Sick Pacman

[GrifTheGreat]

Bloating doesn't necessarily mean he is on his deathbed, but it can be very dangerous. In this case, it is probably caused by the distilled water. His body is trying to hold minerals and nutrients in and it is causing him to be extremely bloated. Give him a soak in lukewarm Dechlorinated (Not Distilled.) water with a couple of drops of honey in it. This should help him urinate. Keep us posted.

[Ornata]

Ok, he's soaking in it now. How long do I leave him there?

[DVirginiana]

I usually leave mine about 15 minutes soaking, but just try to watch him. If he looks like he's in distress, you can take him out after 15 minutes and then do it again later, if he looks fine you can leave him in there a little longer.

Even if you don't have a herp vet around, you can take them in to a regular vet and tell them you know it has an infection and ask for antibiotics. If they don't know anything about frogs, you might want to ask for Baytril specifically; I know a lot of people use that for their frogs when they have infections. You can probably order that online as well. I don't have any experience with using it personally though, so you should probably to wait for someone else to comment to make sure this would be okay in this situation....

[GrifTheGreat]

15-20 minutes in the soak. You will need to keep a close eye on him. The bloating could also be caused by infection, in which case his condition is more serious.

The diagnosis of which antibiotic to use should be made by a vet. Different antibiotics are effective against different types of infections. Calculating the right dosage can also make the difference between life or death. These are relatively small animals so a difference of a couple milligrams dosage is huge. Try and see if there is a vet who will run a urine sample for you to check for infection. They should be able to determine what type of infection it is even if they don't specializing in frogs. Another benefit is that you can just drop the sample off with out having to put the frog through the stress of a vet trip. Although ideally he should be looked at by a vet, I realize that circumstances don't always allow that.

Baytril does seem to be the most commonly prescribed antibiotic for frogs, but it is not effective against all types of infections. For instance, it does not work on Gram-Positive bacterial infections. For that, you would want Fortaz (Ceftazadime). I recently switched Herp vets and my new vet seems to be much more knowledgeable about frogs. He recommends the Fortaz over Baytril. As it turns out, Baytril has more side effects and it is injected directly into the muscle. It is known to cause weakness, swelling, muscle damage, and even muscle necropsy. This is why home diagnosis is very dangerous.