Is my Bp sick????????

She is no better today so I called the vet and am waiting for his call back. I am sure she is going on daily injections of Baytril for 5 days. The RI is not bad it is very low grade and someone not in tune with their critter would easily overlook it. I do not know why it is not getting better or worse, it is just staying the same. The only thing I can think of is that the current injections were keeping it from getting worse but were not strong enough to knock it out completely. I hope the Baytril works because I am unsure what to do after that. She has missed 2 feedings now and will almost certainly miss a third due to daily mandatory handling.

Day three of Baytril and she is still sick :( I am really getting worried now. She actually got the forks of her tongue stuck today and went a bit crazy trying to unstick them.

Oh dear. Do you have a therm in her tub? I would just to keep a close eye on her Individual heat. I don't know why she Isnt getting better. I know that some RIs are antibiotic resistant. Surely with the culture he can put the ab towards it and see what works. I'm sorry she's not getting better. I hope your vet is contacting others in the field to see if he can get other opinions on wth is up with this girl. When I was dealing with the RIs I've dealt with my vet had me doing daily soaks after the injection. 88.f. Perhaps this might help things. I wouldn't worry about her missing meals. The most important thing is getting this girl back to normal.
Sorry this is going on. No fun at all. Keep up with it though Things will get better.
Here's a big hug!
Morgan

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Originally Posted by Homegrownscales

Oh dear. Do you have a therm in her tub? I would just to keep a close eye on her Individual heat. I don't know why she Isnt getting better. I know that some RIs are antibiotic resistant. Surely with the culture he can put the ab towards it and see what works. I'm sorry she's not getting better. I hope your vet is contacting others in the field to see if he can get other opinions on wth is up with this girl. When I was dealing with the RIs I've dealt with my vet had me doing daily soaks after the injection. 88.f. Perhaps this might help things. I wouldn't worry about her missing meals. The most important thing is getting this girl back to normal.
Sorry this is going on. No fun at all. Keep up with it though Things will get better.
Here's a big hug!
Morgan

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Thank you for your kind words, I am riddled with worry right now. In my area, we used to have a herp vet but unfortunately he moved elsewhere. Now all we have is a few small animal veterinarians who see herps. I picked the best of the bunch and he is very nice and knows more about snakes than my dog vet but he is defiantly not dedicated to herps exclusively and most of his patients are dogs and cats. With the Baytril not working I am starting to get really nervous about other diseases........IBD. I have read that pythons do not survive long with the disease. I got her March 5th and she has been visibly ill since March 30th. I will try my best to describe exactly what I have seen her do. First there were bubbles and excess saliva, head propping to the top of the enclosure, and excessive mouth breathing/yawning. Then I went with the first type of antibiotic. She seemed to be better the day after the vet gave her vitamins and antibiotics. She had a normal BM and shed all in one piece. She did still have a tongue sticking issue though. The next few days she seemed worse, when I picked her up, I could hear her popping, wheezing, and groaning. There was still excess saliva and a bit of mouth opening. I started the baytril. Day 2 of Baytril I did not notice any popping, wheezing, or groaning. She was still a bit of a wet mouth and opened it a bit more than one would expect to see. Today was day 3 of baytril. WHen I first took her out and was wrapping her up she tried to use her tongue but seemed to get it stuck. She kind of went crazy trying to get it back inside her mouth. She looked like a dog with peanut butter stuck to the roof of her mouth. This really scared me a lot. At the time I could not figure out if her tongue was stuck on a tooth or what and she was frantically mouth open twisting around. Once she got the tongue back in she was fine. Well as fine as she could be I suppose. After her episode (and mine) I looked her over. She had a bit of excess saliva but I did not hear any groans, wheezing, or popping. My other snakes all still seem fine. I have never seen any mites on any of them. I got them all around the same time except my mojave which is in qt. Sick snake is in another qt in between the mojave and 7 snakes in her rack. I am doing my best to regulate her temps with a dimmer but you know this is difficult. I have managed to keep them above 91 on the hot spot and below 98 F. Ambient goes from 80 at night to 85 in the day. Humidity is 60 now but it also just rained. I want to open her tub and she be okay :( I want someone to please tell me they think it is not IBD. I want her to be better :tears::tears::tears::tears:

Both resistant RI and IBD can make the others snakes Ill without mites. If you have any inkling that it could be either of these you need to keep that one particular animal as far away from the others as possible. Is possible to transfer it from contact with you from one snake to another. Please be as careful as possible. Ive never dealt with either though and both scare the crap out of me bc it's heartbreaking to see something you love in pain and not be able to help it. And there's not much factual info on either. The only thing you can do is wait and see and protect your other animals. There's peoples experiences with both and what vets have seen in necropsies. I know one of the true blue signs of IBD is a RIs that don't go away, as well as star gazing and poor locomotion control (movement and muscles) I've seen many YouTube videos on IBD and it's quite sad. I went though the same with a rescue I took in last year that has a head tilt and odd movements occasionally. But I've chalked it up to a trauma, or overheat left untreated. She was in qt for 6 months though. I'll never really know her true issue though. The problem with taking in rescues especially is we don't know what they come in contact with before us. IBD kills balls especially quickly and horribly though and the fact she was sick right off is pretty scary. I don't know the actual timeframe with balls though. I'm
Sorry I can't give you 100% answers. Possibly take a video of her actions and get it up here so others that may have had experience with either of these diseases can look at it and see. For now just be as careful as possible especially avoiding all contact with the others snakes. Do her last, no reusing food, utensils, avoid contact with her mucus, feces, wash hands immediatly, try grabbing some latex disposable gloves to use on her and throw away immediatly. I'm sorry I know this doesn't help much. But if by chance this is either hopefully this will be an isolated case. I will be hopeful in that its not either.
Morgan

She was mouth breathing when I woke up this morning :(

I've been following this thread, and I'm terribly sorry your BP hasn't gotten better. I can't imagine the stress you are under. All I can say is don't begin freaking yourself out. Hopefully it is not IBD, but as has been said, keep her as far from all other snakes as you possibly can and practice meticulous quarantining procedures. Hopefully your vet is doing the best they can, but if I were you, I would also be calling other vets who are known to specialize in ball pythons or snakes in general. It may benefit you to at least explain to them what is happening, what your vet has said, and what treatment you have been administering and ask them for a second opinion. Ask them if they have had experience dealing with IBD and if this could be just that.
Hopefully it is nothing bad! Best of luck to you! :please:

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Originally Posted by Kymberli

I've been following this thread, and I'm terribly sorry your BP hasn't gotten better. I can't imagine the stress you are under. All I can say is don't begin freaking yourself out. Hopefully it is not IBD, but as has been said, keep her as far from all other snakes as you possibly can and practice meticulous quarantining procedures. Hopefully your vet is doing the best they can, but if I were you, I would also be calling other vets who are known to specialize in ball pythons or snakes in general. It may benefit you to at least explain to them what is happening, what your vet has said, and what treatment you have been administering and ask them for a second opinion. Ask them if they have had experience dealing with IBD and if this could be just that.
Hopefully it is nothing bad! Best of luck to you! :please:

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Thanks for the kind words. He is the best vet that I can find. There is no herp vet in my area. I am going to try something different today. I have an old 10g aquarium that I am going to clean out and move her into after her shot today. I am also going to soak her as Morgan suggested. The vet did mention that some snakes are very sensitive to the out gassing plastic bins produce. Perhaps she is one of these? It is worth a try anyway. Updates after her shot later.

Please do keep us updated. I hate hearing when a little baby is sick.  hopefully the tank and soaks start working with the abs.

I hate to say thins because I do not want to jinx anything but....she looks a bit better to me. I took her out and she looked perfectly normal. Once she started flicking her tongue though a bit of saliva was showing where the tongue comes out and I could tell it was bit hard for her to flick her tongue. However, after her initial few flicks with effort she gave a few really good normal looking full tongue out flicks. She also did not flinch at all at the injection. I gave her a 15 min tepid soak in her tub then moved her into the 10g. I used paper towels and a small box on either side. She is all over that tank moving boxes around and pushing on the screen lid which I tied down with bungee. Perhaps it is just the adrenalin from being in the new space but I do not know if a really sick snake would respond this way. I am thinking not though. Hopefully she will do better in this more ventilated enclosure. She will get a shot tomorrow and skip her shot on Sunday as instructed. I was planning on offering her a mouse Sunday morning. Cross your fingers!