Help with wounds on tortoise shell

Re: Help with wounds on tortoise shell

Mark Rowland — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 23:43:49 GMT

I think what Marie is trying to say is that there is lots of variation with regards opiods in reptiles. For example In bearded dragons, Kurt Sladky has found evidence that very high doses of morphine were analgesic, but not very high doses of butorphanol. However, the converse appeared to be true in corn snakes. J Am Vet Med Assoc. July 2008;233(2):267-73.

There are a lot of deficiencies in our knowledge of reptile analgesia, so the first thing to emphasise is that we aren't sure of much. Much of what we know is based on our own experiences. I have seen what I perceive to be good analgesia with buprenorphine, as I have with gabapentin in selected cases though there are no published reptilian doses. The important thing is not to forget the idea of analgesia in cases such as these imo

Re: Help with wounds on tortoise shell

Marie Kubiak — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 22:04:32 GMT

I would always opt for morphine as opioid analgesia as reptile opioid receptors are primarily mu so morphine has theoretically better binding and effect than buprenorphine. There is little data on most opioids in reptiles but morphine has been shown to be effective at reducing nociception (butorphanol also in some but not all species).

Marie

Re: Help with wounds on tortoise shell

Mark Rowland — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 15:40:09 GMT

No problems, glad you liked it

Re: Help with wounds on tortoise shell

Kishor Mahind — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 12:19:38 GMT

Thanks Mark,

It did come to my mind to go for baytril and Metronidazole!

I don't have any pics at the moment, I'll try to take some at next visit if wound is not healing and post them here. Thanks again.

PS - your exotic analgesic chart helped me remember NSAID and was handy to calculate the dose, thanks for that. I have it printed and pasted in our drug cupboard!.

Re: Help with wounds on tortoise shell

Mark Rowland — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 11:26:23 GMT

Hello

Any chance you could post a pic?

What you have done sounds ok. I would opt for a different oral antibiotic myself (probably a baytril metronidazole combo). Well done for remembering the meloxicam.

Probably wont need rads but cant make that decision until I have seen a pic.

Goodluck (well done so far)