What's Wrong With My BP ?

I'm not sure how it works but he was showing extreme outward signs of a neurological problem with his movements and loss of a sense of direction and she said that in order for him to be in such a debilitated state it had to have been going on for months and considering he was at most six months old we think he was born with it and that it didn't suddenly develop. Other signs was that he refused to eat as much as he should have been, was completely uninterested in food and by the time we took him to the vet he was anemic and severely emaciated even though we tried many times to get him to eat.

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Originally Posted by Clarabomji

I don't really care whether it was IBD or not, all I know is that he was in pain and suffering and I'm just glad we took him to the vet earlier rather than later in order to put him out of his misery. I went to Chadwell Veterinary Clinic in Abingdon because my aunt had a problem previously with one of her snakes and she said they were really good. I agree with her because the doctor who saw my snake knew what she was talking about and took one look at Basil and knew what was wrong with him. Even if IBD is rare its still go to happen to somebody and the breed of snake mine was is known for having it often. I'm just glad he's not in pain anymore because it hurt to seem him that way.

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Breed of snake? Can you elaborate? Do you mean ball pythons or the morph of the ball python? It is my understanding that IBD is VERY RARE in ball pythons. So I don't know how accurate "the breed of snake is known for having it often" is...

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Originally Posted by Clarabomji

I'm not sure how it works but he was showing extreme outward signs of a neurological problem with his movements and loss of a sense of direction and she said that in order for him to be in such a debilitated state it had to have been going on for months and considering he was at most six months old we think he was born with it and that it didn't suddenly develop. Other signs was that he refused to eat as much as he should have been, was completely uninterested in food and by the time we took him to the vet he was anemic and severely emaciated even though we tried many times to get him to eat.

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Are you sure there wasn't an issue with your heating? It really does sound much more like a neurological problem due to overheating than IBD..


Sorry for your loss :(

Like Steffe said, heating issues can cause neuro problems. High temperature spikes or unregulated heating pads, etc etc can cause neuro issues. These types of cases do often get better with time though. I have a pinstripe that used to show a neuro head wobble for the first few months of his life, then completely disappeared as he got older. What was your temps at? Was your heating element regulated with a thermostat (not thermometer)? Is your husbandry perfect?

Neuro problems may or may not cause suffering, pain, or bad quality of life.
Spider morphs all have a neurological head wobble to different degrees and thrive just fine.

I sincerely apologize for sounding uncaring, but I do care, which is why I'm asking these questions.
I trust you and your vet, but I'm just a little skeptical about the IBD thing... Especially since your vet diagnosed it on a live animal. Did they do a blood test? I'm pretty sure you can only test for IBD post-mortem vis tissue biopsy . And python type IBD works extremely fast. Your snake would probably have been dead within weeks.

Interest in food could be husbandry or food type related. What were you feeding? Live? Frozen?

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Originally Posted by satomi325

I thought IBD couldn't be diagnosed without a biopsy of the organs and only after the specimen has passed?


I'm sorry for your loss.:(

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Correct, there is no way to visually identify IBD. IBD is only one of several conditions that can cause what look like neurological type problems with a lot of head flipping and twisting in unusual ways. My understanding is that Inclusion Body Disease is a disease that will cause small inclusion bodies (growths) to appear in the organs including the brain. It's these tiny growths in the brain that cause the neurological symptoms that you see with this disease. However there are many other things that can cause the same symptoms. In spider balls it appears to occur naturally. I've seen it occur in animals that were overheated, this will often disappear with time. I've seen it in snakes that were poisoned (snakes kept on ceder bedding, over use of mite sprays) This will also often get better with time but seems to take longer then with overheating. And I've seen it in snakes that were in the last stages of starvation. In fact any snake that is dying will often appear to lose control of it's bodily movements, that's why we'll often find dead snakes flipped over on their backs.

I'm very sorry for your loss, but there is no way your vet can diagnose IBD with just a physical exam.

not trying to add salt to the wound, but I know of plenty of instances when a vet has told someone they need something done and it's going to cost them like $300 and then when you say that's not gonna work for you, it miraculously turns into a $30 bill for a simple treatment. I'm just saying vets in general, I don't know your vet personally.

Like I said before I don't care if it was IBD or not, my vet didn't try to offer an expensive treatment or give some illogical solution that would cost me money. She simply said to put him down and it wasn't expensive at all. The only reason the price went up was because I wanted to keep my snake's ashes after he was cremated.

And we are saying, if its not IBD, there's a high chance there was nothing terribly wrong with your snake. You made a thread asking for help. We are trying to help. We asked questions to narrow down the issue. For all we know, your vet put down an animal who's health could have improved due to a simple husbandry change and regulated heat. As mentioned previously, hundreds of ball pythons live quality lives and thrive with neuro issues.

Again, I'm really sorry for your loss. But I think you prematurely jumped the gun on euthanasia in my personal opinion.....

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Originally Posted by Clarabomji

I don't really care whether it was IBD or not, all I know is that he was in pain and suffering and I'm just glad we took him to the vet earlier rather than later in order to put him out of his misery. I went to Chadwell Veterinary Clinic in Abingdon because my aunt had a problem previously with one of her snakes and she said they were really good. I agree with her because the doctor who saw my snake knew what she was talking about and took one look at Basil and knew what was wrong with him. Even if IBD is rare its still go to happen to somebody and the breed of snake mine was is known for having it often. I'm just glad he's not in pain anymore because it hurt to seem him that way.

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I'm very sorry for your loss. However, there's no breed of ball python known for having it often, nor born with it that I'm personally aware of. Was this a spider ball python by chance?

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Originally Posted by Clarabomji

Like I said before I don't care if it was IBD or not, my vet didn't try to offer an expensive treatment or give some illogical solution that would cost me money. She simply said to put him down and it wasn't expensive at all. The only reason the price went up was because I wanted to keep my snake's ashes after he was cremated.

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I'm not going to get into the whole debate on whether or not your snake truly had IBD. If you and your vet truly believe it did, you should avoid bringing any other boids or boas into your home for at least a year to avoid spreading the disease to them. That's why I would have had a necropsy done on the snake, so I'd know whether I had to self-QT for the next 12 months.
I'm very sorry for your loss.

Sorry for your loss. U will always have the memory's and pics.