Help! Ball Python with swollen snout and recessed eyes. Anybody seen this before?

Actually no

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Originally Posted by aalomon

To answer the Listerine question, my vet repeatedly told me that ONLY the childrens berry flavor, alcohol free was safe to use. While all the Listerines will help with controlling bacteria and infection, the other forms are harsh enough that they can actually irritate the mouth further.

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understandable. again to relate to healing peircings, it's the same as using something really harsh like peroxide or rubbing alcohol. it kills the "bad" bacteria, but also the good healing bacteria.

i didn't manage to find any of the Berry flavored one yet, but i have used Oral-B Alcohol Free before on myself. definitely doesn't have that harsh burn.

i'm sure it's not Berry specifically that the snake can have, i think it's the alcohol-free part that is important.

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Originally Posted by llovelace

Actually no

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dang!

well tomorrow is Charlotte's appointment at the vet! wish us luck, and i will let you all know how it goes.

Fingers crossed for good news. :please:

we just got back. the good news:

- her swelling and inflammation has definitely went down.
- NO RI, NO mouth rot!

the not great news:
- no idea what the cause of the irritation and inflammation is.
- oral Baytril every day for 3 weeks
- the first dose or Baytril didn't go very well, i think most of it got on me.

and NO i did not put it in her windpipe, that's the first thing Dr. Walton said, lol. apparently it's a common thing when dosing snakes with oral medicine.

keeping our fingers crossed that she heals up totally fine!

See, I knew everything would be ok. Those of us with experience with this had a feeling it wasn't RI. I do wish the vet had given you oral clindamycin though. It will take awhile for the baytril to help this and it may flare up again later on if there is any tooth damage. Clindamycin targets mouth infections and works much better and faster in these situations. Often just a couple days.

Either way, your little snake will be fine. Now you also know what to have on hand to clean the mouth if it ever happens again. Keep us updated and take some pics after she is all healed up :)

thanks, I will keep that in mind if this doesn't clear up, and will suggest that to him!

it's actually quite amazing how much her swelling has went down since the photos were taken, all on it's own.

we will see what happens and i will for sure update some photos, just don't want to bug her too much right now.

do you have any tips for dosing her with the Baytril? i got the IV tube in her (after a whole bunch of twisting and turning and "backing up" on her part) but then as i pushed the plunger down it seemed a bunch of the medicine didn't quite go down all the way. is this because she was so stressed out that she closed up the muscles in her throat and caused it to come back up?

i'm just worried she might not get the proper dosage

Hi,

The last time I had to give oral meds to a BP the best solution was to have two people involved and to go slowly with the plunger while massaging it down their neck.

Anything else and I ended up dosing the floor.


dr del

it's going to be a process... i do have Dave here to help me but this snake fights it HARD. we got a rubber spatula as recommended by the vet to keep her mouth open. but it's impossible to stop her from going all loop-de-doo to get away from us.

she was prescribed 2CC once per day, but like i said i'm just worried that most of it is going to spill, as i don't think we'll really have time to massage it down her neck.

do you think it would be better for us to give her 1CC twice per day? or would that just be added stress to have to endure the procedure twice?



i suspect we'll be a lot better at it by the end of the 3 weeks.