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Hi all,

We've been treating Fatty for about 10 days now for early shell rot on his plastron... using Nolvasan and Silvadene. We are having some vet drama, in which the vet is no longer returning our emails, etc... so, I have just a couple of questions..

1. How long should we continue treatment, presuming he is not getting worse?

2. He also appears to have parasites, or little wormy white things in his poop. I called about getting a fecal sample tested, and apparently it would cost $60 just to run the tests! So I'm wondering, as long as he is super active and eating and basking, which he is... is this something I need to take care of right away? And, if he needed to go on Baytril or whatever the treatment is for parasites, is that the same as the antibiotic they would give him if his shell rot got worse?

3. And if anyone can recommend a solid herp vet in NYC, it would be immensely appreciated. Am very disappointed with our current one.

Thanks so much!

How much improvement have you seen in 10 days? I'd continue the treatment a bit longer. (The vet didn't give any idea how long the shell was to be treated?)

I find $60 to test a fecal sample to be really steep. The last time I had one done on a turtle's poop, the charge was $22. Baytril is not used to treat parasites; the drug used to treat your turtle's parasites depends on the type of parasite it is (a drug may be effective against one type of parasite, but not another).

Someone else in your area is going to have to recommend a good herp vet. He may be behaving normally now, but at some point the parasites are going to affect him, so having him seen sooner rather than later would be good.

$60 is pretty pricey. I paid $18 for a test here in the Dallas ara. There are several good members on her from NYC that can refer you to a couple of good vets. I'm sure they will chime in.

Just curious, who was your previous vet? My current vet is Robert Monaco at the Old Country Animal Clinic. He's pricey and will probably recommend dry docking after a betadine scrub for shell rot.

You should be able to call around for prices on certain fecal tests.

Over the 10 days, I would say his shell is certainly not getting any worse, it looks like I see some of his plastron spots trying to come back...

We initially saw Dr. Yang at St. Mark's Animal Hospital in the East Village, but she kept referring us to Dr. Kurowski, who is the turtle expert there - she is super busy and as a result, we've never been able to have a full on consult with her. Kurowski had been responsive to emails initially, but now has stopped answering after we had a bad interaction with her last week (they basically recommended antibiotics for his swollen eye issue, when we brought him in they literally just grabbed him, to whisk him back for shot without telling us what it was, what the course of treatment was, how long it would take, cost, or even looking at him in person. we stopped them and they said if his eyes got better, we could hold off on antibiotics, which we have done). Dr. Yang is very nice, but not as knowledgeable on turtles.

We've kind of let up on the dry docking because we aren't really able to regulate temperature in our apartment, it had been too cold for him and he started getting a little sick (swollen eyes, lethargy) for a few days - vets said it was more important to keep him warm (which we can pretty much only do in the water) than to dry dock for the sake of his shell.

That is a good idea, I think I will just call around to all the herp vets I can find in the city and see who's the cheapest...

When they initially prescribed the Nolvasan scrub and Silvadene, they said we probably wouldn't see much improvement until a month went by, but I would imagine a month is a long time to continue this treatment... The Rx label on the Nolvasan says 10-14 days....

Thanks all...

Dry docking is absolutely necessary for shell rot. Is there another way to keep him warm, like in a small room (i.e. bathroom)?

Not all vets are equal, so don't let prices be the only equation in your decision.

When my Spot had a mild shell infection I treated him with Nolvasan scrub and Silvadene and lots of dry docking for two weeks. After he went back to normal, I repeated the process several times but for shorter periods to make sure it didn't come back. The damage to the shell from the infections lingered for a long time but lost the red look within days. Today, about 6 months later, you can still tell where the infections were because the shell is still shedding in those spots, but all the shell looks healthy now.

In addition to the tiny red infections on the plastron, my turtle also had fungus on both his carapace and plastron - pretty bad. It took the better part of a year to clear it all up. What helped the most was lots of basking under good quality light - natural sunlight when the weather permitted. In the end, the heavily damaged layers of retained scutes shed off, leaving small fungus infections on the carapace. Coincidentally, when I was treating the infections on the plastron I found that the Silvadene miraculously also cured the remaining fungus patches on the carapace.

Today, Spot has some new fungus showing but it isn't bad (yet). I believe once the fungus gets a foothold in a turtle's system and environment, it keeps recurring. Pretty soon I'm going to have to start treatments again with Nolvasan, Silvadene and lots of dry docking to keep the fungus from getting bad.