herp vets...

[daeva]

anyone know which vet in regina is good to go to for treating tapeworms in my turtle?

also, does anyone know anything about treating tapeworms in a turtle? i only suspect, can't say for sure... but a thread on another post alerted me that this may be the case.

any home remedies? aka, anything i can buy that might clear it up without a vet visit, i'm currently broke (school is just ending) and can't really afford the visit. but i'll take him if i have to.
Lisa.

[alex]

Why do you think your turtle has tapeworms, specifically? There's a lot of potential gut parasites, and some are much easier to treat than others... which is most common depends somewhat on species, diet, source, etc. and they can be incidental to other gastrointestinal problems or contribute to kind of insidious disease - the not quite right for some time animals. I've never bothered deworming my rescue RES, for instance, and aside from those who came in with problems (like coccidial overgrowth from starvation) I've never had an issue.

The thing is there's a lot of different antiparasiticals, and not all of them get the same things. A lot of people seem to use over the counter equine products, but I really dislike that because it's really hard to dose down to an animal that weighs 3-5 orders of magnitude less than a horse. Pet stores sometimes sell herp dewormers, but they're often ineffective or sold at an ineffective dose (they should have something like a DIN on them to sort of indicate quality).

So, I'm not a big fan of random medication of animals for diseases they may or may not have... it'd be good if you could get a fecal done and get it properly dewormed. It shouldn't be prohibitively expensive.

As for an actual herp vet in Regina, I can't remember who refers patients up to Saskatoon. No one is on the ARAV website from Regina. I'd call a clinic and ask who treats herps in Regina unless someone else has a suggestion.

[joeysgreen]

While not really helpfull for this case as identification isn't clear, arn't tapeworms in need of an intermediate host? The infestation should be self limiting and disperse as the adult worms die.

Ian

[alex]

There are a few that do actually do autoinfection. I'm not sure if they're turtles, but my big concern in this case is that if something tapeworm-esque was seen, or they have GIT signs like tapeworms, that they're actually thornyheaded worms, which are evil and difficult to get rid of completely in turtles and quite quite pathogenic as well as quite common in turtles (hence evil)
So I wouldn't exactly want to leave it either

[joeysgreen]

Never heard of thornyheaded worms. Are they a nematode, cestode...? What do you look for on a fecal? Do you have links? It's always neat to learn about oddball parasites

Ian

ps, it's about time I ask, what in the world got your finger?

[alex]

They used to be considered cestodes, but they're just acanthocephalans now... they're their own phylum.
I dunno about links, I use my parasite texts for the most part.... on google, www.rtis.com/nat/user/elsberry/taxa/acanth.htm didn't look too bad.

My female Japanese rat snake bit my finger. Those things, for non venomous snakes, have weird bites that bleed rather copiously for some time and then itch and swell like cat scratches. But they're so pretty you have to forgive them
At least I'm pretty sure that was the female climacophora. My black ratsnakes are pretty snippy too if I don't have food to give them, but the way it's running down my finger makes me think the ao-daisho did it.

[daeva]

oh. look at me neglecting my post. sorry. i disappeared for a while.

[daeva]

okay. so. the thing that clued me into thinking it might be tapeworms, is that the first erm. poop. i ever saw of my res's was a sausage link sorta thing. and never thought anything of it, until i saw a post on another forum that mentioned 'sausage link' feces, and that it was tapeworms. now. i have never seen feces from this turtle since then, however.. i now have two turtles in the tank (the second had a quarantine period first).. and now i see turtle poop alll the time, and it all looks normal.

the 'sick' turtle has grown like a weed. over an inch since january. so. i'm really not too worried about it.
the only clue was the feces.

should i be worried?
Lisa.

[joeysgreen]

I wouldn't be worried; sausage links is kind of a poor description. More often than not, single proglotids are seen, and appear kind of like rice. They of course, may be attached to each other in a chain. As already discussed above, most parasites cannot be detected by the unaided eye so it never hurts to have a fecal done. I'd be in more of a rush to do so if you see other symptoms like diarrhea, blood or mucous in the stool, decreased appetite, poor growth, or anything that just seems out of the ordinary.

Have fun with your turt's

Ian

[daeva]

yay! for that.
you guys are an awesome resource!

thanks Ian!
Lisa.