Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just noticed my daughter's two-year-old southern painted turtle has an ear abscess. I made a vet appointment for it this afternoon. What should I expect to happen? I know turtles get these fairly commonly, but what can we do differently to aviod them in the future. He is in a 40 gallon tank by himself with an Ehiem filter and all the proper lighting. Asy insight would be appreciated.

Julie

This happened to my RES. The vet lanced it and gave me ointment and shots to give to her for like 3 weeks.

Vet said this was very common in turtles who had poor water quality. I had not had her very long when this happened. Now that she is in turtle paradise, it has not happened again. How long have you had the turtle? You should probably look at all aspects of proper husbandry.

As for my baby, it took 2 or 3 months, but it completely healed. Even the patterns on her skin are perfect, not even the tiniest imperfection. Even on close inspection, you would never know that anything happened.

Good luck, and don't worry, things will most likely turn out okay.

analog2000

These are caused by an infection which builds up puss in the ear area. The best possible solution is to determine the cause of the infection and cure it (antibiotics, etc.) and to lance the abcess and remove the solidified puss if necessary. This is best done (according to some vets I trust) with a C shaped incision around the area, folding the skin back, and cleaning out the solidified puss then irrigating the area and packing it with antibiotic ointment. I've done this procedure several times and it works well.

I find that in hibernating turtles, right when they come up they will often develop an abcess. It's likely that the weakened animal has succumb to an infection before getting back to full strength and it may well defeat it on it's own and only need a cleaning of the abcess to help it along. It's not necessarily dirty conditions, but could be a weakening of the animal, or a combination of both that leads to a higher chance for infections to develope.

Due to the anatomy of the turtle's ear as well as stressors they face, this is a very common presentation.

We just recently put up an article on ear abcesses on our site:

Go to the main page (linked below) About half way dow the page - under newest web articles you will see a link to Ear Infections and Surgery in Terrapene - while the species is different the treatment will be the same.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS A PHOTO INTENSIVE PAGE AND MANY OF THESE PICTURES ARE GRAPHIC IN NATURE -- ALSO NOTE THAT THIS ANIMAL IS PROPERLY AND COMPLETELY ANESTHETIZED IN THIS SERIES OF PICTURES -- IF VIEWING PHOTOGRAPHS OF SURGERY IS DISTRESSING TO YOU DO NOT VISIT THIS PAGE.

Darrell

World Chelonian Trust

Those were very neat pictures. We got the abscess lanced and our turtle is doing much better. We have had him dry docked for a few days. His wound is healing nicely, so he is getting about an hour of swim time a day. He is getting a Baytril injection every three days. I don't think he is every going to forgive me for keeping him out of his tank. Thanks for the info.