a googly eye on you. She’s very silly, and I love her with my entire heart. She’s like my child and I don’t know what I’d do if I lost her.


The issue started last night at around 7pm. She started wobbling so hard when she tried to walk along her branches that she would almost fall, and she’s swing side to side to roughly she would just curl her tail up and close her eyes. It broke my heart.


This has never happened before, she has always seemed very healthy, has always had an amazing grip and balance, and had never fallen before. Yet all of a sudden, it had vanished completely in a matter of seconds.


Housing:

•Zoo Med Reptibreeze. 24 x 24 x 48

Foliage:

• A Small/medium ficus free, along with many other artificial plants (I know artificial plants aren’t beneficial to her at all, i promise I’ve been working on a very extravagant cage upgrade for her with lots of live plants)

Lighting:

•Zoo Med duel dome x2

•Reptisun 5.0 UVB

•Daylight Blue 60w bulb

•Ceramic lightless Heat emitter


Now this is the part where I was careless. Shame on me completely, and I feel absolutely terrible about it.


I recently ran out of Calcium dust. (Zoo Med Repti Calcium without D3) and have been using my roommates’s calcium dust instead. For three straight weeks I have been giving my Chameleon Calcium dust with D3. For THREE STRAIGHT WEEKS. In just a few days I have seen her decline in her normal stature completely. She used to eat EVERYTHING in front of her. She used to constantly run around and explore her cage and the safe parts of the house.


She still has quite an appetites, but no where near as large as it used to be. Now she can’t stabilize herself on a branch and it’s killing me.


So her normal feeding before my screw up was;


•Calcium dusted (without D3) gut-loaded crickets everyday.

•An occasionally super-worm as a treat.

•A hornworm if I could purchase one small enough for her.

•A few dusted Dubai’s when I could get my hands on then from the pet store.

•Sometimes some very thinly sliced apple, peach, and pear.

Hydration:

•She has a drip system she doesn’t use, because she’s afraid of it lol. So I manually mist her and give her “sip” many many MANY times a day.


She’s recently had a constipation issue so I’ve given her a drop of mineral oil to help that. (That was before the wobbling happened)


I’m really scared I might lose her over this mishap. I should’ve been more careful. I should’ve read the label. I just expected since both my roommate and I own Chameleon’s, that we had the same supplements.


Apparently, they also didn’t realize it was a D3 supplement either. Sigh.


Any advice on how I can fix this? Will my baby girl be okay if I can turn this around?
 
I would try to get her vet care. Make an appointment now it may take days to get in.
Is she showing any swelling around her neck?
In the mean time restrict her food intake and obviously no more D3 for a month or more. Hydrate her with long mistings and showers. Turn off her UVB bulb for now. See your vet for more information.
 
I would try to get her vet care. Make an appointment now it may take days to get in.
Is she showing any swelling around her neck?
In the mean time restrict her food intake and obviously no more D3 for a month or more. Hydrate her with long mistings and showers. Turn off her UVB bulb for now. See your vet for more information.

She has no swelling around her neck at all, she’s just throwing herself around when she walks, and has less interest in food. Though she has always been VERY girthy. My mom jokes all the time that she’s fat, but she just looks like she has a lot of meat on her. She was very skinny when I first brought her home. But no, no swelling around the neck at all.
 
Jackson's that get over supplemented tend to get gular edema or a swelling in the neck area. Jackson girls like their meals. If she skips a few right now that wouldn't be a bad thing.
 
Jackson's that get over supplemented tend to get gular edema or a swelling in the neck area. Jackson girls like their meals. If she skips a few right now that wouldn't be a bad thing.

How long should I keep her UVB bulb off? And how long do you think she should hold off on full meals? She still has so much energy, and is trying so hard to bulldoze around her cage but she’s just bobbing and weaving everywhere. Even when she tracks a cricket, and tries to catch it there is instability in her neck area. Her head bobs up and down like she can’t hold herself steady. She still have so much strength in her arms in legs, just no balance.
 
That is hard to say. I would continue as long as she shows improvement and not restart normal husbandry until she is normal for several days. If she doesn't begin to normalize quickly she will need more care than you can give her at home. The excess D3 can make her calcium levels do some extreme things so you will have to watch her closely. She will still need a basking light to help her metabolize the excess and hydration to support her organs.
 
That is hard to say. I would continue as long as she shows improvement and not restart normal husbandry until she is normal for several days. If she doesn't begin to normalize quickly she will need more care than you can give her at home. The excess D3 can make her calcium levels do some extreme things so you will have to watch her closely. She will still need a basking light to help her metabolize the excess and hydration to support her organs.

Thank you very much. I appreciate all your help. It truly means the world to me. I’ll keep the thread updated if you wish to know how she’s doing and how she’s recovering. Thank you again.
 
I definitely push fluids on any cham whose been showing signs of vitamin toxicity so i tend to increase mistings and durations. It will seem like a lot but jacksons naturally need a lot of water and humidity anyway so she will need a lot to hopefully help flush her system i agree with all that @JacksJill has recommended. Its going to be a tough ride for a bit but hang in there and dont be afraid to go to the vet if things dont get better.
 
Yes, please do.

This morning she seems to be doing 100 times better. She’s still a bit wobbly but no where near as much as she’s was yesterday and the night before. See’s moving around a lot more steadily.

Yesterday I hydrated her ALOT. I gave her at least three showers. (Put her on a plant inside my bathtub and sprayed her with the mist function on my removable shower head) for 5-10 minutes each.

She has an issue with “lock jawing” me when I try to give her water, so I have to drip it spray water in her mouth when ever she opens it. (To eat, when she’s too hot, when she yawns, etc) She’s never really drank water from a leaf or volunteily from the bottle, unless she’s eating something prior to me spraying her. But she drank a lot yesterday.

Her normal mistings in her cage have increased as well, they used to last how ever long until she and her cage was saturated. Now I mist her directly for 5-10 minutes, and then the whole cage until it’s completely saturated.

She ate a third of a meal last night. (Two dusted crickets without D3 and a slice of apple.)
 
Have you done your homework on the anatomy inside a chameleons mouth? They can easily drown if you put the water in the wrong part of her mouth.
 
Have you done your homework on the anatomy inside a chameleons mouth? They can easily drown if you put the water in the wrong part of her mouth.

I have, thank you. I don’t let anyone else water her because of that reason. Normally once she’s gotten some in her mouth she gets the idea that it’s drinking time and will drink on her own. It just takes a bit of encouragement.
 
I have, thank you. I don’t let anyone else water her because of that reason. Normally once she’s gotten some in her mouth she gets the idea that it’s drinking time and will drink on her own. It just takes a bit of encouragement.
Just making sure, someone killed theirs a couple weeks ago because they didn’t read up on it first...
 
I wrote a thread on how to medicate a chameleon it also works when force feeding water with my Jackson girl Hope. I do a lot of rehbbing so force feeding and watering is a thing here often in the first few months of their stay. If you arent dripping it on their nose you have to put an oral syringe all the way to back of their mouth and in the beginning of their throat. I only do water in extremely small amounts because of how thin it is. Food and medications i allow larger amounts of. For an adult jacksons female i would never do over 1/4 of a unit or .35-
.4 cc in one sitting.
 
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