Repeated shed sticking at the same spot

In November last year, Clementine had a small irritated or maybe infected area of skin on her neck. It cleared up after a week or so of putting betadine on, but every shed since then has gotten stuck and seems to get stuck on that same spot. I've gotten in the habit of watching to see when she starts the shed and then helping her past that spot with a damp towel - the rest of the shed is fine, but she's for whatever reason very sensitive about stuck shed and will overreact and slam herself around in the tank if I don't intervene. (Apparently every ball python must legally have one thing they throw histrionic fits over and this is hers.) I've heard of old injuries and things causing repeated shedding problems, does anyone have any experience with this? Is there something I should be doing to prevent it, or will it clear up on its own eventually? The treatment I put on it was watered-down betadine liquid and not petroleum jelly or anything, which I've heard can also lead to this happening.

So you're saying that spot now looks completely normal, except for the fact that the shed always gets stuck there? That's odd- it's as if it's not really healed all the way. Maybe a vet could see something (under magnification) that you can't? And have another suggestion for topical treatment? I've never heard of water soluble Betadine causing such an issue- only ointments (& only the ones that are petroleum jelly based). And a year is an awful long time for that skin to heal completely. :confusd: Who knows, maybe in another year...:rolleyes: You could also just wait & see?

I guess I'll take a really close at it, but it seems normal to me. Snake Haus also has mentioned such a thing as "behavior-caused" bad sheds, which is when a snake is physically fine but gets impatient or frustrated during shed and instead of carefully rolling it off they get fed up and shred it against everything in the enclosure, even though it would've come off in one piece if they'd just done it carefully. She always gets the top half of her head off and then seems to get mad and start shredding it instead of carefully rolling the lower jaw off first, so maybe that's why the neck is always a problem. I've had to intervene even before she had the skin issue come to think of it, because she got so mad she'd actually scratched her head on tank decorations trying to get her lower jaw free. When I'm able to get it fixed for her the rest comes off in one piece, but I have noticed she's particularly rough about working the old skin off.

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Originally Posted by plateOfFlan

I guess I'll take a really close at it, but it seems normal to me. Snake Haus also has mentioned such a thing as "behavior-caused" bad sheds, which is when a snake is physically fine but gets impatient or frustrated during shed and instead of carefully rolling it off they get fed up and shred it against everything in the enclosure, even though it would've come off in one piece if they'd just done it carefully. She always gets the top half of her head off and then seems to get mad and start shredding it instead of carefully rolling the lower jaw off first, so maybe that's why the neck is always a problem. I've had to intervene even before she had the skin issue come to think of it, because she got so mad she'd actually scratched her head on tank decorations trying to get her lower jaw free. When I'm able to get it fixed for her the rest comes off in one piece, but I have noticed she's particularly rough about working the old skin off.

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I can sorta relate to how it must feel to snakes- I once used a facial mask- the kind that slowly tightens up as it dries. I couldn't wait to get it off- it's a wonder I wasn't scraping against the furniture just like a snake. :rofl: