Very Sick Veiled Chameleon

[Eggimations]

So I woke up this morning, went to check on him. He was acting a bit sluggish, and was not super interested in the food I offered him. (he eventually took it though) I had to leave for school shortly after, I was even late because I took extra time coaxing him to eat. After school I came home for about 10 minutes, then straight back to work until 9. Came back at about 9:30, and he was just clinging to a single branch really tightly not responding to anything and so just decided to leave him alone for a while and look up what was wrong with him but I hear a bump and he fell off of the cage and was twitching on the ground and then he stopped moving and his mouth lolled open and I thought he was dead but then his limbs started twitching and he started sorta moving again and now all he's doing is lying at the bottom of his cage asleep because i turned the light off and he's drunk some water from an eyedropper but doesn't react at all to visuals and will twitch if startled by sound or touch please help i'm a nervous wreck falling abpapart her.


Your Chameleon - Male Veiled Chameleon, 13 months old. I've had him for 10 months.

Handling - I handle him about 4 times a week, depending on his mood. He's cool about it as long as I don't touch him and bribe him with a cricket.

Feeding - I feed him petsmart crickets, which I gut-load with apples and orange fruit cricket feed stuff I generally give him 5-10 crickets a day, but I have been slacking off of that lately... was too busy and forgot to feed him the last few days, and previous feedings for the last two weeks have been sporadic.

Supplements - I feed him once a week with the regular calcium dust and twice a month with the D3 stuff

Watering - I have a dripper that I turn on occasionally but I mainly just mist him twice a day


Fecal Description Stool is always the normal brown, and his other stuff stuff the white stuff is white not yeyllow which is good right it means he's not dehydrated.

History - I really don't have no I don't know I'm just so worried it's overwheleming and I can hardly breath
s
Sorry for the bad writinghhh and stuff, I recently lost my brother and this little guy is the only thing that's been keeping em sane.

 

[sharp229]

I'm very sorry that you lost your brother and that your chameleon is not doing well

The best thing you can do right now is to take him to an emergency reptile vet if available. If you specify what state your in, someone may be able to recommend someone, or you can try looking at the links below:

https://www.chameleonforums.com/area-area-country-vet-list-32880/
https://www.chameleonforums.com/veterinarian-resources-67/

If there is no emergency vet available in your area, you should schedule an appointment as soon as possible with a good reptile vet that is experienced with chameleons.

Unfortunately those symptoms sound very severe, so he may not have long without help, so that should be your first priority above the forums.

Missing food a few times or even going for a week without food would not cause this problem unless he already had a pre-existing condition. Reptiles have a much slower metabolism, so they can survive with much less food than mammals.

Is it possible he was bitten by something like a spider? It may be an allergic reaction. If there are no vets available this time of night, you could try posting current pictures of him to potentially give a better idea of how serious things are.

 

[Eggimations]

Thanks for the info, unfortunately I'm in Canada and we don't have many good reptile doctors where I live. He's recovered quite a bit, now he just has the original symptoms of being unable to see. I'm assuming that when I thought he was dead, he had actually just gotten tired and fallen off. Actually, never mind. He had a second episode of death/twitching while I was trying to move him to a safer place. Maybe it's triggered by stress? I've done tons of research and I've found nothing on this, or why he'd be blind in the first place. He could see perfectly well this morning....

 

[Lazy Boy]

You didn't say anything about multivitamins. What multivitamin supplement do you use?

 

[Eggimations]

It's irrelevant now, he had two more episodes of twitching and eventually expired a few minutes ago.

 

[TheOtherOne]

It's irrelevant now, he had two more episodes of twitching and eventually expired a few minutes ago.

I am so sorry to hear that It seems like it came on pretty quick

 

[Eggimations]

I am so sorry to hear that It seems like it came on pretty quick

Yeah, I have no idea what caused it. There's no chameleon disease or supplement deficiency I know of that causes blindness and seizures so fast, and I spent all of last night trying to find out what was wrong. My best guess is that he was bitten by some spider or poisonous insect, and the blindness/seizures was a severe reaction to it.

He was a happy cricket gobbling grumpy faced chameleon just the day before.

 

[sharp229]

So sorry he didn't make it With it happening that fast though I don't think it was likely to be caused by a husbandry issue. It does seem likely that he was either bitten/poisoned by an insect, had an accident when you weren't there, or had some kind of internal issue like a hemorrhage. I am curious how you knew he was blind? Did he keep his eyes closed?

Again, I am very sorry for your loss and will be praying for you.

 

[Eggimations]

Well, I didn't know he was blind, but I was able to make a pretty good guess. He would cling tightly onto anything he could, as if he couldn't see where he was and never once moved his eyes in response to visual cues. I could wave my hand in front of his face, shine a flashlight near him... Nothing. All I ever got a response from was by either touching him or making a noise, and then he was always startled as if he had no idea I had been there.