Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My collared is sick again. About 2 months ago she had URI (or what I thought was that), and was treated with injections of Baytril and then oral baytril. She seemed to get better, but has always had a problem with getting sand in her eye and not being able to get it out. She was displaying normal behavior until her eye gets sand in it, then she gets lethargic. She used to do the whacky eye thing to try to remove the sand, but not anymore. Her right eye is capable of opening up and clearing some sand, but her left eye is continually shut. She occasionally opens it very slightly and I can see her pupil, but she almost immediately shuts it again. She is getting lethargic and hasn't eaten in a few days. She is also ovulating, which the orange stripes recently. I'm worried this may be a combination of her ovulating and some other problem which is causing her eye to continually give her problems.

She is going to the vet today to check things out and I'm bringing along a fecal sample, and probably going to request a blood test as well. She also had a little injury on the very tip of her tail about a week ago where it was bleeding, but I used neosporin and eventually it stopped. Could she have contracted an infection?

Any help would be appreciated!

Well at this stage with her having issue's with sand I would recommend that you go with another substrate perhaps the reptile rugs.

Just got back from vet.

Told her everything. She said as far as ovulation, there shouldn't be a worry as far as the eggs because she has only been doing this recently and it would take a few months of staying this color to worry about eggs, but her ovulation might be stressing her out as well.

She said there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with her besides the eye problem, and the cut on the end of her tail didn't lead to any infection. She gave me Gentamicin Sulfate Ophthalmic solution to place a drop in both eyes every 24 hours. She is running the fecal and will get back to me by the end of the day.

I asked if she can perform a blood test and she would wait until after the fecal results are done and do a blood test afterwards because she is very stressed out right now.

A few minutes ago she gobbled a worm down, so thats good.

Other than that, I'm supposed to do this solution in her eyes for a week. I have the heat up and am in the process (again) of taking the sand out.
Q: Should I still provide a moist sand corner in her tank for her potential eggs if I'm removing the sand because it gets in her eyes?

So a blood test was done on my collared and everything looks normal, although there is an increase in phosphorus and calcium which the doctor said is an indication of egg production. She also has some signs of a parasite, I forget what name, but its in the blood and the doc said its not the kind of parasite that we should be worried about, that its normally there or something. She also said there is a slight increase in white blood cell count, but nothing extreme. So basically it looks normal besides the calcium/phosphorus amounts.

I've been treating her eyes with gentamicine sulfate for about a week now, her final drops will be tomorrow. They seem to be getting a little bit better, but not the bright and wide eyes I am used to seeing. Should I continue after a week? I also took her off sand and put paper towels down again, and she hasn't gotten anything in her eyes since that. She has moments where she's acting normal and running around and jumping and whatnot, then sometimes she just goes lazy and sleeps. She is eating well, she is gobbling some waxworms and some megaworms, and ate a cricket yesterday. I currently have pedialyte in place of her water.

What are my options now? The doc suggested giving another dose of Baytril, orally. She had baytril injections about a month and a half ago (mid december) for an URI. So we're going to do another 7 doses of Baytril, every other day, orally, and see what happens.

As far as her egg production is concerned, should I be putting sand in a container somewhere? I don't want to risk getting sand in her eye but at the same time should I be having a container of sand in there if she wants to lay her eggs? Or will she just be absorbing them back into her? She was ovulating last year and didn't lay any eggs, I'm not sure whether or not to worry this year.