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Hey everyone. Please give me some insight on what needs to be done here. I've had 'Turts' for about 2 months now. Someone was sitting it outside and said they didn't want it anymore (this was in February). So I took her in and have been doing everything I can to give her a perfect life. 125 gallon tank, water at 75 degrees, above tank basking area at 86 degrees. Water has gone through nitrogen cycle and my levels are staying where they should. I have an api canister filter (the one meant for over 125 gallon tanks). She seems content but has been scratching at her neck a lot this past month. Everything I read sounded like she just was scratching shedding skin off, but I got up this morning and she was on her basking area asleep while her heat lamp and UVB light weren't on. So I started examining her and noticed it looks like she's scratched a cut into the side of her neck. Please help. It was red around the scratch but I didn't see any actual blood. I want to get this taken care of ASAP. She needs to get back to enjoying her basking area without the constant scratching. Thanks for any tips you can provide.

Hi! Could you post a picture of the affected area?

I really can't get a picture of it. Every since I've had her she's really jumpy, except when it's food time, but she still wants me no where near her. The best way I can describe it is that it looks red, like blood, where she's scratching and it's in a circular shape. It looks like a slight slice of the skin. Sorry for the blur. She's feisty and it was taken on my phone. Please help with any info you can give me.

Ouch, poor thing. I will not be much help at all, hopefully Steve will chime in. It's weird that she's scratching herself that hard! For right now I would try to keep the water as clean as possible to prevent any infection. You might have to put some antibiotic or antiseptic on the wound and dry dock her, but again you should wait for somebody who knows what they're talking about. Good luck.

Hi Clint! That does look pretty bad, but the mystery is why she's doing it. It's not an easy spot for a RES to reach. My male RES likes to bite his paw at night, but he will just bite anything. I'm wondering if there was an infection or injury at that spot that was somehow irritating her.

I'd dry dock her to see if she still does that and hopefully the air will help with the healing.

She basks for at minimum of 6-8 hours a day and always has since I've had her (2 months). Steve she bites her claws too, it's pretty funny. However, I'm really concerned that the itching has caused this awful gash so I've already set up an appointment tomorrow to see the vet. I'll give an update once I find something out. Thanks for the advice.

Hope it goes well! Does she do this while out of water or basking?

Steve, she does it both in the water and on her basking dock. But it's more excessive when she's out of the water.

So her trip to the vet... The vet was great and broke out every piece of literature imaginable for water turtles. She checked for bacteria, fungus, etc. all came back negative (which she figured any way). She said Turts looked like she was in perfect health other than the scratching, skin and shell condition. Once again, I've had her for 2 months and her appearance has stayed the same since I've had her. Her skin always seemed to be shedding and her shell always looked dry to me. So the vet said that all of this seems to be the real issue, she's just too dry. She ran some more tests and said she'd call tomorrow with the results but said that it seems to be a vitamin deficiency of some kind and will know tomorrow when
the tests come back. She said just to keep doing everything I've done. She mentioned some random vitamins like possibly a little vitamin k and things like that. She also called several other reptile vets with me in the room and put them all on speaker phone for me to hear. They all said the same thing. So I feel reassured she'll be ok and it'll be a simple fix. On top of all of it she doesn't see a lot of Red ear sliders so she checked to see if she was retaining eggs (this was more because she fell in love with Turts. She also ended up giving her a full check up and didn't charge because she told me she rescued one as a child and thought I was doing a great job. So, all in all, I'll give everyone an up to date diagnosis tomorrow or over the weekend. Thanks again for all of the help.

Just thought I would update everyone. Nothing really came back to note. The reason for the scratching is unknown other than some possible atrophy to the skin some way or another. I was given Bernadine and the silver sulfadiazine? I don't remember the actual name but it's the white cream like substance. Just daily application and dry docking after medication for 30 minutes. I was told I was doing everything else the right way. Hopefully this spot will be gone in a month or so. Thanks everyone for the advice.

Very interesting. Hopefully she heals up soon.