Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Rescued an old sick hog island. Vet gave her countless doses of mostly fortaz over several months, noisy breathing would seem to get better and worse again. Printed a copy of the boaphile post about tylosin for the vets but they still thought it was bacterial and wanted to use normal antibiotics. Went to oral ciprofloxacn and metronidazole for last month or so. Condition has deteriorated to sunken black sores at the nostrils and the mouth is open again. I have a tub of tylosin powder because my dog was on it. I have oral dosing equipment, so can I give the recommended 50mg/kg orally?!? I already tried it, just not sure if it's supposed to work or not. Or are secondary infections too far along for Tylosin to do any good? I'm afraid I'll have to put her down, any advice appreciated.

I've used Tylosin I.V. and had some good results

Spoke to my Vet and she mentioned Tylosin Orally is an option

So its a worth a try I suppose

Another medication that has proven helpful for me is

Liquamycin - LA-200

The directions for use I was given are

2 shots 2 days apart. .5cc for every 5 pounds

You can purchase both Tylosin and LA-200 over counter at live stock Feed type stores

Good Luck

. . . Lar M
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Boas By Klevitz
Boas By Klevitz

My guess is that if your local vet can't get it right with the benefit of multiple medications at hand, diagnostic skills, years of training, and examining the animal, I don't think we will be able to solve it here on the forum.
I think people can give you anecdotal advice on what has worked for them but I think it's a lot more complicated than that.
Maybe your animals is just too far gone by the time you got to it. It seems to me reptiles are kind of slow to respond to treatment. Maybe the right agent hasn't been selected or you are not getting the right delivery and or pharmacokinetics( dosage, penetrance, etc..).
If the vet did not do a swab of the secretions (which may or may not be the pathogenic organism) then he has most likely performed emperic treatment based on the most common organism.
Also be careful because you can also create toxicity with all these different drugs in different combinations.
Good luck...I guess what I am saying is you have tried your best. Hope that helps.
Andy

Tylan, or tylosin, is a macrolide class antibiotic that is mainly effective against only gram positive bacteria. It has been used successfully to treat chronic RI in reptiles caused by bacteria of the genus Mycoplasma and possibly Streptococcus (rarely). Tylosin will usually work well only if the causative organism of the RI is Mycoplasma, otherwise it will usually be ineffective in resolving most other types of bacterial infections in reptiles. Tylosin is relatively non-toxic and has a wide margin of safety, and I have seen dosage recommendations running from 10 to 50 mg/kg body weight, however, I have not seen any formal clinical PK studies conducted with tylosin on reptiles, but Ross, and later Jenkins, has looked at it informally.

The vast majority of RI’s in boids are caused by gram negative bacteria species and these would require cephalosporin, fluoroquinolone, or aminoglycoside class antibiotics. You have already tried cephalosporin class (fortaz) and fluoroquinolone class (ciprofloxacin) antibiotics. While tylosin is a macrolide class antibiotic, and would only be effective on Mycoplasma bacteria species, it is worth a try. If you do not see any improvement in a week, and hopefully the infection is not too far advanced, you should try an aminoglycoside class antibiotic which is usually highly effective in these types of cases where apparent multiple antibiotic resistance is suspect. Amikacin would be the best choice from this class. It is typically dosed at 2.5 mg/kg at 72 hour intervals, however use this only under vet supervision.

The other issue with antibiotic treatment is proper environmental conditions for optimum effectiveness of any antibiotic regime. This would be 70 to 75% humidity and 90 degree cage temps 24/7 until recovery is complete. Also, always have fresh water that is easily accessible at all times. Good luck with her.

Kelly

I'll give the tylosin a try for a while since I have the stuff, not mixing with any other meds except neosporin. If tylosin doesn't work it'll be back to the vet to try amikacin. I'll post how it turns out.