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RE: Sick Spotted Turtle

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Posted by: erico at Mon Aug 29 11:08:41 2005  [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by erico ]  
   

The swollen eyes are often a secondary symptom of a respiratory infection, rather than a local eye infection. There is a duct area just behind the eyes that swells with infection and causes the eyes to protrude and close. It can be caused by vitamin A deficiency, but this is uncommon in an adult on a reasonably good supplemented diet. Get to a good herp vet. Sometimes they advertise reptile knowledge in the yellow pages. There are listings on his site and other web sites- use your browser. Better yet, ask someone at your local or regional herp society, also listed on this site). The probable drug therapy will be amikacin at 10mg/kg of total body weight given by injection every other day for six doses, or Baytril (enrofloxacin)at 10mg/kg for about 5 days or so. Do NOT let a herp-ignorant vet talk you into using any of the penecillins or cefazolin-type drugs. They are useless in most situations. The usual injections site is a shallow injection with a 25-gauge needle and a 1-cc tuberculin syringe (so you can calculate small doses better) in the loose skin area between the front leg and the bridge of the shell. The vet will probably give you a loaded syringe with dosage volume info and have you do the antibiotic course yourself.
You can confirm respiratory infection by causing the turtle to withdraw its head quickly (push its nose)while holding it near your ear. If you hear a wet, bubbling or crackling sound, respiratory disease is probable. The normal sound is a smooth clear hiss.
P.S. If it is diagnosed as vit. A defficiency, this can be ameliorated by a very carefully calculated vitamin injection, although some experts believe this route causes an overly luxuriant overall skin growth with exfoliation and prefer administering an oral supplement through a feeding tube, a very difficult procedure wth some risk of passing it into the airway if improperly threaded down the throat. Good luck in finding a vet.


   

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