Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Dear all,
My baby tortoise has been suffering runny nose for 5 weeks. Here I attached a pic of the nasal mucous, the E.coli is used as size referrence. Could anybody tell me what kind of pathogen it is, and how to treat it? I appreciate your kindly assistance. Thank you so much!!!
Z

Forgot to mention that I have treated it with Terramycin Chloramphenical, Ampicillin without dramatic improvement. And it's eating pretty well during the treatment. Thanks,

Z

Have you consulted a vet? A vet with a lab or a vet who will send cultures out to a lab can ID the pathogen. Then the computer will spit out a list of antibiotics that will kill it.
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PHRatz

First off, are you a vet? Treating with all those antibiotics? What are you doing? Culture the sample, find out what it contains, what it's susceptable too, and go from there. Check your husbandry and target what may have triggered the infection.

Ian

(ps, you'll have to request a special "reptile" sensitivity, as the antibiotics commonly tested on the pathogen, as well as the ones you've been using, arn't often very usefull in herps.)

My guess is that he is a herper trying to learn and work with his subjects. I suspect it's not too much different than you or I.

He obviously has the drive and the equipment to seek out the knowlege he is looking for(althought this forum is a stretch for such a question but I've taken this route... usually with the same response). Is that a bad thing? I don't think so.

I didn't answer his post because I've never seen what he is looking at and it might have offered more information had it been stained.

Another guess is that he might be trolling.

>>First off, are you a vet? Treating with all those antibiotics? What are you doing? Culture the sample, find out what it contains, what it's susceptable too, and go from there. Check your husbandry and target what may have triggered the infection.
>>
>>Ian
>>
>>(ps, you'll have to request a special "reptile" sensitivity, as the antibiotics commonly tested on the pathogen, as well as the ones you've been using, arn't often very usefull in herps.)
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Ed @ Tortoise Keepers
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

See my above post if you'd like,(under Feb 4th).. nothing wrong with expanding what's in the ol' nog'n but experimenting with medications is not under the umbrella of even an avid herper. This is why I asked if this was a vet, since they obviously have easy ab access. It just didn't make sense, because the actions did not express those of a DVM.

Ian

Here are more pic of the pathogen with hemotoxylin staining. Although still hard to see the details, someone told me they are eukaryotic rather than prokaryotic due to the considerable size compared with E.coli. Any more helpful suggestions out there?

I'm a PhD candidate in a Biochemistry lab. Basicaly I have the access to amost any kind of antibiotics, antifungics,and antiseptics, as well as microscopes. I did follow a vet's suggestion, and was trying those antibiotics very carefully according to the articles on tortoisetrust.com. And I dont wanna take a risk to Baytril, due to the potential impairs to the bone/joint development of junior tortoises. I hope somebody can help me id the pathogen, so I could treat them more specifically.