Enlargement on my Spider's mouth! Help!

So I'm doing my routine maintenance on my reptile friends tonight and I noticed my spider had a rather large lump on the bottom of his jaw. This just popped up recently within the past week. It doesn't seem to bother him, he's acting normal. The only thing is, he hasn't eaten the past two feedings, now he has been courting the females and this is their "off feed" time, so that may be the cause. I included pictures, let me know what you think. Sorry for the poor quality, he wouldn't sit still.

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/d...3/IMAG0258.jpg

My spider female had the same thing! Only her's was almost not noticable. Questions: Can you move it under the skin or is it hard and solid? How does the inside of the mouth look?

I took mine to the vet and he said to swab with diluted Betadine, and gave me some needles to lightly prick it if need be to then to swab over that so the Betadine can get in there. Basically he said it looked like the sight of a small infection (Note: my vet was not a specialized herp vet).

I would take him to the vet first though before self-medicating: just to be safe and to get an expert opinion.

I have no idea what that is. Hopefully someone on here knows something...if not I'd head to the vet.

I would not take a chance with that, I'd see a hep vet as soon as you can. Maybe it's nothing, a bump he gave himself by rubbing. Maybe it's an infection and that's why he doesn't want to eat. Maybe it's even cancerous, rare but not unheard of. Too many unknown variables to mess with, time to let an expert figure it out.

Gale

Best guess from a picture on the net is a infection of some sort. He could have scratched the inside of his mouth with a bit of bedding, or the rodent and it's just now getting swollen with fluid or pus.

But it COULD be several other things, like a cancerous tumor, embedding foriegn body, etc.

Always best to have a good reptile vet look at it. If you need antibiotics or antifungals, etc, you'll need to go to the vet anyway.

Good luck with him. And I'd quarentine him away from the other snakes, just in case.

Thanks for the input guys! I'm going to make a few phone calls today, I'm not sure of any vets that specialize in reptiles around the central IL area. He's in his own tub away from the other snakes, so I don't think anything will spread.

I took him to the U of I, seems they had a snake specialist there =). Anywho, he has an very aggressive infection, they are keeping him overnight and lancing the lump open tmrw morning and taking all the crap out of it. I'll get him back tmrw night after work, and I'll being giving him antibiotics (form of a more potent penicillin) via injection, so this will be an experience!

Was the substrate wet or very damp in some or all areas?

I've seen snakes get this lump under their jaw from laying on wet bedding for long periods of time.

Good deal you got him checked out.

Scary thought it is so far advanced they needed to keep him overnight and lance it. Good thing you got it stopped before it got out of control and something awful happened. Have the vet teach you how to do the injections, the big thing is you must give an injection VERY shallow in a snake, or you hit bone and that hurts. Shots are easier to do with two people than one, but if your guy is small you can do it alone.

Keep us updated!

Gale

Aww I'm sorry to hear your guy has a nasty infection. Kudos to you for getting him to a vet ASAP! I hope he gets to feeling better soon :)