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[TheReptileKing]

Metabolic Bone Disease (MBD or Avitaminosis): Caused by insufficient diet (lack of a variety of healthy foods), lack of food supplementation with calcium and vitamins made specifically for reptiles, and lack of full spectrum flourescent lighting in the enclosure. Indications: softening of the bone, loss of teeth, repetitive bone fractures, paralysis, convulsions, digestive problems, skin changes (such as loss of color, spots, cracks), shedding problems, eye problems (including clouding and swelling) and various other infections of the skin and internal organs.

Vitamin Excess (Hypervitaminosis): Anyone under the impression that pumping your lizard full of vitamins is doing it a favor is totally wrong! Too many vitamins can be fatal. Dosages that are consistently too high can sometimes lead to damage as serious as that caused by not enough vitamins. Excessive Vitamin D can cause the onset of calcification of the arteries and uncontrollable bone and cartilage growth can occur. Too much Vitamin A can cause uncontrollable bleeding in the internal organs. Check the label of your vitamins for proper dosage; if you're unsure, check with your veterinarian.

Digestive Problems: Improper diet can sometimes lead to diarrhea and similar digestive disturbances. Injuries to the tongue and upper jaw where the taste and olfactory organ (Jacobson's organ) is located make the animal incapable of finding its own food. Any diet issues should be discussed with your veterinarian when a change in diet is required.

Gastritis and Enteritis: Gastritis is an inflammation of the stomach lining and enteritis is an inflammation of the intestines. It can sometimes occur at the same time your animal has mouth rot. Affected lizards can have simple inflammation of the gastric and intestinal mucous membranes, to widespread abscesses and swellings or ulcerations. Typical symptoms include vomiting of half-digested food and soft (diarrhea-like), foul-smelling feces, combined with a yellowish white mucus. Sometimes there are also traces of fresh blood in the urates. A bacteriological exam by your vet will need to be performed.

Egg Binding: Causes can include poor housing conditions, stress, activity of cagemates and lack of suitable egg-laying sites. Unfortunately, egg-binding is often only diagnosed during a necropsy (animal autopsy). If a female animal exhibits swelling in the cloacal region or a cloacal prolapse egg-binding could be the cause. If this is the case, only surgery will save the animal.

Shedding Problems: Problems with shedding can easily be avoided by offering a varied diet, proper care for the particular animal, and adequate bathing facilities.Even these cannot prevent an occasional problem with shedding. Retained sheds can cause various skin diseases such as scale rot. If you notice some shedding problems in your animal, you can help dislodge the old skin with warm baths (not over 80 degrees F) and by using pure Aloe Vera gel on the affected areas. Never try to remove the remaining skin by force as this usually leads to inflammation. Be careful around the eyes, and if the problem persists, leave it to your veterinarian.

Tail Breaks: Most lizards are autotomous; they have the ability to "lose" a portion of their tail if threatened. Tail breaks can also occur when owners aren't careful about how they handle their lizards. Not all lizards have the ability to regenerate the tail once a portion has been lost. If the break occurs in the bottom two-thirds of the tail, healing can begin quite rapidy and blood loss will be kept to a minimum. Watch the area of the wound and apply a thin layer of antibiotic ointment when needed and keep the wound clean. Any regeneration that occurs may or may not resemble the original part. Breaks that occur in the upper third of the tail (closest to the body) can be potentially dangerous. This type of break usually involves dramatic blood loss and will require cauterization and/or stitches by your veterinarian.

Worm Diseases: Worms are invertebrate animals that live parasitically in a host animal. They can include flukes, tapeworms, and spiny-headed worms. Many of these go through several stages of development while inside your animal and infected areas change when the stages change. To treat worms properly, a fecal exam must be performed by your veterinarian. First, this will determine what type of worms (if any) are infesting your animal, and second, proper medications can be prescribed and administered. Fecal exams should be performed regularly on all your animals, mine all get one at least once a year.

Mites and Ticks: Mites are small spider-like animals with four pairs of legs and biting or sucking mouth parts. Reptiles in general are typically infested with "blood mites" (Ophionyssus) that settle in the armpits, joint areas, base of the tail, around the eyes, in the vent area and underneath the scales. They are reddish-brown in color and if left untreated can cause skin damage and also transmit many other bacteria . They live under most and warm conditions and reproduce rapidly. If you notice your reptile rubbing or scratching along rocks and branches and it is spending an unusually long time in their water container these could be signs of a mite infestation. Examine your animal closely looking for the mites. There are several products on the market made specifically for eradicating mites. Again, call your veterinarian for the best advice on treating your particular animal and it's environment. Ticks are most often found on wild-caught animals or animals housed outside. They are removed easily by first dabbing their body with rubbing alcohol, waiting a few minutes, and then gently but steadily pulling them free with tweezers. Don't jerk them off; you want them to come off with their mouthparts intact. Dab a small amount of alcohol on the puncture mark left after removal.

[queenslair]

I want to add that a higher ratio of 2:1 of calcium to phosphorus is Hypercalcemia or nutritional secondary hyperparathyroidism.

[TheReptileKing]

Thanks for the info, heres some more information:

The causes of hypercalcemia or excessive blood levels of calcium are fairly well established in animals as well as man. In reptiles, they may include:

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Excessive absorption via the GI tract
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Parathyroid hormone excess (often due to malignancies in the gland)
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Malignancies with bone involvement
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Hyperthyroidism
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Animal protein ingestion in herbivorous lizards
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Vitamin D and vitamin A intoxication (vitamin D in high doses produces excessive bone resorption as well as increased intestinal absorption of calcium.

Hypercalcemia in turn causes bone defects, cardiac changes, shock, renal hypertension and failure and death at especially high levels. Bone defects and cardiac involvement may not be apparent to the iguana owner until the condition is well advanced. Once shock and renal failure set it, it is usually too late.

The best way to avoid hypercalcemia is to not go overboard on vitamin supplementation, including supplementing D3 through oral vitamins. The best way to provide D3 is through regular access to natural, unfiltered sunlight (that is, sun not shining through glass, plastic or dense screen). When regular exposure to direct sun is not possible, then regular exposure to UVB-producing fluorescent lights, with the reptile no more than 18 inches away (and ideally within 12 inches) from the unfiltered tube is required. Finally, if you have an herbivorous lizard such as Giant Green Iguanas (Iguana iguana), desert iguanas (Dipsosaurus), dab lizards (Uromastyx), and prehensile-tailed skinks (Corusia), do not feed them any animal protein.

Nutritional secondary hyperparathyroidism (NSHP): The causes for NSHP can be multiple, but it is mostly due to a severe imbalance of the Ca:P ration in the diet, no access to a full spectrum (UV-B) light source and a lack of activated vitamin D3 or a combination of the above. If not enough Ca is provided in the diet or if no vitamin D3 is available, demineralization of the skeleton (osteomalacia in adults and rickets in juveniles) occurs. Pathological fractures and chronic abscesses, especially around the jaw, are common findings.

If insectivorous reptiles are being fed invertebrates without Ca supplementation (e.g. gut loading the insects, dusting with powder) NSHP is triggered by the inverted ratio of the Ca:P ratio of the insect body's nutritional content.