swollen legs, maybe gout maybe mbd need help

vette4life04

New Member
Chameleon Info:
Your Chameleon - male Jackson chameleon, a little over a year old
Handling - maybe once a week
Feeding - most gets fed crickets and every once in a while some super worms or a wild caught praying mantus. usually once every day or other day. crickets are gut loaded with the flukers products. the orange cubes and the gut load dry food.
Supplements - he gets calcium on his crickets with every feeding and calcium without d3 twice a month
Watering - he has an automatic sprayer, which runs every hour for two minutes. yes hes seen drinking off of the leaves.
Fecal Description - color and consistency looks normal, his urate is generally white if not offwhite. never seen it to be orange...
History - ive dealt with some mouth rot but that was about a year ago.

Cage Info:
Cage Type - screen 4 x 2 x 2 cage
Lighting - I have a compact reptisun 5.0 and an 18inch reptisun 5.0 also have a regular incadesent bulb and two heat coils. lights are on from around 7 am to 7 pm
Temperature - top of the cage is usually around low 80s during the day and 70s at night. I have a zoomed temp/humidity controller that maintains the temp level
Humidity - humidity is usally at 95% and doesn't drop below 60. maintained by the sprayer and a fogger if needed, although the fogger is rarely used.
Plants - I have a large pothos plant inside.
Placement - the cage is upstairs in a loft...
Location - in Victorville desert area

Current Problem - today in the morning I found him laying on the floor of his enclosure. upon inspection, I noticed that both his back legs are swollen and he doesn't really use them to grip. hes been really lethargic and not really eating. I had to force feed him this morning. he just kind of lays on the branches without really gripping on anything. it also looks like he has a bit of mouth rot on the sides of his mouth.

I replaced his uvb bulbs today with new ones. gave him some water and took him to a vet. the vet said his jaw was soft and his calcium was low. he gave me some antibiotic, not sure of name, but not baytril. he also recommended giving him neo-cal and sunshine factor.... that's pretty much it. looking for some help. really concerned. attached is a picture of his enclosure and one of his legs... please help
 

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get some calcium glubionate, hopefully one of our smarter jackson folks can help with dosage. also get some feeders that are high in cal, like phoenix worm and butterworm
 
Where can I find calcium glubionate? No sure where to find pheniox worms or butter worms. Ill see what I can find thanks
 
first off- are you seeing a herp vet?

if he said there was something wrong with the jaw and didnt even inject calcium gluconate or give you calcium glubionate for oral consumption than you should probably look into a new vet.


ALSO I NOTICED-
Supplements - he gets calcium on his crickets with every feeding and calcium without d3 twice a month

you give him calcium with d3 everyday? or am i reading that wrong?


This is also strange-
Humidity - humidity is usally at 95% and doesn't drop below 60. maintained by the sprayer and a fogger if needed, although the fogger is rarely used

Not trying to sound rude but i can see your enclosure and i can easily say that there is no way its at 95% humidity. You need to invest in a digital hygrometer that has a humidity accuracy of +/-2% at the VERY least it should have an accuracy of +/-5%
 
I'm sorry I got the calcium switched... he gets cal without d3 with every feeding and with d3 twice a month.... they gave him some fluids and the vet wanted to give him some other sups but its out in the middle of the sticks and he didn't have a whole lot available to him unfortunately. I want to take him some where else but because of the holiday there's not a lot of places open...

The hydrometer I have is digital and I have a second analog one.... both of which I checked for accuracy using the salt test and they're where they should be... they're usually above 75 to 80 percent.... everything drys out between sprays... so I dunno... as far as I know the humidity seems where it should be....
 
I really don't understand how it's that high when I have 4 times the foliage and and I live in Washington state and my enclosures are usually 54-56 on average and 65 at peak.
Your humidity should sit at around 58% to be safe and shouldn't really shouldn't sit anywhere past 80 for a long period.
 
Thats what I'm thinking..... I just thought it would be weird if both were broken at the same time. He still moves them both and uses them.... so I'm hoping its just an infection... if it doesn't get better in a few days ill take him to a better herp vet... the antibiotic he's on is called flagyl and he takes .25 ounce once a day. Anyone heard of flagyl?
 
I really don't understand how it's that high when I have 4 times the foliage and and I live in Washington state and my enclosures are usually 54-56 on average and 65 at peak.
Your humidity should sit at around 58% to be safe and shouldn't really shouldn't sit anywhere past 80 for a long period.

His ambient humidity could be higher than yours, a different setting on his AC than yours, a smaller room, etc...

There are a ton of variables that could come into play here.

For example, my cham room stays at an ambient of 75% with no misting or fogging. When I mist, 95%+ for a couple of hours easy.

Just some thoughts.
 
Thats what I'm thinking..... I just thought it would be weird if both were broken at the same time. He still moves them both and uses them.... so I'm hoping its just an infection... if it doesn't get better in a few days ill take him to a better herp vet... the antibiotic he's on is called flagyl and he takes .25 ounce once a day. Anyone heard of flagyl?

My vet once had me use Flagyl for parasites and another time to try to get one of my reptiles to eat that had been off food for awhile. I do believe it can also be used for infections.
 
humidity

My house humidity without a humidifier or me even spraying my chams is 62-65%. I had no live plants or aquariums and ran 2 air filters. there are also 2 HUGE floor fans that run 24hrs. i like ambient noise. i checked my house constantly for weeks before i brought my first cham home. now with mistings, live plants, aquariums (2), monsoon rs400 (2), and reptifogger (2). It stays pretty much the same except for the target location of the chams cage (15 of them).
 
His ambient humidity could be higher than yours, a different setting on his AC than yours, a smaller room, etc...

There are a ton of variables that could come into play here.

For example, my cham room stays at an ambient of 75% with no misting or fogging. When I mist, 95%+ for a couple of hours easy.

Just some thoughts.

Washington state has one of the highest humidty levels year round. I live in one of the most humid areas. However I did not take room size into condsideration or AC because no one in Washington really has AC we just keep our windows and doors open.
 
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