Potential gagging

[avasims]

Hello. I have been dealing with my golden greek tortoise being sick for about a year now (excessive shedding, throwing up, constipation, random shell fracture) and have literally gotten no helpful remedies this entire time. I’ve taken him to the vet several times, paid thousands of dollars, and still have not figured out anything! I am trying my best to figure it out but in the meantime I need to help him stop gagging. He sits there opening and closing his mouth and constantly sticking his tongue out. Constant yawning too. No he is not chocking on food, this happens in the early mornings and late nights when he hasn’t eaten for hours. I have him on an anti nausea oral medication from the vet but obviously that’s not working. Is this even gagging at this point? I know it could be respiratory but why the tongue sticking out? I need help, and I want to make it clear that this doesn’t have anything to do with the diet, housing, or anything of that sort .. the vet already have informed me that I have all of that right. This is an outside source of some kind. either a disease or lack of something.. i don’t know. Please let me know your thoughts on what I should do from here!!

 

[Avuwyy]

Are you able to tell us what the enclosure is like, substrate and such? Do you let your tortoise free roam??

 

[Yvonne G]

Most often when you see health issues in tortoises it's due to incorrect husbandry. Please go to our greek section and towards to top of the section find our care sheet. Read it a couple times then try to correct anything you're doing wrong. Once you get the husbandry right health issues usually resolve.

 

[Tom]

Hello. I have been dealing with my golden greek tortoise being sick for about a year now (excessive shedding, throwing up, constipation, random shell fracture) and have literally gotten no helpful remedies this entire time. I’ve taken him to the vet several times, paid thousands of dollars, and still have not figured out anything! I am trying my best to figure it out but in the meantime I need to help him stop gagging. He sits there opening and closing his mouth and constantly sticking his tongue out. Constant yawning too. No he is not chocking on food, this happens in the early mornings and late nights when he hasn’t eaten for hours. I have him on an anti nausea oral medication from the vet but obviously that’s not working. Is this even gagging at this point? I know it could be respiratory but why the tongue sticking out? I need help, and I want to make it clear that this doesn’t have anything to do with the diet, housing, or anything of that sort .. the vet already have informed me that I have all of that right. This is an outside source of some kind. either a disease or lack of something.. i don’t know. Please let me know your thoughts on what I should do from here!!

I second what Yvonne said.

There is no way for us to know. Your case is very unusual and all of the normal problems and causes don't line up with your info, so we are at a loss to help. A good tortoise vet should be able to run diagnostics and figure this out for you, but good ones are hard to find.

Here is the correct care info. Read through it and make sure you are doing all of this correctly:

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