going for a vet visit

[aahmn]

This should be interesting. We normally don't see snakes at the vet where I work, but one of the doctors is always pretty willing to try things with mine. My poor smushy face snake now has what looks like an abscessed tooth, so I'm bringing him in for sedation/anesthesia so we can see what's going on.

I'd look in any of my other snakes' mouths and figure things out, but this poor guy is very sensitive about his head. I can't blame him though. A few years ago when I had friends caring for him, he was injured but I don't know what happened. I'm guessing his face got crushed in his bin or something. He has a permanent hole between his nostrils and looked to have had a broken jaw (one side always sticks out more). That all healed really well and he always eats f/t rats great. Now he has the new swelling on his left bottom jaw. You can see it in his pics. It isn't as swollen as it looks in the last picture though. His left jaw is the side that hangs lower normally.

[filly77]

awwww thats horrible! glad he has a good home now and is getting the care he deserves. Good luck @ the vets, let us know how it goes.

[aahmn]

Yes, I just copied and pasted this because I didn't want to write it all out again!

Alright, I'm back from work. One of my kitties was getting a dental on the other table while we worked with my snake, so it was an exciting day for me. The snake was struggling way too much to try to hit a vein. Since we were unsure of getting a dose of propofol in IV (and the idea of giving it intracardiac makes me nervous) , we tried straight iso in a bag. That took forever and didn't work very well. The snake kept waking up enough to start struggling while we were tubing him, and once he was tubed, he still kept waking up on and off and after a while we decided to add a shot of ketamine. That seemed to work, so we x-rayed the bottom jaw (which looked fine) and did as much of an oral exam as we could. Everything in the mouth looked great so we decided to go in from underneath. We had the iso too light so he started waking up right when we were getting ready to cut so we did a second shot of ketamine.

The actual lump popped right out as soon as we cut. It looked like a little ball of tissue and when we cut into it, it was full of brown chunky stuff. Then we just used a bit of tissue glue and woke him up. It was pretty cool how it came out completely encased and not attached to anything! It was also good that we didn't have to flush it to get all the infection out. The stuff was loaded with bacteria.

Anyway, the clinic I work at isn't cheap but with my discounts and the doctor waiving surgery time and the injections because he was excited for the opportunity, my snake surgery only came to about $140. Not too bad! He woke up great also and is still very slightly wobbly but otherwise looks great and the lump is gone.

[filly77]

awwwww poor lil snake, he has a very caring owner and it shows!

im glad it went well and the ball of yukkies came out. hopefully he will make a speedy recovery

[skaplan86]

thats awesome that you were able to take such good care of him. You should be really proud of what you did. While its not cool that he was in the health he was, thats not your fault. Your hard work probably made his life a lot better.

Congrats on the successful surgery.

oh and I hope your kitty is ok too!