Billy Gangemi, Russian Tortoises, HELP!

Originally Posted by bcr229

Repticon Baltimore was January 21 & 22.

Thank you. Shame the OP wants to pick and choose what she wishes to answer.

Chris, intestinal parasites are found in a fecal float.

IMO, the vet has been negligent in not preforming tests to determine the type of infection the tort has & blindly prescribing various antibiotics.
It is know that Baytril affects the kidneys and is absolutely the wrong antibiotic to prescribe to a dehydrated animal. If I was the OP, I would be finding another vet for a second opinion.

Originally Posted by Snake-Queen

Thank you. Shame the OP wants to pick and choose what she wishes to answer.

Chris, intestinal parasites are found in a fecal float.

IMO, the vet has been negligent in not preforming tests to determine the type of infection the tort has & blindly prescribing various antibiotics.
It is know that Baytril affects the kidneys and is absolutely the wrong antibiotic to prescribe to a dehydrated animal. If I was the OP, I would be finding another vet for a second opinion.

I agree. The reason I asked is because Lydia told Bill in their text conversation that "both had worms", but also said during the same correspondence that "the doc is trying to figure out what parasites they have but they are not pooping so no dice on that".

Originally Posted by Snake-Queen

Thank you. Shame the OP wants to pick and choose what she wishes to answer.

Chris, intestinal parasites are found in a fecal float.

IMO, the vet has been negligent in not preforming tests to determine the type of infection the tort has & blindly prescribing various antibiotics.
It is know that Baytril affects the kidneys and is absolutely the wrong antibiotic to prescribe to a dehydrated animal. If I was the OP, I would be finding another vet for a second opinion.

I have had some exposure to treating intestinal parasites in reptiles. The vet I brought my animal to was able to observe parasites floating in the fecal sample under a microscope, confirming the presence of them.

Upon confirmation of them, a generic anti-parasite treatment was initiated while a fecal sample was set off to a lab to identify the specific parasites.

This may, I stress the may, be how the OP's vet is proceeding.

Originally Posted by EdwardK

If you want to follow up on the topic of immunosuppression you may want to get a copy of Warwick, Clifford, Fredric L. Frye, and James Bernard Murphy, eds. Health and welfare of captive reptiles. Springer Science & Business Media, 2001..

some comments

Ed

Thanks for this. I'll check it out.

Lydia

Originally Posted by Mike (The M)

I can't really read the handwriting on the vet paperwork. So, it looks like a fecal was done, and it is confirmed there are internal parasites? I don't think anyone is going to recommend going against a vet. But, my concern here is the prescription of baytril, which is typically prescribed for the treatment of sepsis and respiratory infection.

Intramuscular injection is discouraged because it has a tendency to deteriorate the skin at the injection point (this is why it should be administered alternately in different muscles). The best method of administration is oral, but either way, Baytril can also cause kidney issues.

Metronidazole (Flagyl) is appropriate for parasitic infection, as is panacur. The administering of medication is stressful, so really, at this point the best thing you could do for this tortoise is give it some time to decompress.

There were worms, dehydration, underweight on the first visit 1-24. (fecal in the office) We then treated them for the next two weeks with the Baytril (every 48 hours). Also Flaygl (every 24 hours) and Panacur (every 7 days for 6 weeks.) I'm completely at a loss about this now. I know that Torterra was having problems clearing something because of edema on his neck, and his neck skin was peeling. It was so hard to watch.. (Not melodrama, or pity card.. just allowing myself to have feelings, Chris)... so this seems like a puzzle piece to me that would suggest the Baytril kept him from clearing toxins and affected his kidneys.

Even so, it seems like a catch 22. Either you give them the meds, and the meds make them sicker, or you don't, and they develop pneumonia. When researching what to do, I saw many posts that suggested for russian Tortoise owners with wheezing to get antibiotics at the vet... and our vet is extremely well known and has great reviews, so I never questioned whether giving all of those meds at once could be the culprit, but retrospectively, it seems a likely cause, in which case I would owe Billy an apology because his advice was the most simple, in terms of post adoption care. (basically: lettuce and mulch)

Aw, poor guy. He hated those meds, too.


ps: Melissa, I wasn't choosing posts, I was working.

