When to trust a vet's judgment? Dying tortoise :(

Homeschool Mom

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I'm thinking what TurtleBug described is probably what happened with Munchy. We don't know if he was wild caught or not. We don't know his age either. We adopted him as an adult from Turtle Rescue of Long Island and we didn't get much info, as they said they didn't have much info about his background when he was brought in. I said his shell was "rotting from the inside out" because that is the way I described it to my 8 year old son. Yes, his case of shell rot was severe since about 1/3 of his plastron needed peeling up and there was one area that was a rather deep "pit" going about 1/4" into his shell. A week into our soaking/medicating/bandaging treatment, another smaller area of his plastron, farther down towards his tail loosened and peeled up, but that one did not have any pits and the underlying tissue was still very firm with good color. It was just so shocking to me, because even having received the difficult news that his shell rot was so bad, he was responding great and his plastron was starting to look much better, his eating and activity level was going up to where it was usually during the summer. He had a clean bill of health in July for a check up, but we didn't run extensive testing at that time since he looked great. It just seems odd to me that he responded so well to the treatment for 2 weeks, only to dramatically drop to the point where he is now. I didn't mean to confuse anyone by starting a new post, I just thought the conversation was going to get rather lengthy for an intro and I wanted it to be in a thread others could recognize and read if they were wondering about their vet care as well. I know I get a lot of good info by reading threads other people pst.

I can post enclosure pictures another day. The enclosure he's in now is small, it's 3x2', we actually removed the upper level to prevent him from being able to climb while bandaged. I know we would get a whole new enclosure if we get another RT in the future. I'm thinking we would get a 125 gallon aquarium so it would hold moisture like a tote but be more practical for viewing by our kids and for being able to secure a lid on since we have other pets. It's hard to think about getting another pet right now, but Munchy belongs to our 8 year old son. Personally, I feel like throwing in the towel with reptiles, even though I enjoy them and successfully kept an iguana in the past. However, I don't want my discouraged attitude to be passed onto my son if he really loves reptiles and wants to have another. We will not rush into it though, I told him we will wait a couple months at least to ensure we can get a better setup and have time to think things through.

I was told by this new vet that if he has kidney stones they aren't treatable? I have to admit, I have never owned another pet with such conflicting information available about their care...

Thank you to everyone who took a minute to write a kind and encouraging word on here. It really has meant a lot to me to have a friendly place I can try work through these thoughts... We've had a very, very rough year with some family trauma and this situation with Munchy is heavy on my already hurting heart. I truly appreciate your kindness and willingness to take a moment to help.
 

Homeschool Mom

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I cannot remember if that's the name of the lady we coordinated adoption through or not, but, no I haven't contacted them regarding the current situation. Calling to say, "Hello, I adopted a RT from you and now he's dying in our care...." just isn't a conversation I feel emotionally ready to handle right now. I know how much they care about their torts because we talked a lot and I had to submit photos of our completed enclosure along with the adoption application. I don't know what more she can tell me that 2 exotic vets and this forum couldn't offer and I don't want to break her heart over it either.
 

Levi the Leopard

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Don't apologize for starting the new post.. That was the right choice! "Intro" threads are only read by certain people, so often type of thing.

When another poster was ?challenging?..if you'd call it that...my input and used a different thread to back it up, I was simply calling it to their attention that since I was unaware of any other info, my input here was based on solely the info given in this thread. Anyway, enough of that stuff..

Have you posted any photos of this tort or his plastron? I'd be curious to see it. Seems like I may be able to learn a thing or 2 here.

Again, I'm sorry you are going through this and as a mother, I feel for you with the kids too.
 

Tidgy's Dad

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All heartbreaking stuff, but It seems to me you've done everything you could.
Indeed by posting all of it on here and encouraging replies and opinions you may help save other tort lives in the future as others learn from your experience. Thank you for your courage and honesty.
 

