I did get a hold of the lady we adopted Munchy from and sent her the link to this thread. She raised questions about the care Munchy received as well and stated she was glad I switched vets. The difficulty is, since both vets I visited affirmed the care given, I am thinking I am out of luck for finding a decent tort-knowledgable vet in MN. I looked all over online and the ones that I had seen suggested on herp websites and such were outdated and some of them had retired. Per her recommendations and those on this site, I have stopped bandaging Munchy and this seems to work better for him. There was occasionally a slight odor when I changed his bandage, but now there is no odor. I am still soaking him every other day, 10 min. in plain water, 10 min in the chlorahexadine scrub, rinsing him then applying silver sulfa. cream. I am not taking action (other than what I described) to treat the area on the upper part of his shell that seems unhealthy at this time. I feel he needs time to heal and regrow his plastron, and I am not willing to risk putting him on different, stronger meds unless I either see a marked decline in his health or have the advice of a tort-experienced vet. I am thinking if we have increased health concerns I may try contacting the University of MN and see if they have any resources, or perhaps contact a zoo which houses torts. For now, he's eating well, moving around, digesting his food, regrowing his plastron, and the concerning area on the upper portion of his shell doesn't seem to be changing. We now have weeds in full growth in MN again so Munchy was thrilled to be fed some dandelions by my sons. They are thrilled he's made it to see another summer!
