Grandhuman
New Member
Hi, I need some advice. My grand tortoise recently went to the vet because of signs of a respiratory infection. I had noticed his eyes didn't look as vibrant and he began making an occasional quacking sound (3 times over 3 or 4 days) and if you put him close to your ear you could occasionally hear a wheeze (also 3 or 4 times over 3 or 4 days), but mostly you would hear what sounded like a stopper or snot clogging his airway. He was still eating well and didn't appear distressed in any way, didn't have a runny nose (we did see a little once when we tipped him forward for a minute) and we was not mouth breathing. The vet said it appeared to be the early stages of a respiratory infection, did a bunch of lab work, gave us Meloxicam or the equivalent and Fortaz injections to give him. About a week after, we received a call from her telling us a DNA test revealed he was positive for Herpes. He appeared to be getting better and I started researching tortoise Herpes and mostly what I find is scary old data. A week has passed and I heard him wheeze 2 times the other day and the stopper sound while breathing is increasing again. I took him back to the vet, she said there is no issues inside of his mouth and suggested we do another round of antibiotics and if we wanted we could have them do a wash of his trachea and they would send the fluid off to the lab. We are holding off on this for now because they have to sedate him. What do y'all think should be our next step? He has never been sick before. He is in his own enclosure, but there is Russian tortoise that lives in our house with him. Thanks so much.