If you aren’t a long time reader here’s a picture of the injury, which you can read about it here: My pet turtle’s eye injury, My pet turtle’s eye injury part 2, and My pet turtle’s eye injury part 3 – recovery photos.

The total veterinary bill amounted to $163. Here’s what the charges were for:

• Metacam 2ml – Exotics
• Gentocin (only) Opht Soln
• Injacom Inj – Excotic (101gm+)
• Exotic Exam – Initial vs

The first three were pet pharmaceuticals (drugs). They were general made for pet drugs or a reptile formula – none of them were formulated specially for pet turtles. Here’s what each item was for:

Metacam. It’s an NSAID (non steroidal anti inflammatory) drug that controls pain and inflammation. We had to use a syringe to inject it into poor Rex’s mouth. A lot of other websites state that it has a palatable (tasty) taste and that dogs will easily accept it. Rex might have a dog-like name, but he’s a pet red ear slider turtle and it wasn’t easy giving it to him – he didn’t like it at all. After the first dose, he didn’t dare open his mouth again and it’s impossible to ’slip’ something it into a shut turtle mouth. We would put some of it on his turtle food, but he wouldn’t even go for that. It was hard, but being patient was the only solution. One time he even urinated on me when I was giving him (or trying to give him) some metacam. Aquatic turtle pee – I didn’t think I would ever come into direct with that outside of it being diluted and mixed in with the turtle tank water…

Gentocin (only) Opht Soln – or rather Gentocin Ophthalmic Solution. Gentocin is usually a spray-on drug that is used on pet dogs and cats for the treatment of lesions accompanied by swelling and/or itching. The type of Gentocin we got was in eye-drop form (not a spray) and it was the ophthalmic solution, which is made especially for use in eyes for treating/preventing infections, scratches, allergies, ulcers and similar. Each drop would immediately spill out from his eyes – turtle eyes seem so small compared to the size of the drops. Gentocin was easy to give to Rex and wasn’t difficult in any way.

Injacom Inj or Injacom Injection. Injacom is an injection (duh!) that was done by the vet. It contains Vitamin A, D3, and E. Apparently, the one dose the vet gave our pet turtle was enough as we weren’t given any to administer at home.

The fourth item (Exotic Exam – Initial vs) was the veterinary fee and was the most exam item at $91 (total bill was $163). Going to the vet wasn’t exactly cheap, but it was more affordable than I expected. And the peace of mind that my pet turtle was receiving the care and medicine he needed to recover is priceless. So yeah, take your pet turtle to the vet if s/he gets hurt!!

Anyway, Rex is a fully recovered and happy pet turtle and he looks like nothing ever happened to him!

It’s still a shock that Cinderella, my female red ear slider turtle, bit Rex, my male RES turtle…

Anyway, here are photos of Rex’s wound / bite mark from Cinderella’s bite. There’s a sore red spot on his throat area and some scarring. Otherwise, it looks like his wound is healing ok. The wound he has looks like it was cause by the bottom tip of Cinderella’s mouth

Poor Rexie turtle….

red ear slider turtle bite mark

This photo appears in the article
my pet red ear slider turtle’s bite mark

pet red ear slider turtle bite mark

This photo appears in the article
my pet red ear slider turtle’s bite mark

pet turtle bite mark

This photo appears in the article
my pet red ear slider turtle’s bite mark

red ear slider turtle bite mark

This photo appears in the article
my pet red ear slider turtle’s bite mark

pet red ear slider turtle bite mark

This photo appears in the article
my pet red ear slider turtle’s bite mark

pet turtle bite mark

This photo appears in the article
my pet red ear slider turtle’s bite mark

red ear slider turtle bite mark

This photo appears in the article
my pet red ear slider turtle’s bite mark

pet red ear slider turtle bite mark

This photo appears in the article
my pet red ear slider turtle’s bite mark

pet red ear slider turtle bite mark

This photo appears in the article
my pet red ear slider turtle’s bite mark

red ear slider turtle bite mark

This photo appears in the article
my pet red ear slider turtle’s bite mark

red ear slider turtle bite mark

This photo appears in the article
my pet red ear slider turtle’s bite mark

pet turtle bite mark

This photo appears in the article
my pet red ear slider turtle’s bite mark

pet turtle bite mark

This photo appears in the article
my pet red ear slider turtle’s bite mark

He was standing under water in a strange way, so I went to look closer. He had his four feet stretched out underneath him and it looked like he was taking a giant dump. A huge dump, bigger, thicker, and more oddly shaped than anything before. I started panicking in my head thinking, “oh no, he’s having an intestinal prolapse! What do I do!?!?”

I reached for a camera, but the commotion must have alerted him, as the entire prolapsed ‘thing’ went back inside his cloaca. I observed his cloaca (read: butt-hole) for a few minutes as he was swimming around normally and noticed the opening going smaller and smaller. I’d read that turtle penises are weird and oddly shaped, but I didn’t expect it to be so weird and so odd.

So doing some research, I conclude that it was a penile prolapse, not intestinal and that I have nothing to worry about.

Here’s a summary of my findings online on turtle prolapses:

Prolapse: generally when an organ sticks out of a turtle’s cloaca (butt-opening). The organ that sticks out may be intestinal or the penis.

Intestinal prolapse: Thought to be caused by a turtle eating gravel, improper diet, constipation, parasites, being egg-bound or other reason. The consensus is that it’s not really sure why they have prolapses. An intestinal prolapse should go back in by itself and heal, but it also may not go back in, get injured, and require the services of a vet. If this happens, immediately put the turtle in a container with a smooth bottom, clean water, and away from other turtles or animals that may bite it.

