Reptile & Amphibian Forums

made the rounds of feeding tonight, and found the same old CB satanic of mine from february acting up again. doesnt look so much like complete loss of use of the hindlimbs as i originally thought.

so heres how it went tonight. the lil guy was sitting there just fine, jumping about the branches. didnt show an interest for food. kept an eye on it, seemed like it was a lil jumpy, but the hindlimbs worked fine. then, all the sudden as im feeding others i hear it squeaking, and look in to find it has its hind limbs curled/balled up like they're paralyzed again. then i even noticed it was aggressively biting its own legs. could this possibly be a seizure? i thought those usually result from calcium deficiency? ive always made sure to give it some varied calcium dust supplements with its crickets. i just cant figure this lil guy out...one day it acts fine, the next everything goes crazy again. what is going on here?
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-Mike Martin
North Carolina

the only thing i can relate to is having calcium deficiancy in a female crested. same thing you're describing but a bit worse with what looked like muscle spasms and spinal seizures ( i dunno what else to call them). Several days of boosting her with calcium and lots of food and she got better over a few weeks.

thats a shame Mike, I would also say either calcium problem or a lack of vitimin B can also cause muscle tremors and twitchy limbs. B complex helps the nervous system. I sure hope your little guy pulls out of this.

I remember how bummed you were about your little female last year!
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PHEve/ Eve

Contact PHEve

yea, that's the truth! she lasted a good 2 months before i finally decided that she wasnt going to get any better and it was time to put her to sleep.

now my question is, whats the best way to go about boosting calcium and other vitamins? i talked briefly with a guy a the SC reptile show today and he said it has the possibility of being a vitamin A pro/deficiency, which affects the nervous system. i obviously dont wanna lose this lil gem, so if some of you could gimme some useful advice it would be GREATLY appreciated.

thanks ahead of time.
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-Mike Martin
North Carolina

Hey Mike, I talked with Neil Meister about supplementations and he said to use Herptivite by Rep-Cal because many of the others have too much vitamin A for geckos. Herptivite doesn't have any vit A at all. What vitamin supplement are your using?

Mike

i actually just started using herptivite about 2 months ago when i decided to add more variety to my cricket dusting powders after my henkeli eggs kept cracking as they were laid. i talked at the reptile show yesterday with a guy from carolina specialty pets, and he said the both proficiency and deficiency in vitamin A can cause adverse nervous system reactions. i wish i was still in raleigh so i could go to the library, i know they must have a ton of books there covering such issues, at least in the vet med library.
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-Mike Martin
North Carolina

did I hear something about graduate school. Oh wait that was a about a library. just giving some flack there buddy. you know me I'm pushy about somethings.

I talked with a vet at my lab about your issue and she said because of its young age, there may have been a developmental problem given that it has happened a few times with that individual. She did say that vit. could be a culprit as there may have been too much or too little. she said it can cause issues with the nervous system developing in the egg. it may be too far done. just relaying what I was given. her expertise is primates though. hmmm... anyways. fyi thats all.

jason

well, theres definitely something wrong. remember this was the one that had the funky shorter than usual tail, but otherwise perfect one. was growing extremely fast too, almost to the size of those lil females i got from you back in feb. nevertheless, as sad as it makes me to see him hurting im gonna keep trying to work out the whole supplementation thing, because thats really what im pinning it on at the moment. at times he's fine, other times he wont stop biting himself. i really wish these lil things could talk. but im definitely gonna do the necropsy this time if he doesnt make it, since this is so similar to what happened last time i wanna pin down this problem so it doesnt come up anymore.

thanks for keeping a lookout for me. and ill get in touch one of these nights when my phone isnt actually dead for once.
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-Mike Martin
North Carolina