Illness/Sickness: Back legs not working, he's swollen, can't move right

Hello everyone, I am so distraught about my Newton. I have had him for 8 years, and he has always been happy and healthy and a big eater. I would hand feed him his frozen bloodworms and he would come to me. For the past few weeks though his behavior with food changed and balks when I try to feed him. Then a few days ago he started to float. This is highly unusual, as he never floats, only "rests", in his plants. He can manage to get to the bottom of the tank with a great effort, but has no use of his back legs, only the front ones. So he spins and floats up, but then finally can manage to get to the bottom. The back legs stick out and look swollen, as does his belly, though even there it's hard to tell because he has always been plump. I called Tufts (a huge veterinary hospital/clinic in my area) and their exotics doctor moved to Georgia yesterday and they only have an intern. The woman said, "we can at least give him heat support." Duh!

Plan B. I'm on my own. I checked the water and there's no ammonia because I do regular water changes, add pond salt, make sure he has live plants etc. I checked the forum for bloat, but since Newt's neck is not swollen, I'm not sure it is bloat. Also, he shed yesterday and it was a good healthy shed. Not sure if it is due to my handling him or not though.

I have read the many great strings some of you have posted on salt baths and refrigeration. I don't know if either is recommended. I'm concerned he has an infection or some internal malfunction, because his skin is great. I also have liquid baytril for a cat that is sick, but since I'm afraid I would do more harm than good by giving it to him, not sure if anyone has tried this for infection and been successful...or the dosage.

I love Newt. People think I'm crazy, and when I burst into tears yesterday at the local vet over possibly losing him I think my reputation as a lunatic was confirmed. This little guy has so much character and I feel helpless to help him. I know all you understand.

He is looking at me now, and trying to move around the bottom of his aquarium, business as usual...but it breaks my heart to see him struggling. Thanks for any advice you can give me.

Can I ask if Newton is an axolotl or a newt ?....I am easily confused.
What is the substrate he is on ?

Pictures of Newt "not sick" and "sick"

Hi, I also meant to show a few pics of Newt. I just tried to feed him bloodworms, but he didn't eat. Also, he used to race around the tank a lot but now he spends a lot of time in one place. The first pic is of him sick, the other is of him not sick. I can post more but didn't want to spam.

Hi Julia, I honestly don't know. I was told when I bought Newt that he was an "orange bellied newt." Which says nothing, I know. I never delved further, since he was such a "happy" guy and never sick. Now I wish I knew more. Maybe the pics I posted can help? Thanks for writing me. I feel relieved I found this site and maybe some of you have experience with these things. :happy:

Closeup pic of Newt's back torso and legs. Note his hind legs are not hitting the ground. He finally moved out of position so I could get this shot of him.

I have now moved this from the sick axolotl section into the newt section.

This is a link about your little guy :-
Caudata Culture Species Entry - Taricha granulosa


Unfortunately I can't say what the problem is. Hopefully the link above may help in some small way, until someone more experienced with the species pops up.

Hi Julia, thank you for moving it. I put Newt in the fridge though about 10 minutes ago and am not sure if I did the right thing. I will go check on the newt area to see if I have made a mistake.

Just an uninformed guess - could it be intestinal impaction? If he swallowed one of the stones you are keeping him on, I think he might have a problem passing it. Not sure there is anything you could do in case this is the problem.
Sorry I can't help. Hope the newt recovers.

Hi Eva,

I thought maybe it was impaction and have had him in then fridge for a couple days now, but he has passed nothing. I have an appointment today at 2:00 with a vet and I want an xray taken to determine if there is an issue with swallowed substrate or other. If there is nothing seen, I want fluid drawn and a culture done to see if there is a bacterial infection. My biggest concern right now is bloat, though his neck does not seem swollen to me, but I'm not an expert at all.

I will let you know how it goes. I'm hoping for the best, since I've had this little guy for 8 years and he is the sweetest thing.

I did test the tank water for PH and it is 8.0. Rather high. Not sure if it is the salt I add for the fish when I do water changes. My tap water is 7.0. There is no ammonia to speak of in the tank, as I tested that as well. My one concern is that the water temp may be too high for Newt, though he has lived with fish for 8 years and never had a problem with it before.

Thanks for writing me. This has consumed me for the past few days...

Hi, have you seen the vet? Did they find anything?

Hi Eva,

I went to the vet yesterday with Newton. We did an X-ray and a subsequent ultrasound. Here was his write-up:

"On presentation, Newton was quiet but responsive. On physical examination, his vitals were normal but we could notice that he was bloated. He was able to make small movements with his legs. We could also see that several vessels around his abdomen were very irritated. At this point, we suspected the bloat was due to obstruction, egg bind, bacterial infection or renal disease. We took xrays to assess the presence of an obstruction. No evidence of egg or calcified material was noticed. We do not suspect obstruction. We performed an ultrasound to assess possible renal hyperplasia or neoplasia. The liver, kidneys and GI tract did not reveal any abnormality. It was possible to see two structures filled with liquid. We offered to remove part of the content, but due to the fact it was unclear which structure we would be perforating, we decided not to do this procedure at this time. We will start him on a medical treatment by giving him Baytril baths. We would like to keep him in the medicated water for 8 hours a day for 7 days. Do not feed him in this water. Over the next few days you may keep him at a lower temperature. This may reduce the spread of the disease but may reduce his appetite. We expect to see an improvement over the next days. If no improvement is noticed, let us know."