Penile prolapse: A male turtle ‘fans’ his male organ and it goes back in. This isn’t a problem and there’s nothing to worry about.

And, since I didn’t get to take any photos of Rex’s prolapse, here’s some I found online:

• Femle adult RES intestinal prolapse and surgery
• Box turtle prolapse
• Sulcata prolapse and treatment
• An article with a few pictures of turtle & tortoise penises

I had him for only about seven months. The whole time I had him he lived with Chicken, a betta fish. I never saw them fight, they lived well with each other, and got along.

When I removed dead Cow from his home, I noticed two reddish marks on him. The red marks look like they could have been bites from my betta fish. The question is, did those bites kill my poor dwarf African frog, or did they come after he had died? And why be aggressive now, after so many months of peace?

I took some photos so that I could show them (and remember the date I found Cow dead) but I can’t find the photos anywhere.

Cow, you were a great dwarf African frog. Rest in peace.

The following are pix of Rex a week after.  A lot of healing had happened by that time.  Several weeks later he was back to normal.

One conclusion I had to this whole injury was this:

In the same way that it’s said that gravel isn’t a good idea in a turtle tank because of possible impaction (compaction, whatever), styrofoam tank backgrounds are also not a good idea, especially if filter tubes are setup right next to them because a turtle can climb them, get stuck, and hurt themselves.

If you want to see the original thread of this ordeal, you can see it here .

Ok, so after I posted to the TurteTimes forum, I started getting responses.

Since Rex was walking and swimming around with his eyes closed and bumping into a lot of stuff, I removed all of his rocks and driftwood, with the wise advice from one of the forum moderators.  I also started removing the styrofoam background.

Rex went to sleep but I accidentally woke him up while checking messages.  He panicked and started to climb up the same area where he had gotten stuck.  I had removed only the top half of the background so he didn’t get too far up.  I immediately removed the rest of the background for both turtles, except for the middle area between both tank divisions, since the background was needed to keep the divider up.

The morning after, his eyes looked a tiny tad better, but were still very badly hurt.  In the morning he somehow wedged himself where his basking corkbark meets the white eggcrate tank divider, but this happened before the heat lamps went on. I repositioned him on his basking area since I wasn’t sure if he was just napping there or was stuck, and he promptly jumped back into the water. I wondered if that and his climbing attempt the previous night was just him trying to dry dock himself or if the pain was just making him panic and do unusual things.

A few hours later my fiancee took Rex to the vet. They said that he was suffering from a UV burn, basically a really, really bad sun burn, which is why the affected areas were red. He also has some burn marks on his nose.  He was stuck pretty close to the UV lamp.

There weren’t any infections but he was given a vitamin shot to help with healing. To be safe, they provided antibiotic eye drops and an oral pain-killer, which we had to give him every few days. The eye drops were easy to apply. He took the first drop to his left eye ok, but the first drop to his right eye (the eye affected worst) must’ve been really painful as he reacted to it and quickly withdrew his head into his shell. Giving him the oral pain meds was difficult as we had to take him out of the water and use a syringe to put it into his mouth. Twice he threw up and once he urinated on me.  I’ve never heard of a turtle urinating out of the water before , he must’ve really been in real pain (I was later told that turtles peeing outside of the water is not unusual).  To get him his pain meds, we would coat some of his food pellets with the meds and he would quickly eat it up.

Both eyes looked better and he was able to open them both.  The left eye still had some redness and swelling around it, but the right eye still looked very bad. Because of the puffiness and swelling, his right eye made him look Chinese.

I returned his driftwood and rocks into his side of the tank and he was able to peacefully sleep on top of his driftwood.

I’ll share some recovery photos and my closing thoughts on his eye injury in the next post.

Side note:  The TurtleTimes.com forum is the best turtle forum in my opinion.  The members there are very kind, caring, and are (in my opinion) the most knowledgeable of the other forums I’ve joined.  So yeah, I highly recommend it.

Ok, so I came home after being out over 14 hours. I couldn’t find my male RES, Rex, anywhere and only after really searching the tank did I find him stuck, high up.  I took photos cause I thought it was amazing that he had managed to climb so far up.  I didn’t know he was hurt, how long he was stuck up there, and that he was scared & cold.

When I pulled him out his eyes were big and swollen red and looked mucus-y. He was also very, very dry and felt cold, I was worried that he might’ve been dead – thank God he wasn’t.  Below are some of the pix that I took :

This is where I found him, wedged between the styrofoam background and filter intake tube. It doesn’t look like the plastic plants were poking him in the eyes, but he was hiding his head in his shell anyway.

That’s almost 2 feet above the bottom of the tank – I was so surprised he was able to climb that high.  The water was about 10" high at that time, so he had climbed about 12" vertically.

The rest are all pix of his eyes:

This is the top of the tank – he was wedged just above the heat lamp and about 8"-10" away from the UVB lamp.

His eyes became like that all of a sudden, they were perfectly normal the last time I saw him the morning before , so I  was sure it wasn’t a Vitamin A deficiency.  But his eyes did look like those of other turtles suffering from photo-kerato-conjunctivitis, which you can see the article here: www.UVGuide.Co.UK.  His eyes looked like he had that, except his were red because it was fresh.

My fiancee was all set to take him to a vet the next day, but not until late in the day. I immediately removed the styro background so that neither of my turtles can climb all the way up again and I turned off the UVB lamp from the timer too.

Keep in mind this all happened months ago, and Rex is 100% fine now.  I’m simply sharing the experience here.  I’ll share more about what happened next in my following post.