BeeBee*BeeLeaves

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About the kidney stones. May I suggest one capful of raw, organic, unfiltered apple cider vinegar (I use Bragg brand) in about a quart of warm water. Shake lightly before using to get "the mother" dispersed. Soak twice a day, for three days, and then once a day. It may break up the stones, if that is what the tortie has. I did this with a CDT for a bladder stone. In about a week, or a few days more, gritty white pieces of crumbled calculi started to show up in the soak water. Took about a month of daily soaks to not see any at all, but when we went back to the vet, no surgery was needed. Surgery is so invasive -and the thought of the shell being cut in to - ugggh - so I decided on this. I know it works with humans. I also used human grade pre- and probiotics in his food and that seemed to help speed healing a lot. When I see a lot of nom-nom-nom, yum-yum, I know therapy worked. I open a capsule and sprinkled on top of water spritzed foods. This was all lay girl stuff, as I am not a scientist nor a tortie doctor. But, I do believe with the right support, healing can happen by the body itself, human or tortoise. Thought I would share in the hopes of it being of some help if you choose an alternative route.
 
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Homeschool Mom

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I was wondering about home remedies for kidney stones, but dismissed the thought since the vet had said they were untreatable. I have heard of people having success with either apple cider vinegar or lemon and oil concoctions, but wasn't sure if they'd be safe for an RT. Also, I can't find a picture of what his setup looked like before we disassembled and redid it to make it more suitable for his healing phase. Here are the basics that haven't changed, the cage itself is 3'x2'x3' and is wrapped on the exterior with plexiglass to help retain heat/moisture. The heat lamps (one is a PowerSun 100w for daytime use, one is a NightLight Red 60w 24 hour heat source), now inside the cage, used to be above the cage because there was a second level inside it. The moist substrate area has stayed in the same place, but used to have coconut coir and 20% sand, along with some sturdy fake plants to provide a hiding place near the back corner. We never had an issue with the sand and also didn't feed him in that area to avoid accidental ingestion. Where the cardboard box dry hide is now, there used to be a wooden dry hide that had a roof which served as a ramp to the upper level. This was removed when the upper level was removed to prevent him from climbing while healing. The upper level used to serve as his basking area and had a dry hide as well as a rock that served as his eating surface. He would move around between all three hides as well as chilling in the open areas of the cage. There were some flat, smooth and sandy grained rocks he would climb onto while going up toward the ramp and those helped keep his toenails a reasonable length. Temps in the cage now are a steady 70 degrees on the moist side and up to 95 degrees directly below his basking light on the right. When the second floor was in place, the basking area was around 100 degrees, and the moist hide area below it dropped down to about 68 degrees at night. Humidity now stays around 45% on the moist side according to my guage, but I'm not sure how accurate that is so I just check twice daily to ensure the sphagnum moss is moist but not wet and turn it and spray it to maintain that. If we do this again, or if this little guy pulls through against the odds, I want to get him a 125 gal tank so I can use the length of the cage to give him his temp range and also allow for deeper substrate. The sphagnum moss now is deep enough to cover him, but it seems to get in his eyes and stick all over him. I think he and I both preferred the coconut coir, because he could really dig, rather than just fluff it up and move it around, but for now we're avoiding that per vet to keep the smaller bits from working their way into his bandaging. I can try post some pics of his shell rot later when my husband is home to help me hold him. I'm warning you, it's not pretty. I wish I would have taken a pic before he had his appointment to debris the plastron, so I could show everyone how small the area of concern was... we thought he'd somehow caught it on a rock or something and it was a little scrape, about the size of an eraser and looked like a part just chipped suddenly. All the rest looked normal.... until the vet tried tugging on it and the thick outer shell flaked off :( I really wish I had more resources on preventing shell rot, as I had read so much about it being from too moist and hadn't realized it could have been carried along as a bacteria. If so, I probably would have opted for more aggressive testing when we first brought him in for a wellness check the week we adopted him.
 

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Homeschool Mom

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Hmm, I seem to be having trouble getting a pic to upload. I tried straight from my camera, but the website said the file was too large. I opened it in paint and saved it as a .gif, but when I click on the link above it doesn't enlarge.... Let me see...
 

Homeschool Mom

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Go figure, try a second time straight from the camera and it works!
 

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BeeBee*BeeLeaves

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As an add: There is the possibility that the ACV soaks will not only help dissolve those stones but also, due to the antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal properties, also take care of the diagnosed shell rot. I do hope.
 

