Dante is great!

Dante has started to eat normal food again, and his wounds are all healed.

So you know the progression, here's the story:

Back in October I noticed that Dante had a wound on his hind left flank, between his leg and tail. It wasn't so bad at first, but Dot exacerbated the situation by continuously picking on it. I noticed that Dante was slowly losing weight, losing apetite, and becoming listless. I tried medicating the wound with Silva Sulfa. Finally one day Dante was looking really bad and I pulled him out of the tank. Unfortunately I didn't leave a note for my wife, and she didn't pick up the phone when I called that morning and she tossed Dante back into the tank with her tormentor. By the end of hte day Dante was in horrible shape. He was just floating like a cork while all pulled into his shell. Stacey freaked out and called the vet. We brought him in that night. The doctor gave us oral antibiotics first and a topical medication. Dante was too ill to swallow oral meds and we had to give him injections for a couple weeks. In the meantime we were bringing him in to get food pumped directly into his stomach.

As time went on the animal progressed. By the middle of December he was looking really great. The infected areas had fallen off and new skin formed. He was eating a lot.

Then he lost his apetite again and went into panic mode. He was still on antibiotics, so the doctor told us to discontinue that treatment. The animal slowly started to regain some will to eat. The doctor gave us pet grade acidophilus to restore the bacteria in Dante's intestines. After only three treatments he's already showing huge improvement.

And that's where we are today. Dante slew and ate 5 ghost shrimp over the weekend in less than 5 minutes. That's like his old self. He's eating normal pellets too. We want to give him time to bulk out a little bit more before we insert him into the isolation / injury tank. He's been in solitary confinement since this first happened, so I have a feeling he'll be happy to have friends to play with.

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See more of my turtles here:
http://www.hobbyfanatics.com/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=Pets&s=