Respiratory Infection

[chosen2030]

So I have heard some of the home remedies if the RI is minor, and was wondering if I could get some clarification on them.

1) Drop humidity and maintain high ambient temp in well ventilated enclosure - has anyone tried this with success? If so, what constant ambient temp did you keep it at (90?), what kind of enclosure did you keep it in, and how did you drop the humidity (remove the water bowl?).
2) Nebulizer with water/f10 disinfectant mix - has anyone tried this with success? How many days did this treatment take? How long was the treatment each day (20-40 mins?)
3) Any other suggestions that have worked for you (with details)?

Thanks in advance for your help/advice. Obviously if it doesn't improve or gets worse, off to the vet!

[Zincubus]

I'll possibly get shot down in flames but ..
When I first started I bought a young Albino Royal that turned out to have RI .
I did loads of research online and using one of my mum's spare nebulisers I treated it in a separate , smaller enclosed container - once a day for 30 minutes approximately and it was completely better in about 12 days ...
It was a battery operated nebuliser with a pretty strong vibration .... anyways at the end of each session the Royal was always wrapped tightly around the vibrating nebuliser !!
The opposite to what I was expecting. .

[KMG]

When I bought my GTP he had an RI when I got him. I didn't fool around and went straight to the vet. They did their deal and sent me out with pre-drawn injections and told me to keep the humidity high while bumping up the hotspot a couple degrees.

I did and after a few weeks of injections he was back to good and has not had any issues since.

[Albert Clark]

So I have heard some of the home remedies if the RI is minor, and was wondering if I could get some clarification on them.

1) Drop humidity and maintain high ambient temp in well ventilated enclosure - has anyone tried this with success? If so, what constant ambient temp did you keep it at (90?), what kind of enclosure did you keep it in, and how did you drop the humidity (remove the water bowl?).
2) Nebulizer with water/f10 disinfectant mix - has anyone tried this with success? How many days did this treatment take? How long was the treatment each day (20-40 mins?)
3) Any other suggestions that have worked for you (with details)?

Thanks in advance for your help/advice. Obviously if it doesn't improve or gets worse, off to the vet!

Well firstly, I would deep clean the whole enclosure with f10sc and let it air dry. I would switch the substrate to only paper towels and yes, drop the humidity to the mid 40's while raising the ambient temps to 92f on the warm side. That will raise the cool side a bit as well. When you switch out the substrate that will lower your humidity depending on the type of enclosure you have. F10sc works well when the concentration is correct and the RI is caught early. Duration of treatment is usually 10 days and the bp is in the tub for 20 mins while the fogger is running and then another 20 mins after the fogger is turned off. I did use it on my bp about 2 yrs ago and it helped but she was very sick with several other things going on at the same time. She did wind up getting put on antibiotics and had to be tube fed with a strict regimen of betadine soaks and silvadene cream applications. So the RI she had was concomitant with a host of other things. That is her picture in my avatar and she recently laid her first clutch. But back to your case, yeah the most definitive treatment is the herp vet. Best of luck!

[ratchet]

I juuust went through this for the first time. It was a fun learning experience, haha.

I took her to the vet after 5 days of no improvement (had increased ambient temperature and was doing the Vicks and Eucalyptus sauna, which I learned is a very touch treatment, lots of people don't like it, some recommend it such as the vet I took her to and a friend of mine who also has snakes.). The vet gave me Baytril and about 13 needles to inject her with 0.1mL everyday for 5 days and then every other day for about a week. I discontinued the Vicks and Eucalyptus saunas as I was no longer sure about them after all the controversy over it and went on a cycle of using a humidifier in the same small room she was in.
I never got the fast improvements I've read about, it took her about three weeks till she started to shed that I noticed a difference. She never got bad enough that mucus was bubbling out of her mouth constantly, but it was smeared over her face and her nostrils were pretty plugged and dry. I gave her a bath to aid in her shed and it also cleared out her nostrils and the mucus hasn't build up again! She refused to eat, so I'm thinking she isn't back up to snuff but her nose is still clear and the wheezing has stopped. I'm not moving her out of the smaller, warmer room yet, will probably do so after she eats a few times.

I never got a blood culture done when I took her to the vet, which I guess is a no-no. The vet gave me the baytril based off his 35 years of experience with reptiles, and luckily he was right. It was just a bacterial infection, but RI's can be viral, in which case I believe Baytril won't help in curing the infection. It's better to get the culture done so the vet is definitely certain of what to prescribe. I was comfortable in giving her needles, some people do a tube feeding of medication that can be a lot more stressful. I've also heard of a spray form of Baytril that works faster than injections and they just inhale it as you spray their nose. The spray form and injection form can not be given at the same time, it's one or the other.

