foot injury/infection? (pic)

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Livingstone

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Hey guys,

I was checking on livingstone basking under his lamps today and as he was all sprawled out I could see clearly the bottom of his left hind foot. There was a pink circle about a 1/4" in diameter. I picked him up and straddled him perpendicular over my leg and had my wife snap a picture.

foot-injury_zpse4ea8cff.jpg


I can see that some of the scales have separated from the bottom of his foot leaving him with a raw spot. I have applied some Neosporin to try and kill any bacteria, but I wonder if another member has had first hand experience with a similar injury/infection?

Thanks.
 

Yvonne G

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What does the bottom of the other back foot look like? Sometimes they do a lot of digging and rearranging of their sleeping quarters and if the floor is rough, this may cause abrasions on the back feet.

Regular first aid is all you can do, except to try to figure out how it happened.
 

Livingstone

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Thanks guys. I already applied some neosporin to the area, the tough thing is that he's pretty active and I dont think it stays on for long. Im going to inspect his house for anything that could have done that and apply more ointment in the morning. I might clean his foot too. Maybe in some heavily diluted hydrogen peroxide solution, what do you think?
 

Katherine

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Ouch! That looks like more than wear and tear from digging to me, unless he is on some exceptionally unforgiving substrate and trying to dig in. If it were my tortoise I would probably rinse it and apply topical antibiotics (any maybe one with an analgesic too; as they can't really communicate discomfort to us) and keep an eye on it. It might serve you best to do that in the evenings when he is already 'parked' so the ointment actually stays put for a few moment. I do not think I would do much outside of that unless it began to look infected or felt warm to touch.
 

Livingstone

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Im applying it during the day and at night, Im going to rinse his foot tommorrow then Im going to cover it to protect it. Ill post pics of my tortoise boot when Im done.
 

dustee35

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If I was you and IMHO I would not put any peroxide on it. They have discontinued using peroxide in the hospital where I work because the did a study and found out that peroxide kills good tissue as well as the bad. Good old fashion soap and water and neosporin is still the best. Good luck with him. Deanna :)
 

Livingstone

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Thank you for the heads up about peroxide. After reading up on it, I am going to go with betadine and dilute it.
 

Yvonne G

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I've been thinking about this thread and wondering if you might have rats. Rats will do damage like this.
 

Katherine

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emysemys said:
I've been thinking about this thread and wondering if you might have rats. Rats will do damage like this.

I also thought of that initially! I might expect more peripheral damage like toes rather than the pad, but a rodent could certainly have done this.
 

cemmons12

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Looks ouchy. Cooper has broke off 3 of his spurs on his back legs so far, looks painfull but it don't seem to bother him any.
 

Livingstone

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I thought about rodents as a possible cause but have ruled it out because I think the damage was done by a lamp stand that was being anchored by a cinder block that doubled as a wall of his house near to where he sleeps. The other reason is that the damage is right in a high friction area of the foot, I checked the other foot and found that area to have the most wear, but unlike the left foot the right one was fine. I don't think a rat would waste time with the bottom of his foot when there are softer more accessible bits available (referring to the tubercles).
 

Livingstone

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Still healing. He's an active guy and therefore it's taking a while to heal, it does look infinitely better though.
 

KingInCulver

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what was your course of treatment? and did you determine conclusively what caused the injury? glad to hear he's doing better.
 
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