Desert tortoise with impaction

NancKj

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Thank you Tom, for your advice re warm water bathtub soaks and vet near me!
I have a specific question please, for any of you experts, re treatment already prescribed. Lactulose .5 to 1.0 ml once a day via syringe. I have read that you all strongly advise against mineral oil by itself, in the mouth because the animal may aspirate...Is lactulose ok? Did not eat yesterday so I just skipped the treatment. What about oxbow herb critical care formula? Ok to syringe that? Should I?? Also, I did get bloodwork and xray. If I can figure out how to post them here, maybe you all can take a look?? I guess that about 5 or 6 questions. Any help greatly appreciated. I love my tortoise...
 

TammyJ

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Hope you will soon get some answers.
 

Maro2Bear

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Thank you Tom, for your advice re warm water bathtub soaks and vet near me!
I have a specific question please, for any of you experts, re treatment already prescribed. Lactulose .5 to 1.0 ml once a day via syringe. I have read that you all strongly advise against mineral oil by itself, in the mouth because the animal may aspirate...Is lactulose ok? Did not eat yesterday so I just skipped the treatment. What about oxbow herb critical care formula? Ok to syringe that? Should I?? Also, I did get bloodwork and xray. If I can figure out how to post them here, maybe you all can take a look?? I guess that about 5 or 6 questions. Any help greatly appreciated. I love my tortoise...

Take a picture of the bloodwork & xray readout, then post those as pictures.
 

Tom

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Thank you Tom, for your advice re warm water bathtub soaks and vet near me!
I have a specific question please, for any of you experts, re treatment already prescribed. Lactulose .5 to 1.0 ml once a day via syringe. I have read that you all strongly advise against mineral oil by itself, in the mouth because the animal may aspirate...Is lactulose ok? Did not eat yesterday so I just skipped the treatment. What about oxbow herb critical care formula? Ok to syringe that? Should I?? Also, I did get bloodwork and xray. If I can figure out how to post them here, maybe you all can take a look?? I guess that about 5 or 6 questions. Any help greatly appreciated. I love my tortoise...
Mineral oil is fine if administered correctly. I don't know anything about lactulose. Never heard of it.

Critical care is food. There is no reason to force feed a tortoise. It is not eating for a good reason. Fix the reason and the appetite comes back. Forcing food in to a tortoise that isn't eating will often make a problem worse.
 

NancKj

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Please forgive me for my previous message. An unacceptable mean spirited rant against this lovely group in general, and Tom in particular.. who is taking his time to try to help me. Tom, I have zero right to question your knowledge and competence. I am quite ashamed of myself... My apologies to all who made the mistake of reading it
 

Maggie3fan

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Please forgive me for my previous message. An unacceptable mean spirited rant against this lovely group in general, and Tom in particular.. who is taking his time to try to help me. Tom, I have zero right to question your knowledge and competence. I am quite ashamed of myself... My apologies to all who made the mistake of reading it
You can have moderators remove your response if you want...I do it a lot...exactly what you did ...frankly...Tom does have a thick skin, as I have discovered in the past. Yes, all that means I have done exactly what you did...you snapped from fear for your tort...been there. Tom is ONE of our resident experts...he is also an expert in many other realms, and that alone is irritating. But Tom doesn't seem to care what people think of him because he cares for the tortoises period, he's not the only experienced keeper/breeder here, but hell, if Tom responds before most of us, there's nothing left to say, as he says it all, better and in detail.
I had to do exactly what you are having to do..so I softened some original Mazuri, put the lactulose in that, squoshed it together, just a table spoon of the pellets...then put it all on some cut up radicchio, that worked for me, well, for my tort. You might have to do it more than once. I can't remember the dosage or if I had to do it more than twice...you can take your mineral oil and smear it on some iceberg lettuce, roll it up and kinda hand feed it. I also injected a syringe full of mineral oil in his cloaca...
 

NancKj

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Thank you so much for your reply maggie! I do feel awful, but I am glad to hear that Tom does not care what others think..I don't much either, but I do care about hurting people's feelings
My tort not interested in food x 3 days now, so anything by mouth has to be with syringe, and that scares me, afraid to hurt him or have him aspirate etc. I will keep offering, and will get some Mazuri as you suggest.
I have a vet tech friend who will come today to see if she can get some mineral oil in his cloaca. Thank you again! I thought I would be banned from the group!
I will report my rude post and ask the moderators to delete!
 

