Help (swollen cheek and eye)

[Mina Adel]

My turtle is sick.
She has a swollen check
Her eye is swollen too.

 

[Sara G.]

Is she with another turtle by any chance? Or are there any fish in her tank?
Do you have pics of the enclosure?

 

[Yvonne G]

The swelling on the side of her head is a tympanic abscess. It needs to be lanced. What you see from the outside is only half of it. The other half is impeding her swallowing. The ear abscess isn't life threatening, but it has to be seen to.

 

[mark1]

his eye does also appear swollen ..... as Yvonne posted earlier , the ear needs opened up and flushed out ....I would think a round of antibiotics would be a real good idea ...... I think what's wrong with your turtle is most often caused by a husbandry issue , the cause will need treated also ....

 

[TampaERDoc]

The animals has an abscess that needs to undergo incision and drainage. If you are comfortable with this, you can pick up a disposable #15 blade, apply betadine to the area and make one very small jab incision. The pus will be expressed this way and the infection will likely resolve. If you are uncomfortable with this, please visit your vet asap. Also, please make sure to use a new unopened scalpel and betadine.

 

[Lyn W]

Poor thing, hope he's better soon. I would let a vet treat it in case antibiotics are needed.

 

[mark1]

a vet could also anesthetize the turtle , or at least inject a little lidocaine ........... I’ve only dealt with this twice on newly acquired turtles , so I’m not that familiar with it , although one of these two cases took 4 or 5 tries to get rid of it , so actually I’ve seen it fail more than I’ve seen it work ….. from my limited experience just lancing it may not be enough . it seemed to me the “pus” inside the abscess is not like pus you would normally think of , it’s not runny at all , it has the consistency of wax , it can be pretty solid , and it will need physically removed and the ear canal flushed out with an antibiotic ……….. I can tell you in the harder case I kept the turtle (a blanding’s) in wet sphagnum moss and about a half an inch of water for 2 weeks , only putting him in water deep enough he could submerge his ear when he ate , and applied gentamicin daily ……

 

[Yvonne G]

Yes. If you don't get it clean - get all the pus out - it keeps coming back.

 

[TampaERDoc]

I actually try not to use injectable anesthetic even on humans with same condition as there is little blood supply to the area and thus very hard to anesthetize. In other words, I often inflict more pain in trying to achieve anesthetic effect versus one quick stab incision. If anything, ethyl chloride probably works best and is nice to have around the house anyway and is over the counter. I use it for human kiddos for IVs or a quick abscess incision and drainage. You can purchase off of Amazon (http://tinyurl.com/zcpbhaw). As someone mentioned above, the key is to irrigate the abscess after incision is made to ensure you get all infection out. If you accomplish this, antibiotics are probably not needed. Obviously, doing all of this or any of this depends upon your level of comfort and integration of medical management in your husbandry routines.

 

[mark1]

in the first pic and third ,the turtles left eye appears to be swollen ,imo ,that would be a reason for me to do the antibiotics , I do tend to be proactive , working on this guys ear will be stressful on him , we all know what stress can do to these guys ......... here's a video , it's a trick to work on a turtle , let alone their ears , especially when your hurting them and they're awake , the one in the video was anesthetized ......a scalpel around a struggling turtles head eyes and neck , and an inexperienced first time attempt just doesn't sound like a good idea ....... you'll see what comes out of this guys ear is not something that will just drain out on it's own , I doubt your gonna poke a hole and cure him ........... not many folks I know should be doing this at home .........

.....

 

[Yvonne G]

I have done this many times with no anesthesia. It is painful, but no more than ripping off a tightly adhering piece of tape. Once you've made the incision, no more pain. And if you hold the animal behind his jaws so he can't retract, you get it over and done in just a minute or two.

I like to make an "X" rather than a horizontal slice. The X allows drainage better. Once the skin is cut, the pressure that has built up forces the pus out.

In the video they didn't make the incision large enough. If they had cut a longer slice, they wouldn't have had that much trouble getting it cleaned out.

 

[Mina Adel]

I did the operation .. I hope she will be okay.
How long will she take to heal the incession?

 

[Mina Adel]

a vet could also anesthetize the turtle , or at least inject a little lidocaine ........... I’ve only dealt with this twice on newly acquired turtles , so I’m not that familiar with it , although one of these two cases took 4 or 5 tries to get rid of it , so actually I’ve seen it fail more than I’ve seen it work ….. from my limited experience just lancing it may not be enough . it seemed to me the “pus” inside the abscess is not like pus you would normally think of , it’s not runny at all , it has the consistency of wax , it can be pretty solid , and it will need physically removed and the ear canal flushed out with an antibiotic ……….. I can tell you in the harder case I kept the turtle (a blanding’s) in wet sphagnum moss and about a half an inch of water for 2 weeks , only putting him in water deep enough he could submerge his ear when he ate , and applied gentamicin daily ……

I squized it .. i think it is clean now. I put gentamicin cream on it.
Do I have to put her in water !!! I put her in a dry box ! !

 

[Meganolvt]

This is usually due to a Vitamin A deficiency so her diet probably needs to be changed.

 

[Yvonne G]

I keep them dry docked for 23 hours a day for about 4 or 5 days. You can put her back in the water for an hour a day to eat and poop, then bring her back to the dry dock and dry and apply the meds again.

 

[Mina Adel]

What meds?
I only put gentamycin cream
No more betadine
I squized the abcess again and I found white blood cells not pus .. is that good ?

 

[mark1]

i'd keep the gentamicin on it until I put it back in the water ................ I've "dry docked" very young aquatic turtles in wet sphagnum moss and belly deep water for long periods of time without stressing them out .............

 

[Mina Adel]

The wound doesn't heal .
The pus refilled again .come back again.

the wound partialy healed but I think their is pus in their because it is slightly bigger still than normal

 

[Sara G.]

I would suggest a trip to the vet then if the wound isn't healing right.

 

[Mina Adel]

I wish u can .. no vets here for tortoises .. I did that inceasion myself.. to discharge that abscess. . I think I made it bigger than enough. .