Ok, so heres the deal..

A few months ago I bought Thor (a juvenile BP) and he was in horrible shape coming from the pet store. He had mites, and had a retained cap over his right eye. At the time, I knew absolutely nothing about BP's, which I regretted later on. After reading through 2 of those 70-80 page care books they sell at pet shops, I found that he was in bad shape. I didn't even notice the mites until a week or 2 after I had him, and they started filling up with blood and becomming the size of swollen poppy seeds.

In the few months I've had him, I've taken care of the mite problem, given him a wonderful enclosure with a hot/cool side, and clean his water bowl daily. I've also followed a guide on here in order to bump up the humidity by covering the screen top with 3 layers of aluminum and covering that with duct tape (which turned out great btw). The relative humidity in his cage was at around 30-45% before I did it, and now it remains at 55% even with his light on, and 70% (ideal for shedding) with it turned off. I didn't intend on this happening, it just happened to work out perfectly. Light off, 70%, light on, 50%.

Anyway, sorry to babble on with the history of Thor.. on to the problem. His right eye (which also was badly infested with mites before I killed em) has had a retained cap for months now. I bought some stuff that you spray on a bad shed and it didnt work for the cap (im sure it works fine for body shed though). I read the tutorial by Cristie (i hope i got her name right) where she uses lukewarm water and a towel, but I don't think that will work in my case.

Is there any way I can use a tool such as an exacto knife or anothe rprecision tool to pop it off without harming hte snake? I thought that since I raised the humidity to ideal conditions, it'd come off in due time, but it is still stuck on his eye.

Also, the closer I look at his eye, the more it seems as though the mites cause it to be puffy (I forget what that was called in my book) where the scales around the actual eye seem to stick out further than they should.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for the help!

Nick