So after almost a month, my baby is getting back on track and this snake momma is happy and way less stressed now that I'm not pondering with unknowns! Hopefully this helps a bit, I've never had experience with the F10 mix. I kept her water bowl in her cage the whole time, she was in her hide most of the time anyways and the lamp was always above her and temps were never below 80 on the cool side. I was told to keep temps up to 100 max on the warm side.

[DVirginiana]

There are a lot of things that people do as home remedies for RIs, but I'd personally take mine to the vet as soon as I was sure it was an RI. It just seems like one of those things that's easier to treat when caught as early as possible, and the accounts I've read of home remedies seem a bit hit or miss; not necessarily something to discount them, just in that they aren't sure-fire cures.

[bcr229]

My home remedy for RI's is to pick up my home phone and call the vet for an appointment ASAP. Every day you delay is another day for it to take further hold of your snake.

[BoiseBallz]

...I never got a blood culture done when I took her to the vet, which I guess is a no-no. The vet gave me the baytril based off his 35 years of experience with reptiles, and luckily he was right. It was just a bacterial infection, but RI's can be viral, in which case I believe Baytril won't help in curing the infection. It's better to get the culture done so the vet is definitely certain of what to prescribe...

This is not exactly correct. A blood culture will almost never be positive in a RI. What you are likely referring to is a choanal culture (of the respiratory secretions); however, the most common course of action/standard of care is a 10 day course of presumptive antibiotics directed at the most likely bacterial organisms, and if the animal doesn't show significant improvement/resolution, then you culture to better direct therapy. That isn't to say that this is the only correct or reasonable treatment, but your reptile vet with 35 years experience wasn't just lucky .

Some advocate culturing immediately, but culture and sensitivity results can take a week or more, depending on the organism. Would you want your ball python languishing without antibiotics for a week while waiting on culture results? Unlikely. So, you are, of course, going to want to start presumptive antibiotics, and a large majority of ball python RIs are caused by a few common bacteria that are going to be cured by the presumptive antibiotics anyway. Also, cultures can be confounded by oral contaminants. So, why culture, at added expense, when you are going to start antibiotics anyway and will nearly complete the course of antibiotics by the time culture results are available - especially when you will, in most cases, have already cured the infection?

Nebulization of f10sc is done at a 1:250 concentration for 10-15 min/day and is ideally used as an adjunctive therapy alongside antibiotics, and sometimes mucolytics, for known or presumed bacterial infection (or with antifungals in fungal infection) and can be done alone or with mucolytics for known or presumed viral infection.

[tbowman]

Some advocate culturing immediately, but culture and sensitivity results can take a week or more, depending on the organism. Would you want your ball python languishing without antibiotics for a week while waiting on culture results?

This is precisely why you culture immediately, and start with a broad spectrum antibiotic such as Baytril or Ceftazadime. There's no reason to throw antibiotics at something without knowing what it is. I don't think it matters how much experience you have, treating without proper diagnosis is essentially guessing.

[ratchet]

This is not exactly correct. A blood culture will almost never be positive in a RI. What you are likely referring to is a choanal culture (of the respiratory secretions); however, the most common course of action/standard of care is a 10 day course of presumptive antibiotics directed at the most likely bacterial organisms, and if the animal doesn't show significant improvement/resolution, then you culture to better direct therapy. That isn't to say that this is the only correct or reasonable treatment, but your reptile vet with 35 years experience wasn't just lucky .

Some advocate culturing immediately, but culture and sensitivity results can take a week or more, depending on the organism. Would you want your ball python languishing without antibiotics for a week while waiting on culture results? Unlikely. So, you are, of course, going to want to start presumptive antibiotics, and a large majority of ball python RIs are caused by a few common bacteria that are going to be cured by the presumptive antibiotics anyway. Also, cultures can be confounded by oral contaminants. So, why culture, at added expense, when you are going to start antibiotics anyway and will nearly complete the course of antibiotics by the time culture results are available - especially when you will, in most cases, have already cured the infection?

And I'm still learning, haha, thanks for correcting me! I guess I'm the lucky one for having a vet with 35 years of experience. I have heard that they will give a medication right away regardless, then alter it if needed based on what they find. Thank you!