Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My girlfriend's little sister has had her russian tortoise for about two years now. I was told today that the little sister was out playing in the yard with the tortoise, and suddenly her eyes became quite swollen and her parents had to rush her to the doctor. The doctor's only explanation for this was that something in the tortoise's saliva must have caused an allergic reaction!

Is this a bunch of BS? This family lives in Syracuse, NY, way upstate, and we are still flowering like crazy up here (winter lasts until about May, it seems). I'm convinced that her general allergies must have gotten the best of her.

Can one be allergic to tortoise spit? Please come forth with your advice and experiences. I would hate to see the little girl have to give up her tortoise for no reason.

Maybe I'm playing with my torts wrong... but I've never even gotten tort spit on me in all the years I've had them.

....now my llamas are a different story lol

I'd bet that with all the flowering stuff, some kinda plant got the kid's allergies fired up...not the tort.

Pamela

Reptiles are one of the few pets recomended when a person is sensitive to alergies. I've never heard of a case where a person was alergic to reptiles.
Ed

It can't be the tort. People develop new allergies to things they have been around there whole lives. I just now developed one to rye grass which is all around my town.

that would be highly unlikely. Besides the difficulty of getting tortoise saliva on you, being allergic to it is unheard of.

It is more likely that there was an insect that bit her, or some plant outdoors that caused the reaction.

My mother was bitten by some random kind of fly in Pennsylvania once. She didn't notice the bite much at all, but within minutes she went into anaphalactic (spelling?) shock and nearly died. Another time she was bitten by gnats, the tiny little bugs that buzz around your head, and had a similar but not as severe reaction. You can't even feel gnat bites.

The docs on both these hospital trips said that it was not so uncommon for insect bites to cause reactions, even from fairly common insects.