Staff are nice but the Dr. misdiagnosed my poor turtle ☹️ Took my turtle here for the first time ever about a month ago (15/09/23). Dr. concluded the swelling on his ear was merely just regular swelling/bruising of some sort. Dr. said it may be from my turtle accidentally scratching itself (I was very sure the answer for this is no because my turtle has never scratched itself) or because of potentially hitting some sharp deco in his tank (definitely no also because he only has 3 round rocks and 3 soft fake plants as deco in his tank and they’re all very safe for him). Dr. gave me antibiotics to give to my turtle so that the swelling would go down and I was asked to come back again for a check-up a week after. I came in again the week after (23/09/23). Swelling on the ear of my turtle did not go down in between these check-ups despite giving my turtle the antibiotics as instructed. If anything it seemed like the swelling increased a bit. Dr. still convinced it couldn’t be anything else, that it was just swelling/bruising. I left the vet with another round of antibiotics to give to my turtle. He finished this round of meds too but swelling still did not go down. I was honestly and genuinely disappointed ☹️ I had a strong feeling it was ear abscess right from the beginning but both times I went here and saw the Dr. he was very sure that it wasn’t abscess, never even mentioned the possibility that that could be it ☹️. I took my turtle to a different vet the week after that (29/09/23) and right away the Dr. there knew it was ear abscess with no hesitation and performed surgery to clean the abscess out the same day! Fast forward to now, I’m so glad my turtle is all healed and looking much better 🥹 It made me really sad for my turtle as I know its painful for them to have abscess and also because the whole process was prolonged when it could’ve been dealt with much earlier had it not been misdiagnosed by the Dr. here.
P.S. From what the Dr. from the other vet place has told me and from what I’ve looked up on my own on the internet, a turtle ear abscess can only be treated surgically by opening the ear and removing the hardened pus. No amount of antibiotics on its own could heal the swelling. Antibiotics are only sometimes given after the surgery has been done as an aftercare to prevent further infection.