Mouth rot! Need help

So we took an elderly tortoise to the vets today with a purple tongue which is a sign of mouthrot. The inexperienced vet yanked Charlie's head from out of his shell incorrectly and looked in his mouth as we were going to get his beak trimmed as it is overgrown..... She said it was fine.... . We decided to take him to a vet that knows what there doing.... Anyway she said that it was a sign of mouthrot and gave us iodine and said scrub his mouth with it which is the right thing to do. She gave us no antibiotics and no other advice.... Can anyone suggest what to do and how to dilute the iodine?
Thanks
Joel Devine

Clean and sanitize everything, then dilute the betadine in water and make a dark "tea". Not coffee dark. Take the corner of a wash cloth or QTips to paint on the beak every 8-12 hours for at least a week.

It's usually a Pseudomonas infection. Can lead to respiratory infection if not treated quickly. Sounds like you are on top of it, so no worries!


Sandy
.......................................
Oregon Tortoise Rescue

In my opinion, you also need to take a Q-tip and swab the tongue twice a day with the diluted Betadyne. And that beak DOES need to be trimmed. An overgrown beak sometimes leads to mouth rot.

I agree, but how would you get him to let you do that?


Sandy
.......................................
Oregon Tortoise Rescue

how is your tortoise doing? how were you able to get its tongue out to clean? any other recommendations?