Yellow Spots on Neck

zovick

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Is Rian Gitman the "reseller from Miami, Florida"?

I have a follow-up appointment on Tuesday next week, and I will give the vet all this information.
Rian Gitmann is the owner of Underground Reptiles as Mastershake said. The business is in Deerfield Beach, FL and sells all types of turtles, tortoises, lizards, and snakes, so the potential for the spread of this problem from his business is quite great.

Also, while he may not be "the" reseller who was mentioned by someone on this thread, one must assume he is "a" reseller as there is no way he could breed the volume of animals he offers for sale all by himself.
 

zovick

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Interesting! I just looked it up. There are a ton of animals for sale on that site!

So I just want to clarify with you guys that all yellow spots are the same bacteria, and it is not treatable. There is no possible way that the yellow spots could be just a sign of infections of any kind?

So basically...... my tortoise is going to die no matter what I do, so I should stop paying for vet visits and different medications and just euthanize her?
Sadly, you are probably correct. Even if the tortoise survives, it may end up like those Mastershake has and never grow any more.

You could humanely euthanize that tortoise and then either dispose of or completely sterilize everything with which it came into contact and start over with a tortoise which has never been exposed to this pathogen bought from a breeder (of which there are quite a few on this site) rather than a huge online reptile store where the animals are exposed to many potential problems just by the nature of those businesses.
 

shawnateerow

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no he is the person from underground reptiles. many of these have come from there on the forum
If you or anyone do speak to underground please let me know. Otherwise, I will call tomorrow and attempt to get the owner on the phone and tell him the situation since I got all of my babies from there.
 

mastershake

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the actual bumps themselves were tested separately and the same bacteria was found in the bumps on the top layers of skin as was found deeper inside this actually starts inside where you cant see it and works its way outward till you then see the spots.
 

turtlesteve

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Well this pathogen sounds absolutely horrifying. @mastershake thanks for getting to the bottom of this and keeping us informed.

Any idea what the incubation period for this is? Presumably it can be carried asymptomatically too? Trying to get a feel for how much of a disaster this is going to be...
 

mastershake

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because it starts internally they can still have it without the sight of spots. and the 2 we had (well have till tomm sadly) show NO signs at all other then they do not grow at all. otherwise totally normal. need more animals tested for more data we are working on that now. we still need more samples for more wide data set
 

mark1

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it's been shown to respond to what zovick said in multiple separate studies ......... it has also been shown to be a co-infection in many if not most of the cases i've ever read ....... the infection at best is likely similar to having a tortoise with a mycoplasma infection ......... i'm not sure i've ever seen where the deaths of animals treated in a timely manner for the a.chelonae have ever been shown to have died solely from the a.chelonae bacteria , most i believe had other viral , fungal and bacterial infections that may have attributed to the deaths , or were attributed to another cause ......... if it's your only tortoise , and otherwise appears healthy , let the vet treat it with appropriate antibiotics , dry up his environment , and see what happens ........ you'll probably find more tortoise related literature under the previous name d. chelonae




Dermatophilosis in captive tortoises


a.chelonae tortoises




Dermatophilus chelonae sp. nov., Isolated from Chelonids in Australia
a.chelonae
 

mastershake

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it has also been found with ranavirus in other species. and im told by someone who specializes in the actual meds side of this this " multiple drugs will need to be used to even try and clear the infection. It is going to be very hard to treat with just one antibiotic alone. " and that it still may not be able to be cleared up. there are no where the animals were 100% cleared after being on any anti biotics. only for amounts of time they told me.
 

zovick

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Well this pathogen sounds absolutely horrifying. @mastershake thanks for getting to the bottom of this and keeping us informed.

Any idea what the incubation period for this is? Presumably it can be carried asymptomatically too? Trying to get a feel for how much of a disaster this is going to be...
Can you say "pandemic"? Seriously, this has the potential to become very widespread in the US and around the world (if it isn't already).
 

mastershake

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i agree i mean there are cases i have now on the list all over the country even alaska
 

zovick

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"Epizootic"
Actually, I would go so far as to call this an emerging "panzootic" problem at this point. It is known from other countries besides the US and has been seen in lizards as well as chelonians.
 

vladimir

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Thank you @mastershake for all your work in tracking this down. Have you seen this paper?


Austwickiosis in Captive African Spurred Tortoises (Geochelone sulcata) Co-infected with Cryptosporidium ducismarci.

I found it after a quick Google so I'm guessing you probably have, but just wanted to post it in case.
 

Duckster RT

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The yellow bumps really make me upset. Can someone tell me why sulcada torts are getting them mostly. Is it specific to them or to all different types of torts.? It’s really terrible. My heart goes out to all whom are dealing with it.
 

Pastel Tortie

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The yellow bumps really make me upset. Can someone tell me why sulcada torts are getting them mostly. Is it specific to them or to all different types of torts.? It’s really terrible. My heart goes out to all whom are dealing with it.
All types of reptiles are susceptible: chelonians, lizards, snakes, and crocodilians. One reason we're seeing so many cases in young sulcatas has a lot to do with the supply chain. Austwickia chelonae is easy to transmit and hard to kill. It can be killed on surfaces, but that requires more extensive disinfection than most people would normally do (unless they know there's a specific risk and what to do about it). If non-infected tortoises are put in with infected tortoises, the non-infected tortoises become infected. That's why we've been pushing so hard lately trying to get everyone to quarantine, quarantine, quarantine any new tortoises.
 

mastershake

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Thank you @mastershake for all your work in tracking this down. Have you seen this paper?


Austwickiosis in Captive African Spurred Tortoises (Geochelone sulcata) Co-infected with Cryptosporidium ducismarci.

I found it after a quick Google so I'm guessing you probably have, but just wanted to post it in case.
yes i have the full article here. that is just an overview of the full article the full article has alot more info in it.
 

Kandisa612

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Hello all,

I know a few of you already know, but I wanted to share of Luna's outcome on this thread in case new people are reading.

I treated Luna with what the Vet had suggested and even though Luna did receive antibiotic several times, and she would look and act better the spots kept coming back with other type of symptoms. I had high hopes that Luna would make it through because the vet assured me they had seen Austwickia chelonae and treated it before successfully.

Although I had luna for four month with this and she grew quite well she did not make it.

If you are new and looking for answers, I hope my experience can help you. The article below will describe Luna's last days.

 

mastershake

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i am so sorry to hear of lunas outcome. this is what i keep telling people and many vets are clueless about this even though they claim to know or have dealt with this before. auswickia is nothing to be played around with and throw stuff at randomly like many vets are doing and telling people they will get better or they have cured this before. its very sad.
 
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