A synopsis.. any guesses?

JuliaGoolia

I am very sorry to hear about the troubles your little girl is having. It must be heart breaking for you.

Although I can offer no direct advice on the situation, I would like to make a suggestion;
Your descriptions of the problems and symptoms have been well written, but often a picture can say a thousand words - a video, a million. If you are able to take a video of her moving, and attempting to feed, and upload it to YouTube, perhaps you might be able to post a link here and email that link to herp specialists all over the country, maybe even the world. A short to-the-point message attached to the email can go a long way.

The help you need is out there; the internet can be a powerful tool in finding it.

I sincerely hope for the best for you and your little girl.

It sounds like she's got IBD or possibly the virus that some have gotten this year. Jen harrison has blogged about it and written extensively over on fauna about her dealings with it. It is going through her entire collection right now.

Where did you get this snake?

Has it been tested for IBD?

Actually, when I said earlier that the way she moved was hard to explain, I was thinking of the whole video thing.. I have a small video of her on my camera before she got sick, climbing all over the place. If I catch her out, or if we decide to try to feed her again on Saturday, I'll try and capture her again and upload it. I think that's really the only way I can truly show everyone what I mean...

Thanks for your thoughts..:)

When she first started acting like this, that is what I initially thought it was. I talked to the petshop owner, started doing research online, (that's how I found this wonderful place!!) then we took her to the vet. No one seemed to think thats' what it was, although she wasn't tested.

The reptile shop guy looked in his records, and saw when we bought her, what clutch she was from (or whatever group that he got from his breeder) and made sure that no one else had called or had anything bad to say about that group of snakes.

Part of me really likes this guy, and I trusted him alot (like I mentioned, it's a family owned shop, not a big chain, and they specailize in reptiles. They've only been around for less than a year, though..) - but the more I talk to him, the more I'm getting leery. (like when he asked why we wanted a thermostat for her enclosure!!) So I want to believe that he was being straight with me, but I guess you never know...

It has not been mentioned yet, but there is a condition known as 'head spinning' that can ocurre in BPs. I heard of it mostly (exclusively?) in spider morphs, but I thought I'd toss it out there anyway. It can be quite sever (the mention of her head being 'loopy' made me think of this), or very mild and barely noticeable. Search for 'spinning' to find a lot of posts on the topic. Maybe some description will strike a chord.

Either way, I'm glad you thought of the video idea. I think it might help a lot.

Again, all the best. Please keep us informed.

I have read about that. when this all started, and thought it was IBD, I did a lot of searches for "coiling" and "spinning". I read that some Spiders are known to have that condition.. At first, being the new snake person that I was/am, i had no idea what a Spider was - I thought I was at "arachnids.net"!! ;) but then I learned about the different morphs, looked at pictures... and my little girl is 'just' a normal... Though, the one picture I did see of a snake "spinning" did look similar to what Dag does.. at least the still shot did. ... I'll have to go and look at those posts again...

Okay... here's the update.

1) I like this vet a LOT more than the other one - She is closer, and she see's our other animals, too - (and now we know she sees exotics. ) The thing about that, is... she shared that she was NOT a specialist, but if there were things that she did not know about, she would either contact, or refer us to Dr. Tim Reichard in Toledo, who was the herp vet at the Toledo Zoo for about 23 years... She asked a LOT of questions, and just listened to us - which was nice.


2) Conveniently, As we were holding our little Dagron waiting for the Dr. to get into the room, She let out a little urate and a little extra liquid fresh for the taking. !! If she'd eaten recently, I'm sure we would have had a bit of fecal matter, too - but alas, we weren't that "lucky".:P

3) She said it was 1 of 2 things. a: evidently, starting to happen a lot in boids, Viral encephalitis. If it is, it's just a waiting game - as there is no cure or treatment. :( BUT - she said it's doubtful because of the way Dag was moving, and because she has shown improvement in the past weeks. She said that if it were encephalitis, that it would likely be getting worse and worse.
b: She agreed with the 1st vet, that it is more than likely something to do with her inner ear... though, she wasn't quite sure why the VAL syrup and metronidazole were prescribed before. She did want to continue Baytil for a few days, but instead of orally, she asked us how we felt about injections... !! I know they are better, I'm just a big wuss.. BUT I sucked it up, and had her show us how to do it. The hubby held her, and I will be doing the stickin'!:O (My son, evidently, will be doing the watching:rolleye2:) She isn't having us give Dag too much... 1cc for three days, and then 2 more doses after that, but skipping a day in-between. She is pretty concerned with her having not eaten in so long... and with the story we gave her about trying to strike and not being able to, she suggested getting a tube about the diameter of Dag, letting her crawl into one end, and holding the mouse at the other.. that way, she'll have more of a chance of hitting her target while she's getting better instead of losing her balance and flopping to the other side.

So there it is..

I'm hoping it's option B.. :gj:

I don't really have much to add to the thread other than what has been said. I only have one snake, and don't have any sort of experiance with this kind of thing. But I will say that "spinning" isn't *exclusively* in the spider morph. Although it is mostly spiders as opposed to other morphs (normals as well) they aren't the only ones that can 'spin'. I don't know that it is verry common in snakes other than spiders, but I'm pretty sure I have read about someone elses snake that was spinning that wasn't a spider.

I don't know what would cause spinning, or if that is even what's wrong with your little girl, but I just thought I'd put that out there. I hope she gets better! ^_^