Originally Posted by Donald C

I have had some exposure to treating intestinal parasites in reptiles. The vet I brought my animal to was able to observe parasites floating in the fecal sample under a microscope, confirming the presence of them.

Upon confirmation of them, a generic anti-parasite treatment was initiated while a fecal sample was set off to a lab to identify the specific parasites.

This may, I stress the may, be how the OP's vet is proceeding.

I'm not sure how the fecal was done, but it wasn't sent to the lab, as far as I know. When we returned, they were both pretty sick and he was unable to get any fecal matter, so further parasite testing was not possible. He prescribed more meds as well as shots because of how very sick the torts were, but I now wonder if the excess stress to his system wasn't the culprit.

I think one of the meds currently prescribed to Taquito is going to have to go. I'm weighing the options of what she needs least.

Lydia

Originally Posted by Snake-Queen

IMO, the vet has been negligent in not preforming tests to determine the type of infection the tort has & blindly prescribing various antibiotics.
It is know that Baytril affects the kidneys and is absolutely the wrong antibiotic to prescribe to a dehydrated animal. If I was the OP, I would be finding another vet for a second opinion.

This makes so much sense, retroactively. I think I may nix the Baytril for Taquito.

Originally Posted by JCCS

Lydia, in life, do you get to choose who gets to communicate with you? If you have a job, how does that policy work out for you?

Yes. Pretty great.

Originally Posted by JCCS

I'm sorry that everyone didn't just lay out the red carpet for you and say the seller is the worst person on earth. I know you tried for that quite intensely. You simply started this thread, you're not in control of this thread or any other on this site. If you think that you are, let me know how that works out for you as well. But please, continue the "Only nice questions, please." policy. It makes you look like you can't defend your actions (which I'm pretty sure you can't).

please let me remind you how this conversation started. (see attached)
and how I have tried to let people know that I didn't think Billy was a bad guy. If I did, I would have put "bad guy" at the beginning of the post. That would have been easy enough.

Originally Posted by lydiacourtney

There were worms, dehydration, underweight on the first visit 1-24. (fecal in the office) We then treated them for the next two weeks with the Baytril (every 48 hours). Also Flaygl (every 24 hours) and Panacur (every 7 days for 6 weeks.) I'm completely at a loss about this now. I know that Torterra was having problems clearing something because of edema on his neck, and his neck skin was peeling. It was so hard to watch.. (Not melodrama, or pity card.. just allowing myself to have feelings, Chris)... so this seems like a puzzle piece to me that would suggest the Baytril kept him from clearing toxins and affected his kidneys.

Even so, it seems like a catch 22. Either you give them the meds, and the meds make them sicker, or you don't, and they develop pneumonia. When researching what to do, I saw many posts that suggested for russian Tortoise owners with wheezing to get antibiotics at the vet... and our vet is extremely well known and has great reviews, so I never questioned whether giving all of those meds at once could be the culprit, but retrospectively, it seems a likely cause, in which case I would owe Billy an apology because his advice was the most simple, in terms of post adoption care. (basically: lettuce and mulch)

Aw, poor guy. He hated those meds, too.


ps: Melissa, I wasn't choosing posts, I was working.

You have based your campaign here on a moral issue and said you don't care about the money, just the welfare of your torts. That's awesome. Your main concern as amplified to Bill was where the torts came from so your vet could somehow establish what parasites it might have because, according to your text to Bill, there was no poop...no dice. Therefore a fecal test was nonexistent. Now all of a sudden, you're saying there was a "fecal in the office". Why did you lead Bill to believe there was no fecal done? Anyone reading those texts, and your posts here, can clearly see they don't match up.

Originally Posted by Chris Kennard

You have based your campaign here on a moral issue and said you don't care about the money, just the welfare of your torts. That's awesome. Your main concern as amplified to Bill was where the torts came from so your vet could somehow establish what parasites it might have because, according to your text to Bill, there was no poop...no dice. Therefore a fecal test was nonexistent. Now all of a sudden, you're saying there was a "fecal in the office". Why did you lead Bill to believe there was no fecal done? Anyone reading those texts, and your posts here, can clearly see they don't match up.

visit 1: 1-24, fecal done, it was established that they had worms

visit 2: they were too dehydrated to get a fecal done to check for additional parasites.