Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Anyone with experience in this, please help.

Our 4-year-old ornate boxie has not been herself lately. About two weeks ago, we noticed a significant swelling/lump around her right front leg. Our local vet took an x-ray, and initial biopsy, and diagnosed giant cell carcinoma, with a poor prognosis. Post-biopsy, the swelling increased to the point where her head was almost resting on her left front shoulder, and she could barely move her leg, but has since improved.

About a week after the initial diagnosis, the vet called back and said that the veterinary college in Guelph Ontario had a look at the cytology slides, and suggested that it may in fact be a granuloma, possibly tubercular. The vet took a second biopsy for mycoplasma tuberculosis staining, but the results aren't back as yet. In the meantime, our boxie has started eating again, and the mass seems to be getting softer and smaller. The vet also started her on a shot of antibiotics.

Sorry for the long story, but we are interested in hearing from anyone with similar experience, or knowledge of this. Our vet seems to know her stuff, but I'm afraid that this situation has appealed to her scientific curiousity, as well as to that of the veterinary college at the university of Guelph. We don't want to put our little girl through a lot of pain and stress just to provide a research paper for them. However, we are willing to do anything, at any cost, to keep her with us. We are seeking more information, outside of that provided by the vet, because we feel that she may be motivated by curiousity, as well as compassion. Any help would be appreciated by us, and by Pokey!

I see no reason why your turtle can't be given the best, most humane care possible and still satisfy the interest of science: perhaps by finding out what your vet would LIKE to do, and then finding out what actually NEEDS to be done, you can move closer to finding a course of treatment that is minimally traumatic.
I'm not clear as to why as much of the mass as possible was not removed at one time, though, since ongoing visits and proceedures are very stressful.
Two years ago I rescued an Eastern from a construction site, who had the beginnings of an ear infection.Our vet performed the necessary proceedure, cultured the pus, & we diligently gave Hector his medication, and overwintered him indoors.
In the meantime I found out the a regional Veterinary school was conducting research on ear infections in wild turtles, so I wrote to them, thinking that they might be interested to know about Hector, but since I did not want to ship him to the school so that they could euthanize him (internal organ study etc.), I arranged with our vet to send any and all medical information to them, including culture results, antibiotics used, dosages thereof, and I even returned to the spot where I had found him to collect a soil sample, so that they could find out what pollutants he may have been exposed to. So, even though they didn't get the turtle, they hit the jackpot in many other ways.
Hector is now healthy, the vet still has our business and the Vet school got lots of info to supplement their research.
The most important issue is Pokey's health and wellbeing. and I hope he makes a full recovery.
Stephanie

I agree that humane care, and furthering the medical knowledge of Pokey's problem are not necessarily mutually exclusive. It's just knowing where to draw the line, and I have to rely on the vet for that.

Many thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts!

did the vet school publish a paper about wild turtles and ear infections? id love to see it.

Good question.
I suspect that the research may be ongoing, but I'll e-mail my contact there and find out for sure and let you know.

Regards,
Stephanie