# My tortoise's eyes keep bulging?



## TortoiseGurl (Feb 19, 2012)

My four year old marginated tortoise randomly bulges her eyes and is otherwise healthy.

Her eyes look normal when she doesn't do it, the whites of her eyes are white, and her eyes are just normal black.

But when she's eating and takes a break, or just anytime really, sometimes she puts her head in her shell, her eyes bulge out and the whites of her eyes sometimes turn red. She continuously rubs her eyes against her front legs and this lasts a little while.

And then her eyes just "sink" in and look normal again. This has been going on for over a year I think, but I thought it was something that would pass.


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## Yvonne G (Feb 19, 2012)

Hi Tortoise Gurl:

Welcome to the Tortoise forum!!

What would you like us to call you?

And may we know appx. where in the world you are?

This is the nictitating membrane. Its commonly called the third eye lid. It rests in the inside corner of the tortoise's eye. Some tortoises can make this happen at will, but it usually caused by some sort of stressor. In dogs this is called cherry eye and is usually fixed by surgery. With the tortoise, you can help him by using a product called Terramycin Opthalmic Ointment. You can buy it from a vet or at feed stores. Take a look at the eye under a very strong light and try to see if there is something in there causing discomfort...a small piece of substrate or maybe a scratch on the eye. At any rate, the eye ointment will offer relief to the tortoise.


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## tortuga_please (Feb 19, 2012)

Welcome! Hope you can get that under control, Yvonne seems to know it pretty well . Good luck!


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