Homeschool Mom

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Here is a picture of his plastron. On a good note, he defecated several times during soaking, and although there was a fair deal of undigested food particles, there was no blood present. Only thing he's willing to eat right now is Romain, which I know has no nutritional value for him, but it's that or nothing so at least he gets a little liquid from it. He won't touch his spring mix. Going to go to the grocery store later to get a variety of other foods to see if we can entice him with something a little more nutritious.

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Tidgy's Dad

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Here is a picture of his plastron. On a good note, he defecated several times during soaking, and although there was a fair deal of undigested food particles, there was no blood present. Only thing he's willing to eat right now is Romain, which I know has no nutritional value for him, but it's that or nothing so at least he gets a little liquid from it. He won't touch his spring mix. Going to go to the grocery store later to get a variety of other foods to see if we can entice him with something a little more nutritious.
Better news and good luck with the alternative food.
Everything crossed for him and you.
 

Yvonne G

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Oh, wow! That's a lot more involved than I was picturing.
 

BeeBee*BeeLeaves

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Hydration is most important and if he is eating Romaine, so be it. It's a lot of water and that works for now.
Please keep us posted about his progress. We are pulling for you and the little rooskee.
 

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I'm thinking that you can add a few dandelions to the romaine in order to beef up the nutritional value of the tort's food. I find that my Russians will eat dandelions, flowers and leaves, when nothing else will tempt them. One will even run across the enclosure upon the sight of the yellow flower!

Good luck!
 

Homeschool Mom

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He can't currently have a bowl in his enclosure because his plastron is bandaged and we can't have him soaking the bandaging and risking infection since he uses his water as a potty and even though we're checking him frequently, we can't watch him constantly. He's soaking every other day right now. Daily soaks meant daily bandage changes and that seemed to be stressing him out, so we decided every other day is a good compromise to keep him well cared for but allow more rest. He ate a bit of kale last night and this morning, I can look at the store for dandelion, but not sure if I'll be able to find it. None growing yet here in MN. :) I am going to pick up some endive to mix in there as well. He fought me really hard to get his dewormer down last night, which I take as a great sign since he was pretty weak on his Thursday and Friday doses. So, either I'm optimistic that he's getting stronger or he is just becoming wiser to the fact that we have to hold his head out and pry his mouth open which makes him really, really mad. Hard to say, but I am glad he's eating a little something better. Poor guy, if he does pull through, I wonder if he'll have the same disposition he used to... He was so slow to get frustrated, our vet pestered him quite a bit to try get him to hiss and open his mouth for an exam before, whereas yesterday he hissed and held his mouth open like he was ready to snap at me when I was finishing up his bandaging. I'm sure he sees all this treatment as torture. With him eating some regular food, having normal white blood counts, and seeming to get a little stronger, my 8 year old is very optimistic. I am trying to remain reserved and realistic, but starting to have a ray of hope that I lacked a few days ago for him. Only time will tell, I guess.
 

Homeschool Mom

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Wow, poor guy.

Was any of that there/visible when you got him?
Sorry, I missed seeing this when I replied a minute ago. His shell seemed fine to both the vet and myself when we got him a year and a half ago. No health concerns at all for him at his vet check last July either, and I didn't notice a change in his shell at all until about 3 weeks ago, which was when we started all this treatment. I don't know if there were subtle signs and I missed them? Even when we noticed a small mark that we assumed was an injury, I carefully inspected the rest of his shell and it looked fine IMO. I didn't push on it though, since I didn't know how much it would hurt him and I was able to get him to the vet the next morning, I figured I'd leave that up to her, and she's the one that noticed there seemed to be a little give- it wasn't that his shell was soft or would concave in if she pushed on it, she could just feel that the layer below the outer shell wasn't rock solid- indicating that she needed to debris his plastron to see what the extent was. Now all the remaining shell- even the area that had some removed is solid as it should be. Not sure how much of this I can explain well, since it was a subtle thing, but I want to share our story in case anyone else finds themselves facing similar situations. I can say, I am really thankful for having gone to that second vet, even though the only extra info we received was the white blood count being normal and ruling out anemia, I got confirmation that the treatment of my first vet is on par, and the in-house blood testing wasn't available at my regular vet, so it was worth my money and time to drive to the second vet.
 

Tidgy's Dad

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I'm sorry you've had to go through all this and even more sorry for the poor tortoise.
Hoping the situation improves for you both from now on.
 
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