WTF! RI just wont go away

[mpkeelee]

ok so i got my BP. temps dropped. BP got sick. went to vet and got oral baytril. didnt help. went and got amikacin and a culture, amikacin helped but didnt kill it so i got more amikacin and just wouldnt kill it. culture came back said oral baytril is the best way to go, i said no but the vet said lets try it and let the culture sit a lil longer and see what happens. oral baytril is doing nothing at all. snake is really sick now, again! i havent heard from the vet in about two weeks so the culture had plenty of time to sit. i think im going to go to the vet tomoro and see what i should do. nothing seems to be able to make my snake better. im getting worried and thinking my snake may not recover from this. if anyone else has had a situation like this i would really appreciate the help

[kc261]

I'm sorry to hear your snake isn't getting better.

I'm pretty sure the culture did not say that oral baytril is best, just that baytril is. Snakes generally do better with injected meds because of their slow metabolism, so I would ask your vet about getting injectable baytril.

If you have not listened to this already, this reptile radio episode with Dr. Stahl has some great info about treating RIs. It takes a while to listen to it, and the RI stuff comes inbetween some other things he talks about, but it is really worthwhile:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/reptile...ile-veterinary

Perhaps the problem is that your snake has developed a secondary infection, and needs some of that medicine for anaerobic bacteria that Dr. Stahl mentions?

[mpkeelee]

im going to listen to that now and get some knowledge. ya i was thinking of asking for injections again cuz the amikacin was easy to give and effective but i guess its not as strong as baytril. thanks for the quick reply

[BPelizabeth]

Maybe a stupid question but.......what did they do a culture of?

Have you taken in a stool sample? The reason I ask is because he could have some type of parasite that is causing his immune system to be more seceptable to infections. ?? Just stuff I read about

[mr. s]

Kc261,
I heard the episode, very good link! I listened to most of it, and from what he said, there are tons of RI's out there that are just husbandry problems and when the husbandry difficulty is are rectified the RI goes away? That surprised me A LOT. I was under the impression that every snake with weezing is going to die unless we got antibiotics in them right away.
What are other peoples opinions on this? I recently took in a rescue that had symptoms, but since having improved the snakes environment, the symptoms seem to have gone away. Is it cured? I have been keeping it in Q and scared to even consider letting it come close to my other snakes, but is there a point that I shouldn't be scared anymore? I've kept it in Q for a month. I know that 2-3 months is standard. What next?

[Freakie_frog]

1;Oral medical for an RI tells me you vet doesn't deal with enough snakes to know any different: get a new vet.
2;The little bug that causes RI is naturally occurring in the mouth and nasal passage of ball pythons. It's only when the animals immune system get's out of whack that it moves in to places it shouldn't i.e. lung and respiratory tract. Doing on oral swab is going to show the presents of the critter and thus make the vet think it has an RI.
3; I've had snakes get a slight whistle and with increased humidity and temps have cleared it up. Does this mean that your snake is cured, no one but your vet or you can tell that. It might be then again it might just have masked the symptoms.

Keeping the environment clean, fresh water, and dry substrate is key when treating an RI.