Cynops orientalis seeking help

Hi,

I recently purchased a Cynops Orientalis from Wall-Mart trying, with my little knowledge in sals-keeping, to give her a better chance. The newt was clearly injured, and now, after 3 weeks, I see almost no progression in her condition.

My main concern is about this big wound on her rear foot:
(here is how it looked Sunday)



Fortunately, the newt is eating very well. She's still active and her wound doesn't seem to slow her down for the moment. I always try to keep the water very clean and of course, she is in quarantine.

Do you have any suggestion about what I should do to promote the healing of her wound ?

Thank you for your support,
Pierre

I would say that the fact it isn't getting worse and that the critter is eating well is a good sign. Unless you want to resort to antibiotics, I would simply watch it in case it gets any worse.

Hey Michael,

As soon I got your post, I tried diluted Betadine solution that I got from the drug store. The treatment seemed to help the healing process for the wound on the foot.

Unfortunately, I discovered another big wound on one of her little arm. Should I continue with Betadine on that new wound ? I'm worried because the newt is less active (she hides in her cave all day long) and seems to have difficulties moving this arm.


(The yellow-ish liquid is Betadine)

This newt went through hard times already and I find it so cruel to see her more injured than ever...

Hi Pierre,

Sometimes minor wounds or bites get infected with different sorts of bacteria and/or fungi. And these infections tend to get more serious if the animal's immune system is depressed (from stress of being at the wall-mart or just from the change of environment).
In this case I would assume that this animal is under some kind of stress and immunedepressed and that you should take more serious measures to treat her.
Ckeck temperature, water pH as a minimum data base of water condition (another good idea is check the Nitrites and Ammonium concentration in the water) and besides the betadine treatment you could start her on topical antibiotic ointment or acriflavine baths. Also keep her in aged water, aerated and keeping the tank very clean.
Of course is better to avoid chemicals and a lot of these situations resolve spontanously or with minimum treatment but this is a more serious case.
Hope this helps.

Thank you both Filipe and Michael...

The update about the newt is not very good. Her wound on the foot seems to be alright for now. Unfortunately, she stopped eating. I have lost newts in the past and I know what this means.

For now, my biggest concern is her wound on the arm. It seems like it went bigger and now I can see her tiny bones. It looks like her elbow is broken and now her entire arm is loose; she don't seem able to move it anymore. I wonder if there is a chance of healing, because the loose arm is not in the right position for the bones to "solder" back together.

I am sure you are aware of that article on Caudata culture: http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/limb_series.shtml ... Now that I don't see any improvements in the healing of her forelimb, I question myself about that possibility. But, if it's already to late for her, I don't want to cause this animal more pain she had.

She is a beautiful newt, and its very sad for me to see how courageous she is when I can predict her fate at this point..

Thanks all for your advise
Pierre

Pics of the wound:

Hi Pierre,

Sorry about to hear that your newt is not better. By looking at the pictures is difficult to tell if the bones are really broken or if the wound just got deeper and destroyed soft tissues of the arm (muscles, nerves, etc). Either way is not very good...

I think that at this point this newt should be needing extra-treatments. Have you tried the acriflavine baths?
You may want to try some broad-spectrum topical antibiotic ointment (like an ophthalmic ointment): aply it sparingly over the wound and keep the animal out of water for 10-15 minutes so that the tissues absorb the medication. You can also try baths with antibiotic.

If she's not eating you should assume that this animal is either suffering pain/disconfort or the infection spread from the wound to the rest of the body (septicemia). These are more serious conditions and you should try looking for more specialized help, like a veterinarian used to work with amphibians (I imagine that these are a few but...). I would start with force feeding, fluids and parenteral antibiotics...

As you can imagine this transcends a little bit the purpose of this forum but I hope your newt gets better.

Cheers

Hi Filipe,

In addition to the betadine treatment, I started tonight another one using broad-spectrum topical antibiotic ointment. I don't want to make any publicity here, but here’s what I used, just to check if I'm correct:



I've tried to take better pictures of the wound, to show you what I mean. Those pictures shows you how the forelimb seems about to rip off by itself... The white area is not tissues or bones this time, pictures were taken just after the first treatment with bacimyxin.





Finally, here's a video where you can see how weak seems to be the tissues retaining the forelimb in place. Note also the unconventional position of the forelimb in the motion of the newt.

http://www3.sympatico.ca/marie.1980/salamandre/moving.wmv

Now for the good new of the evening; this new treatment seemed to calm the newt down a bit. Maybe with less stress there is possibility for eating in near future. If she don't eat, I sure will need more detailed information about force feeding.

Also, I did not mentioned it earlier, but I've searched for veterinarian used to work with amphibians in my region and I couldn't find any. So your advice are really my only resort. Thanks for your support, it is really appreciated here

Pierre

Hi Pierre,

This ointment seems OK, it's an association of 2 different antibiotics and it has a wide range of action. Usually we wait 24 to 48 hours untill we can see any effect of medication. Anyway it's good news if you really think that she's a little bit better; we must allways keep in mind that amphibians have a slower metabolism so wound wealing and responding to medication takes a little bit longer in these guys.

I wasn't able to see the movie (don't know why...) but the infection might have got into the bone or the arm is really broken. So this limb is a bit in jeopardy, there's the chance of remaining crooked or have to be amputated. Anyway, we'll have to relly on the amazing regenerative capacities of newts.

As for the force feeding is kinda difficult to explain you but if you need it I can try to take some pictures of one of my newts simulating this procedure. Let me know if she doesn't eat.