Yvonne G

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Thank you so much for your reply maggie! I do feel awful, but I am glad to hear that Tom does not care what others think..I don't much either, but I do care about hurting people's feelings
My tort not interested in food x 3 days now, so anything by mouth has to be with syringe, and that scares me, afraid to hurt him or have him aspirate etc. I will keep offering, and will get some Mazuri as you suggest.
I have a vet tech friend who will come today to see if she can get some mineral oil in his cloaca. Thank you again! I thought I would be banned from the group!
I will report my rude post and ask the moderators to delete!
Relax. It's all good!
 

NancKj

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I am attaching an xray of my tortoise Ares, taken 5 days ago. Do any of you have any thoughts on how bad this really is? One vet talked immediate surgical referral, another kinds shrugged and wasn't overly impressed.
 

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Yvonne G

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I would rather use mineral oil. Spread it on a leaf of iceburg lettuce then roll the leaf into a cigar shape, like Maggie said. You can also squirt some mineral oil into the cloaca using a syringe with no needle. Since mineral oil is non absorptive, it merely coats whatever it comes into contact with in the stomach and digestive tract and aids in it being expelled.

Usually bladder and kidney stones are one big mass, not lots of little masses like seen on the x-ray, so I'm tempted to say this tortoise has been eating dirt in order to get the minerals his diet isn't providing. You can help him get his minerals by adding a pinch of Miner-all (by Sticky Tongue Farms) occasionally to his food.

In order to help clear out his digestive tract feed him lots of wet food (aloe, cactus, watermelon, cucumber, etc.), use the mineral oil/lettuce trick, and soak daily in deep water where he has to scramble around trying to get out.
 

Yvonne G

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Please keep us in the loop. We're all rooting for this tortoise!
 

NancKj

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Thank you Yvonne!! Problem is, thr darn guy will not eat! Nothing since 4 days ago. Not even his fav watermelon. He is soaking now, and scrabbling around like a mad man
 

Sarah2020

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Treadmill can result in good gut clearance. Hopefully he might have an appetite afterwards or leave it tonight and provide tomorrow am to see if he gets hungry.
 

Yvonne G

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It's the scrabbling that loosens the impaction, so WHOO HOO!! Way to go, Torty!!
 

Maro2Bear

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Make sure the soaking water is deeper & warmer than normal too! A bathtub with many inches of warm water helps move things along.
 

NancKj

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Thanks Maro2! He absolutely refused to budge in the bathtub. Just stood there for 30 minutes. So we are nack to outdoor kiddie pool where he scrabbles around like crazy. He can see he is outside, so I think he tries hard to escape. I think in the tub, he is so disoriented he does not know what to do so he freezes. The sun warms kiddie pool water, and I put him in when it is 95ish degrees, and monitor it closely so it does not get too hot
 

Maggie3fan

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Thank you so much for your reply maggie! I do feel awful, but I am glad to hear that Tom does not care what others think..I don't much either, but I do care about hurting people's feelings
My tort not interested in food x 3 days now, so anything by mouth has to be with syringe, and that scares me, afraid to hurt him or have him aspirate etc. I will keep offering, and will get some Mazuri as you suggest.
I have a vet tech friend who will come today to see if she can get some mineral oil in his cloaca. Thank you again! I thought I would be banned from the group!
I will report my rude post and ask the moderators to delete!
wait...put the lactulose in the critical care...and what you do is squeeze a small amount on his tongue and let him swallow, thenm more...just do that until it's all gone. Don't give up, my desert tort was seriously impacted...I did what I told you and he pooped major big poops...
 

NancKj

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Oh shoot! We almost did that today but I chickened out of trying to make him swallow anything...Thank you maggie! My friend will be back tomorrow and I will have it mixed up and ready to go. I am not very confident doing anything intrusive to him by myself yet. But I will soon be. Funny, you would think about 28 years of having him I would be able to do this stuff. He has been so darn healthy til now
 
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