Heart disease tortoise

[Una76]

Hi ,
My 10 year old tortoise Yoshi was diagnosed with high blood pressure and high pulse . From very very active tortoise / roamed the house / outside etc he became very very lethargic and stopped eating . After extensive tests ( blood tests , xray and ultrasound) high blood pressure and high pulse was diagnosed. He is not eating still and we feed him through feeding tube .
Just wonder if anyone else had same problem with heart problems with tortoises ( vet said it’s rare ) and did your tortoise condition improved?

 

[Littleredfootbigredheart]

Hello! I’m so sorry to hear your little yoshi is poorly! I’ve never read about a tortoise with high blood pressure, hopefully some of the more experienced members can come take a look, in the meantime though if we could get some information on his housing that will be really helpful getting an overall insight on his care, we might be able to spot something, vets are often giving outdated housing advice.

If you can try answering any of the following questions that’d be great!

Is he primarily housed indoors?
What sized set up?
What are your temperatures like all over? Ie basking temp(directly under the bulb), overall day temps(middle and cooler side), night temps?
What kind of basking bulb is being used specifically? Packaging photos are good if you have any
Do you use indoor uv? If so what kind?
How’s humidity?
What’s his substrate?
What kind of monitoring do you have?
What’s his diet been like with you?

A photo of the full set up would be wonderful! Welcome to the forum, sorry it’s under these circumstances

 

[Renee_H]

Hi ,
My 10 year old tortoise Yoshi was diagnosed with high blood pressure and high pulse . From very very active tortoise / roamed the house / outside etc he became very very lethargic and stopped eating . After extensive tests ( blood tests , xray and ultrasound) high blood pressure and high pulse was diagnosed. He is not eating still and we feed him through feeding tube .
Just wonder if anyone else had same problem with heart problems with tortoises ( vet said it’s rare ) and did your tortoise condition improved?

I’m so sorry you’re going through this. Did they spot anything on xray he may have ingested?

 

[The_Four_Toed_Edward]

I am tagging @zovick @Markw84 and @Yvonne G to take a look of this.

 

[zovick]

I am tagging @zovick @Markw84 and @Yvonne G to take a look of this.

Sorry, but I have never heard of anything like this so I have no idea what to recommend.

 

[Tom]

Hi ,
My 10 year old tortoise Yoshi was diagnosed with high blood pressure and high pulse . From very very active tortoise / roamed the house / outside etc he became very very lethargic and stopped eating . After extensive tests ( blood tests , xray and ultrasound) high blood pressure and high pulse was diagnosed. He is not eating still and we feed him through feeding tube .
Just wonder if anyone else had same problem with heart problems with tortoises ( vet said it’s rare ) and did your tortoise condition improved?

This isn't rare. Its non-existent. Your vet, like most vets, doesn't know jack about tortoise care, and has made a logical, yet incorrect diagnosis.

There are several possible problems with your tortoise just from the few sentences you typed. Consider these:
1. Your tortoise should be brumating right now. Many people keep them up all winter and sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. It's unnatural and not what your tortoise evolved to deal with for millions of years. There is supposed to be a shut down in winter. Your tortoises body knows this. When the slow doesn't happen, they sometimes react this way. I see this more with Russians than any other species.
2. No tortoise should ever be loose on the floor. It's too cold, too slick, and there are far too many dangers. Everyone who does this think it is safe. If someone thought it was unsafe, they wouldn't do it, right? Well it is unsafe, and it can't be made safe, and no amount of supervision prevents the common problems that we see as a result of this. Your current issue might be from the cold temps, the stress of running around in a foreign environment, poisoning from cleaning chemical residue, ingestion of just about anything from dust bunnies to human hair to dropped jewelry or hardware like screws... The hazards are infinite. Tortoises need to be kept in their safe, properly designed and maintained tortoise enclosures. Their enclosure need to be large enough to meet their exercise needs and all their other needs.

Humans typically have higher blood pressure and pulse when they go to the doctor too. Being driven around and handled by a vet is likely to raise the pulse and blood pressure. Realize that there is no semester on tortoise care in vet school. Vets know what they are taught in vet school, but they simply can't know everything, and they don't know what they weren't taught in vet school. They only way to learn what many of us experienced keepers here know is to do what we've done: Keep a multitude of tortoise species in a multitude of different ways over a period of decades, and learn from your mistakes and the mistakes of others. This isn't and cannot be taught in vet school. I know little about proper wound care, surgery, medicine dosing and administration. What I do know about these things, I have learned from knowledgeable vets who learned about these things in vet school and in practice, and were kind enough to teach me. Many of these vets are my friends and they call me to ask about housing and husbandry issues, while I call them to ask about medical issues. You have a husbandry issue.

To fix your problem we need to know more about your housing, lighting and temperatures. You need to stop letting the tortoise run loose in the house immediately, and hope that this has not been a mistake that will eventually prove fatal. All of your questions are welcome, and please refer to these two threads for lots of helpful care info. Compare what you are doing to what is outlined in these threads, and please ask for clarification wherever it is needed:

Info For New People. Please Read This First.

