I know there have been dozens of posts on stuck eye caps, and I read a few of them. I read about the mineral oil, the sticky tape, the Q-tips, and about the wisdom of doing nothing and calling a vet.

Here's the thing: I already took my snake to the vet. He is 14 years old. We got him as a baby. He has always had bad sheds, even when we increase his humidity, take him out for soaks, no matter what we do. As of the last few months, he stopped eating, and started acting like he was blind. We took him to a vet, and she said he has retained eye caps, but she didn't have the experience to take them out.

She recommended me to a vet 40 miles away, and said let him crawl around in a wet towel, to see if he might scrape them off himself. He hasn't eaten since January. He has a humid box which he rarely stays in. I soak him in the wet towel for half an hour every day. He still won't eat, still has very milky eyes--you can't even see under them anymore. He gas grown noticeably thinner. We don't have the money to take him to the specialized vet.

The real question is: at what point is it cruel to keep him alive? We don't want to watch him starve to death, but we don't want to give up on him if he still has a chance. He's a fairly good age, but he still has 10 or 15 years left. If he were your snake, at what point would you say enough? And what are the accepted methods of culling for a snake?