need some help with my temps

[final4kc]

My BP is about 5 1/2 years old. She's been doing really well, we've had her since she was about 8-10 weeks old. Problem is she hasn't eaten since late December 2013, almost 4 months. Last winter (2011-2012) she didn't eat for about 3 months and was fine. Anyway she was out and about so I thought perhaps I would try to feed her. Wouldn't touch the mice, her regular diet. She also appeared to have something around her vents. Beginning of March I brought her to the vet. She was rather dull, but not close to a shed and she just didn't look right. Turns out she was dehydrated and was a bit red in the mouth. The vet thought we should soak her, see if we could get her to shed and then perhaps she would start eating. Right about this time we moved her from a 20 gal to 50 gal tank. We set up a hot side and cool side put in the water dish, the log. The temp gauges, etc. a heat pad. We soaked her for about 5 days and she finally went into a shed. Very clean shed, almost a solid piece, the eye caps she had finally came off. I thought for sure she would eat. Wouldn't touch the food. I notice the temp on top of the pad is hot, it can get up to 111. We set it up to go on and off, but it doesn't stay at a consistent temp. It's also over several layers of substrate and it's not the ambient temp of the tank. That runs a bit cool.

She's active at night, been hanging out on the cool side of the tank, but still won't eat when I take her out to her feed box. I tried a thawed frozen rat, more live mice, nothing. I'm trying to figure out why she isn't eating. I'm almost ready to take her back to the vet. I don't want to force feed her, I think it might be a temperature issue, but I can't quite figure it out. I've gotten a thermostat to put on the heat pad in the hopes that it will level out that temp, but do I need to make it a constant ambient temperature.

She looks good, she's alert, but I'm kind of concerned since she hasn't eaten since December. Oh, she also hasn't dropped a lot of weight, but as I said I need some advice. Thanks.

final4kc