You can also try to locate a herp veterinarian in your area searching on melissa kaplan's page.

Filipe

Hi Filipe,

The effects of the bacimyxin treatment seem positive. The newt seems less in pain shortly after it and she is more calm. However, the wound doesn't look like if it will heal anytime soon. The problem is that her forelimb holds to the arm by some skin and the bones are "loose". Thus, the arm is not in the right position for the wound to be covered with a new layer of skin. [It's pretty difficult for me to explain it, English is a foreign language for me.] But, it look like if the skin retaining the arm will soon tear and I think the amputation will me carried out by nature itself.

So, I keep water very clean and I continue Betadine/bacimyxin treatments. The newt is still active, but is suffering pain for sure. I had difficulties last days to monitor if she eats or not (I was absent) but I'm pretty sure she gave up eating. So, If you can, could you please send me those pictures about your newts simulating force feeding procedure ?

I made another video showing her forelimb. This time, I encoded it in .mov, Quicktime 5.0 format. Hope you can now see it: http://www3.sympatico.ca/marie.1980/salamandre/brokenelbow.mov

On an another note, if I compare with the first picture in this thread, the wound on her back feet seem to continue "destroying tissues". I still apply Betadine/bacimyxin but I fear it continues its progression to a point where it will reach the body of the newt. Should I try something else or wait for results ? At this time, I can see the tip or her toe's bones.

As you can see, I'm not an expert, but I just can't give it up. The veterinarian listed on Melissa Kaplan's page who is the closest to my house is still about 300 km from here. At this time, due to University work, I can't travel this long before Christmas break.

Here are the latest pics of her forelimb:





Again, thank you,
Pierre

You might want to check into the product "MELAFIX", by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. It is an antibacterial remedy that treats ulcers, open wounds, fin and tail rot, etc. Its active ingredient is from the Melaleuca (Tea Tree) plant. I have used it - it does seem to help, and there (so far) have been no harmful side-effects.

Hi Pamela,

Thank you for your suggestion; I found some "MELAFIX". I just put it in the newt's tank, so we'll see the results soon enough.

This is how her forelimb is doing:


As you can see, the limb is now almost completely detached from the body and the bone is exposed. I don't know what to do about that. I've seen on another thread the healing of a similar wound: http://www.caudata.org/forum/messages/7/18686.html?1094588310

I would like to know how Tim treated this newt; did he cut the exposed bone or does the newt regenerated skin over it ? I'll try to get in contact with him.

So, if I resume the situation, here it is:

- I did not find any vet dealing with newts in my region
- I treat the newt everyday with Bacimyxin ointment
- I treat the newt every 2 days with diluted Betadine
- The water in the tank now contains MELAFIX
- I keep the water very clean
- The newt still moves around (she's active)
- The newt don't eat anymore but turned away from the bloodworms and earthworms

So, I really hope the wounds will heal and I'm confident about that. My main concern for now his her nutritional intake.

Thank you all for your help,
Pierre

A side note from Heather's article at CC:
"Use iodine based medications like betadine and Rid Rot with caution and in small amounts. Iodine is highly toxic to amphibians. After application, be sure to dab the area dry and rinse with dechlorinated water. Only apply for the first day. DO NOT bathe the animal in these chemicals."

Pamela - Tee tree oil can be effective against bacteria but is also quite toxic, I wouldn't mix it with amphibians...

Let's face it the "fish medicines" are rather useless and many if not most bacteria are resistant. The only way to get a truly effective drug is to go to a vet and have him prescribe a large amount(Can't afford to visit everytime I have an ill newt from a pet shop disaster(they sometimes give me the severly ill ones when I flame them(I'm dumb I know..))) of suitable antibiotic that is currently used on humans. If your vet is responsible he will be quite hesitant to do so since they have strict instructions(here in sweden at least) to limit the use of the best antibiotics to humans and to resort to outdated medications for animals - in order to reduce the amount of resistance spread. Give it a try though.

Hi,

Sorry to tell you this, but Tyrosine, the injured newt, died this week-end. She fought to the last day, but I guess that this bad infection caused fatal damage to her organs.

However, I would like to thanks people who helped me out with this one: Filipe, for his valuable knowledge, Michael and Pamela for their suggestions and Jesper for his advice.

I only hope I gave her better chances than Wall-Mart did. It's hard for me to think about all her pain and how she was treated at the "pet-shop" when I think she was only one in a tank with a dozen Cynops in her condition.

Pierre

Get some CB instead there are plenty of people that will give you eggs or even juvies if you want!

Hi Pierre,

Just seen this thread today. Sorry to hear about the bad news...
Can't help thinking if I got those picures (tube feeding) things could turn out to be better. I guess we'll never know.

If you need anything else just ask

Filipe

Sorry to hear about the bad news. I currently have an Orientalis that has a "half leg" with the bone exposed. He is active again, and is healing. The only problem is that he is having a hard time getting to the bottom of the tank (where I feed). He struggles for some time, and eventually sticks himself between a rock and the wall or something, and then he eventually becomes a sinker (newt that will sink instead of float). Any suggestions, becuase I don't want him to not eat and die or something. I tried feeding him yesterday when he was towards the bottom. He idn't show any interest, but that might be because he was trying to keep himself inbetween the rock and wall. Thanks

Hi Filipe

I just want to make sure you don't feel guilty about this story. You made your possible, just like me and there's no one to blame about that. That's called Cynops Orientalis tragedy; buy 2 and get 1 alive. Anyway, your advises were of great help! I'm a better newt keeper now for sure.

Thank you again,
Pierre

Sorry to hear about your newt.