BP Drooling??

I could barely stand to see mine writhe in pain.

Mine had an RI that was detected early by the soft popping noise made as he breathed (and was confirmed by the presence of mouth mucus and eventual open-mouthed breathing). I did some quick research and found a site that i've always considered somewhat reputable say that the first thing that one can or should do is give the snake an artificial fever by keeping him in a high-temp environment for ~24 hours.

(If you think about it, it makes sense. When warm-blooded creatures are under microbial assault, our internal temperature is raised to help our immune system fight the battle. Snakes can't do this for themselves, but they do have an immune system that benefits from additional heat just like ours, so giving them that boost can really help**).

Since i couldn't find an exotics vet right away, i went ahead and put my little dude in a 15qt sterilite on an ultratherm heat pad (no t-stat. - please read about Ultratherm pads before trying this), with a paper towel down, a small bowl of water for humidity, a few ventilation holes in the tub, and most of the tub (~75%) on top of the mat. I checked him every couple of hours or so.

I took him to the vet the next day, but his RI had already started clearing up. By the time we got home, the popping had completely stopped so i put his Rx in the freezer in case we have a future episode that is less easily dealt with.**

**I am not a vet and can not officially recommend the artificial fever remedy in place of vet care. Please research this option *thoroughly* before attempting to treat the snake yourself to decide if it's right for you. The site i read, i believe, suggested a vet trip no-matter-what if the artificial fever remedy did not facilitate substantial improvement shortly after the 24 hour treatment period.

Higher temps are always a must when treating an RI(94). The medicine will still be working days after the last shot. Did the vet do a culture to see what kind of bacteria is causing the infection. Not all antibiotics kill all bacteria. The culture is the only way to know for sure that you are giving the snake the correct medicine. My vet started one of my snakes on an antibiotic until the culture came back only to change medicine once the culture revealed that specific bacteria was imune to the first antibiotic. In my experience the cluture is a must and should be done before any medications have been given. Best of luck.

Yes, when my snake got RI the vet originally gave me oral Baytril and everybody here urged me to go back and get injections, which I did. The vet was not impressed and gave me a printout of a related thread from a veterinary forum.

One if the really interesting things in there was this one vet that felt that the associated husbandry improvements probably had a large part to do with it. She wasn't saykng "don't use anti-biotics". Her point was that this factor isn't really taken into account much when considering how effective oral is vs. injections. So, my takeaway is that it was a bit of three-way gray area between oral vs. injections vs. fixing the husbandry.

(likewise, I'm in no way suggesting somebody should skip a vet visit)