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I currently own a 10 month old female panther chameleon. I am a bit concerned because I have noticed a swelling around her neck, and her body is slightly distended as well. Judging by the description, I am pretty sure it is edema. However I have read across the messageboards and websites, and now I am just confused! According to those sources, edema can be caused by both Hyper and Hypovitminosis. If anyone can shed some light on this matter would be greatly appreciated...

This is what I feed her:
She eats mainly crickets gutloaded with cricket gutload, which are fed fruits such as oranges(mostly) and strawberries as their moisture source. THese crickets are lightly dusted everyday with miner-all(I). They are dusted once a month with rep-cal herptivite multivitamin. She occasionaly takes superworms and wax worms. One thing I am thinking about is that I only stopped lightly dusting every other day with herptivite after finding about hypervitaminosis. This was 5 months ago.

She has dripping water source, reptisun 5.0 uv, and basking light source.

If anyone now can tell me if I am possibly feeding too much or too little vitamins, it would be helpful when I talk with the vet. Thanks so much in advance.

Sam

Edema is tricky and can be frustrating. It is not a disease in itself, rather a symptom of general metabolic imbalances or possible kidney problems. Was she wildcaught or ever checked for parasites? Sometimes parasites can cause some bloating. Even cbb chams should be checked periodically as some parasites are present in all feeder insects. Any chance that she is gravid? Many females develop some edema while gravid or shortly after. At 10 months she does not need calcium every other day unless she is gravid. Once a week is fine. Panthers can be sensitive to vitamins too, so again, unless she's gravid drop the vitamins to 6 weeks or even less. If you gutload really well the vitamin dusting will hardly be necessary. It's always safer to rely on a good gutload. Compare the gutload ingredients to the really great gutload recipe listed on www.adcham.com. It's about the best out there and it might show you where your own needs beefing up. If some of these things don't help or it gets worse, I'd suggest having an experienced vet check for kidney function. I have not had a cham with edema, so others may have better advice.

I use two kinds of calcium one with d3 which I only give once a week. The other without d3 which I also give once a week.
I tend to use rep cal calcium as I have heard of miner al causing edema if given too often.
You can try gutloading her crickets with cabbage for a while. It helped one of my females but took a few months. You can also gutload with watermelon which is a natural diuretic and might help. The iodine in the cabbage is supposed to help too. I would stop giving her calcium at all for a few weeks and see if that helps too. It is a hard condition to reverse once it starts since edema only means swelling and is a symptom of some other problem.
It can even be caused by heart and circulatory problems which can also be caused by too much calcium.
Good luck with her.