I thought I'd post an update on how my girl Nelly is doing. She is, we think, at least 60 years old, and has been unwell with an RI since August. It developed into pneumonia and caused liver issues as her body was being overwhelmed with the infection. She had been hospitalised twice, the last time was for 2 weeks and she had a feeding tube placed after having refused food for a little over 2 weeks. We have now had her home for 3 weeks and she is being housed in a tortoise table.
She has eaten every day since she has been home so I have slowly reduced the critical care feed, which she hasn't had for maybe 12 days now. I've been giving her some soaked and blended Arcadia Optimised 52 and sprinkling nutrobal on it as I'm worried she isn't getting enough variety with her normal food. She will not eat the Arcadia food voluntarily so I have been making lettuce wraps to hide it and adding some of the paste to bits of cucumber. This, along with stopping the critical care feed, has made her poops more solid and digested looking, however they still aren't as solid as I would like them.
So far she is mostly just wanting to eat lettuce (romaine, sweet gem, dolce romana), cucumber, lambs lettuce and dandelions but I have also managed to get her to eat chicory, viola leaves and a very occasional pak choi leaf too. I tried soaking her but I can't get the site of the tube wet due to infection risk meaning she would need to be tipped to soak her which she found stressful (and then started to sneeze again after) so I have just been adding more water flushes through the tube to ensure she stays hydrated.
We had a vets appointment on Monday and the vet was very happy with how she is doing as she has eaten every day since we got her back from her hospitalisation
and the puffiness she had due to her liver being affected from her body being overwhelmed by the infection, has gone. She still looks puffy in her front legs but when you poke it its empty so the vet said it was like if you put on weight your skin can stretch.
The vet said Nelly has to continue her antibiotics (ceftazidime injections every 3 days and marbocyl through the feeding tube every other day) for 10 days and the samylin liver supplements for 3 weeks. She has her last of the antibiotics in a couple of days. She will go back to the vets in 2 weeks and they said they will consider taking the feeding tube out. I think I will ask to keep the feeding tube in for a little longer so that we can make sure she is okay for a while after finishing the antibiotics and liver supplements incase she starts to do downhill again and needs medication. It its much less stressful to administer through a tube than to force her to take it by mouth.
Another positive is that she has started to take her self off to bed in the evenings. Before she wouldn't move from the basking lamp. She still isn't moving that much and won't come out of her sleeping area in the morning but still I think this is a big improvement and is more her normal behaviour.
I am a tiny bit worries as the other day she ate a bit of substrate (orchid bark). I tired to take it out but only managed to get half. She has pooped since but I will keep a close eye and if the pooping stops I will go to the vet incase of obstruction. I've checked her poop too buts its difficult to see if the bark is in her poop of just with it when it hits the substrate.
She has also sneezed a few times on different days but this tends to be after she has has her injections or has been moved so I think maybe from her getting a little bit stressed. It makes me worry about stopping antibiotics a bit though incase the infection is still active.
Overall, although I definitely think we aren't out of the woods yet, she has done well over the last 3 weeks, certainly a lot better than the vets could have imagined given her prognosis a few weeks back.
I will update this thread in case anyone is interested or have similar tortoise issues.
She has eaten every day since she has been home so I have slowly reduced the critical care feed, which she hasn't had for maybe 12 days now. I've been giving her some soaked and blended Arcadia Optimised 52 and sprinkling nutrobal on it as I'm worried she isn't getting enough variety with her normal food. She will not eat the Arcadia food voluntarily so I have been making lettuce wraps to hide it and adding some of the paste to bits of cucumber. This, along with stopping the critical care feed, has made her poops more solid and digested looking, however they still aren't as solid as I would like them.
So far she is mostly just wanting to eat lettuce (romaine, sweet gem, dolce romana), cucumber, lambs lettuce and dandelions but I have also managed to get her to eat chicory, viola leaves and a very occasional pak choi leaf too. I tried soaking her but I can't get the site of the tube wet due to infection risk meaning she would need to be tipped to soak her which she found stressful (and then started to sneeze again after) so I have just been adding more water flushes through the tube to ensure she stays hydrated.
We had a vets appointment on Monday and the vet was very happy with how she is doing as she has eaten every day since we got her back from her hospitalisation
and the puffiness she had due to her liver being affected from her body being overwhelmed by the infection, has gone. She still looks puffy in her front legs but when you poke it its empty so the vet said it was like if you put on weight your skin can stretch.
The vet said Nelly has to continue her antibiotics (ceftazidime injections every 3 days and marbocyl through the feeding tube every other day) for 10 days and the samylin liver supplements for 3 weeks. She has her last of the antibiotics in a couple of days. She will go back to the vets in 2 weeks and they said they will consider taking the feeding tube out. I think I will ask to keep the feeding tube in for a little longer so that we can make sure she is okay for a while after finishing the antibiotics and liver supplements incase she starts to do downhill again and needs medication. It its much less stressful to administer through a tube than to force her to take it by mouth.
Another positive is that she has started to take her self off to bed in the evenings. Before she wouldn't move from the basking lamp. She still isn't moving that much and won't come out of her sleeping area in the morning but still I think this is a big improvement and is more her normal behaviour.
I am a tiny bit worries as the other day she ate a bit of substrate (orchid bark). I tired to take it out but only managed to get half. She has pooped since but I will keep a close eye and if the pooping stops I will go to the vet incase of obstruction. I've checked her poop too buts its difficult to see if the bark is in her poop of just with it when it hits the substrate.
She has also sneezed a few times on different days but this tends to be after she has has her injections or has been moved so I think maybe from her getting a little bit stressed. It makes me worry about stopping antibiotics a bit though incase the infection is still active.
Overall, although I definitely think we aren't out of the woods yet, she has done well over the last 3 weeks, certainly a lot better than the vets could have imagined given her prognosis a few weeks back.
I will update this thread in case anyone is interested or have similar tortoise issues.