Hello and welcome to tortoiseforum.org! We are all glad you are here! There is no other forum like this anywhere. We have tens of thousands of members from all over the world ranging from kids with their first tortoise to people who have been breeding and keeping high end tortoises since the...

tortoiseforum.org

The Best Way To Raise Any Temperate Species Of Tortoise

I chose the title of this care sheet very carefully. Are there other ways to raise babies and care for adults? Yes. Yes there are, but those ways are not as good. What follows is the BEST way, according to 30 years of research and experimentation with hundreds of babies of many species. What is...

tortoiseforum.org

 

[The_Four_Toed_Edward]

Sorry, but I have never heard of anything like this so I have no idea what to recommend.

Well, it is always worth a try tagging people with lots of tortoise experience!

 

[Yvonne G]

I'm worried that this vet isn't real schooled in tortoise health and this is a misdiagnosis. Little russian tortoises are fast - they move fast, they eat fast, they breathe fast. . . everything about them is fast. So who's to say their heart isn't fast, or their blood pressure isn't 'fast'. (How on earth does one check a tortoise blood pressure anyway?) If this vet is used to treating cats and dogs, then checking out a fast little russian tortoise would be quite different. If it were me, I'd get a second opinion. Sounds flakey to me.

 

[Alex and the Redfoot]

This isn't rare. Its non-existent. Your vet, like most vets, doesn't know jack about tortoise care, and has made a logical, yet incorrect diagnosis.

There are several possible problems with your tortoise just from the few sentences you typed. Consider these:
1. Your tortoise should be brumating right now. Many people keep them up all winter and sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. It's unnatural and not what your tortoise evolved to deal with for millions of years. There is supposed to be a shut down in winter. Your tortoises body knows this. When the slow doesn't happen, they sometimes react this way. I see this more with Russians than any other species.
2. No tortoise should ever be loose on the floor. It's too cold, too slick, and there are far too many dangers. Everyone who does this think it is safe. If someone thought it was unsafe, they wouldn't do it, right? Well it is unsafe, and it can't be made safe, and no amount of supervision prevents the common problems that we see as a result of this. Your current issue might be from the cold temps, the stress of running around in a foreign environment, poisoning from cleaning chemical residue, ingestion of just about anything from dust bunnies to human hair to dropped jewelry or hardware like screws... The hazards are infinite. Tortoises need to be kept in their safe, properly designed and maintained tortoise enclosures. Their enclosure need to be large enough to meet their exercise needs and all their other needs.

Humans typically have higher blood pressure and pulse when they go to the doctor too. Being driven around and handled by a vet is likely to raise the pulse and blood pressure. Realize that there is no semester on tortoise care in vet school. Vets know what they are taught in vet school, but they simply can't know everything, and they don't know what they weren't taught in vet school. They only way to learn what many of us experienced keepers here know is to do what we've done: Keep a multitude of tortoise species in a multitude of different ways over a period of decades, and learn from your mistakes and the mistakes of others. This isn't and cannot be taught in vet school. I know little about proper wound care, surgery, medicine dosing and administration. What I do know about these things, I have learned from knowledgeable vets who learned about these things in vet school and in practice, and were kind enough to teach me. Many of these vets are my friends and they call me to ask about housing and husbandry issues, while I call them to ask about medical issues. You have a husbandry issue.

To fix your problem we need to know more about your housing, lighting and temperatures. You need to stop letting the tortoise run loose in the house immediately, and hope that this has not been a mistake that will eventually prove fatal. All of your questions are welcome, and please refer to these two threads for lots of helpful care info. Compare what you are doing to what is outlined in these threads, and please ask for clarification wherever it is needed:

Info For New People. Please Read This First.

Hello and welcome to tortoiseforum.org! We are all glad you are here! There is no other forum like this anywhere. We have tens of thousands of members from all over the world ranging from kids with their first tortoise to people who have been breeding and keeping high end tortoises since the...

tortoiseforum.org

The Best Way To Raise Any Temperate Species Of Tortoise

I chose the title of this care sheet very carefully. Are there other ways to raise babies and care for adults? Yes. Yes there are, but those ways are not as good. What follows is the BEST way, according to 30 years of research and experimentation with hundreds of babies of many species. What is...

tortoiseforum.org

Such phenomena exists. Can't get a full-text link straight away but here is an abstract:

https://bioone.org/journals/journal-of-zoo-and-wildlife-medicine/volume-54/issue-1/2022-0093/DEGENERATIVE-CARDIAC-DISEASE-IN-TWO-SPECIES-OF-TORTOISE-CHELONOIDIS-NIGRA/10.1638/2022-0093.short

1. Unless I read the full text I'm not sure if higher pulse and blood pressure are tell-tale indicators for that kind of disease.
2. The cause of heart lesions wasn't determined and authors suggest it's related to husbandry. So getting on the right track with tortoise care is a spot-on advice.

 

[Alex and the Redfoot]

Also, this paper mentions some other clinical cases of heart diseases in tortoises (mycosporodiosis in Hermanns tortoises and pericardial effusion in CDTs):

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344508335_Clinical_cardiology_of_reptiles