Here's the medication and quantity we are bathing him in: Baytril 100mg/ml injectable (this is not an injection, but a syringe that we fill and squirt into the water), 5 mils. Mix 0.1 ml per liter of water. Place Newton in the medicated water for 8 hours a day for 7 days.

Newton had his first bath last nite from 1:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. this morning. I then changed his water (using water I had pretreated for chlorine and chloramide) and put him back into darkness (honestly? I have him in my wine cooler).

I am hoping for the best. When they are in cooler water it's really hard to tell if they are getting better because there is little movement...twhen I picked him out of the treated water to place him in his regular water, he rolled a bit and it made me nervous...but since he is almost in a dormant state, perhaps I shouldn't worry? The vet is great. His name is Joao Brandao and he called me three times yesterday and once this morning to check in. He is an intern over at Tufts Veterinary Hospital (school and hospital) which is one of the larger ones in New England.

Stay tuned! I'm trying to remain upbeat.

Seems like a reasonable course of treatment. You're lucky, I had to treat one Taricha with injections. She did NOT like it.

When you're treating him, are you sure to use regular water of the same temperature as the treatment water? Are you keeping him in the cooler 24/7?

I keep the water for the water changes right next to the container I am treating him in, so it is at the same temp. I am keeping him in cooler temperatures 24/7. At least for the first few days of treatment. If he does not respond, we will resort to injections. I would have liked to have removed the fluid, but it was risky in that the vet said if we perforated the wrong things going in, the infection may spread through his whole body .... Thus, the conservative treatment to start. The injections are an option, not sure "where" they inject. Where did you inject when you were having to do those?

I injected her behind her front leg, in her 'armpit' area. I injected from behind, toward the leg if looking from above, but into the body side, rather than the leg side.

I think you're incredibly lucky to find such a good vet, I don't think the vets here would know the first thing about newts. Best of luck!

Hi Rob, yes, I do feel very lucky. Newton's doctor has called a few times to see how he was doing or to give me more info, and when I phoned this morning to give him an update he called me right back and spent about 20 minutes on the phone answering questions and providing me more information on how to proceed etc.. I told him that I see Newt's back feet are now on the ground, rather than sticking straight out from his body like in the pics of him I provided. He is still not moving around a lot, and not eating eitherbut at least his feet are on the ground again. The doctor said he really wants to see him eat to give him strength and discussed possibly force feeding him (though he said it can be tricky because Newt will try to regurgitate. He wants to give the antibiotic another day or so to see if he will eat on his own, and if necessary he will come in to the clinic over the weekend (he said they can page him) if he is not eating. I felt badly that earlier this week I picked Newton up at Tufts at midnight and was not clear on the discharge instructions and he literally took a call at his home to speak to me.... Jeesh, try to get a human doctor to do that, right? He's a gem. If Newton starts to eat on his own, and is doing well, we will just do a recheck on Monday. Unfortunately, I hear that this Doctor is leaving Tufts soon..... he is an intern and will be leaving for another practice. (sigh) I hope they get another vet as wonderful as him as a replacement.

I suspect the not eating comes more from being in the fridge rather than the treatment. If your cooler has a temperature control, try warming it up to say, 50F. Then see if he'll be more apt to eat.

Your vet sounds wonderful. Perhaps you could ask him if he would be willing to put his information out there when he gets to his new practice so that others with exotic pets can take advantage of his knowledge. It's rare to find a vet so knowledgeable about salamanders, especially.

I gave him the caudata.org site info, and also the link to the page (from here) where doctors can list themselves. When I see him this week I will encourage him to put his info out because as you are all saying, there are so FEW doctors who know about, much less specialize in, this species.

As an update, I will raise the temp a bit today of Newt's water. It's at 10C right now, which I think is only 42F. I need to get him to eat. He is still looking swollen to me, despite the antibiotics, though he is using his back legs a bit...not completely, but a bit. The doctor suspected the fluid pockets might be pressing on nerves that allow for full motion of his rear legs, and that's why there was the conversation around removing fluid, risky as it may be.

One note of concern, maybe....he is shedding....again. He did this a week ago, and now he is shedding again. One large piece which I believe is better than flaking, but not sure if this should be happening? I may have to page the vet. He seems to be more interested in his surroundings...looking up with both front feet firmly planted (not in defense posture). He has nothing in his bowl though to rub against to aid in his shed, but I'm afraid to introduce anything for fear of messing up his antibiotic regime.

Any thoughts?

I found mine shed a lot more during treatment. I chalk it up to stress, and having the medication (some of which I did apply topically).

If you have something rough to put in there, like a nice clean stone, that would be fine.