respritory infection

i do believe my ball has a respritory infection :(. i have an appointment with the vet tomorrow afternoon. how serious is a RI? i know that eventually it can kill but i believe its still in the early stages. will she be okay until toorrow afternoon?

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Originally Posted by bigblue09

i do believe my ball has a respritory infection :(. i have an appointment with the vet tomorrow afternoon. how serious is a RI? i know that eventually it can kill but i believe its still in the early stages. will she be okay until toorrow afternoon?

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From what you hvae said in your other thread, your BP will be fine until he vet visit. RI's are very curable! :gj:

ok good. i could see the mucus in her mouth today when she opened it. im just worried about her because i havnt had her very long and shes my first snake.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bigblue09

i do believe my ball has a respritory infection :(. i have an appointment with the vet tomorrow afternoon. how serious is a RI? i know that eventually it can kill but i believe its still in the early stages. will she be okay until toorrow afternoon?

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She should be fine. I first noticed my BP making weird sounds, and watched her for a week before I was pretty sure it was an RI, then I had to wait another week for my paycheck to take her into the vet. As long as you take her in soon, she should be fine. If it was bad, you'd know it.

Also, if it is an RI, get the injection meds, not the by-mouth meds. I has a hell of a time just getting my girl to open her mouth, and it's not a one-person job. The injections are better from what I've heard.

yesterday was when i really noticed her wheezing. im going to see on of the best reptile specialist in the atlanta area. i will discuss the meds options with him.

i took her to the vet today and it was an RI. other than that he said she looked very healthy :D. he prescribed her the shots. he went ahead and showed me how to do it and she was not happy about that. the good thing is i dont give it to her but every 3 days for 3 weeks. i would say it turned out good :)

Hope everything goes well for you

I recently had to give inhections to my snake. A good suggestion from my vet was to alternate sides and the spot u do the shot to avoid bruising.

Not only that, but multiple shots in the same spot can sometimes cause necrosis of the site.

When I have had to give shots to my snakes, I use a paper toweling core to secure their head in, that way they can't come back and bite the hands that are trying to heal them lol.

good luck, I lost my albino girl this summer to an RI, I got her off a guy that didn't take care of her right and I got her to the vet but the damage was already done she was to far gone and died about a week later of getting her injections.

she hasnt hardly come out of her hide since she got sick. i took her out today and she was pretty active. i looked at her belly really well and she has a few really really light pink spots close to her tail. is this okay?

i took her out today for a few minutes. she is still having some trouble breathing but i have only given her two shots. i did notice that her trachea was really red and looked irritated. also while i had her out she opened her mouth to breathe and it was almost like she was choking on something. her tounge was hanging out of her mouth and she kept opening and closing while moving her head around. it scared me so i put her back in her tank. is all of this normal for an RI

this doesnt sound normal and the red dots dont sound normal the red dots could be a sign of septicemia witch isent good maybe go back to your vet asap

the vet prescribed her fortaz for the RI. she has only had 2 injections out of the seven for the whole treatment. i have to give her another shot today so i will examine her really well and call the vet.

Snakebytestv ob you tube just made a video on how you can cure it yourself.. Def a good to know!.

i dont think its septicemia. she has no dark red spots anywhere on her body. i think her trachea is kinda red because she has had to open her mouth to breathe for the past week. i think its just irritated but thats just me and by no means am i a vet or a snake expert. any other opinions??

The trach will get red from irritaion with heavy mucus. My first RI my vet was out of state. We only have 1 good vet for snakes here in vt. So I had to wait a week before I could take her. It scared the crap out of me. She was coughing and spitting it was awfull. I think she will be fine. I'm not to sure about the dots. But it could be the start of a secondary infection because of the inadequate temps and the already suppressed immune system. You could do a 88.f soak once a day to induce any sitting bowel movements. I'd atleast call the vet to see what they think. I hope she gets better!
Morgan

i have heard that you can soak her in warm water for like 20 min and then hold her up by her tail to let any mucus drain out of her mouth. does this help? also how would i go about soaking her?

i just gave her the 3rd shot of her 3 week treatment. i looked her over really well and there was no red spots anywhere. a few light pink places but thats from her pad being too hot when i first put it in there. i raised her temps to about 95 hot and it stays 81-83 cold.

I wouldn't hold her up to try and drain the mucus. I don't think that will do much but stress her. The soaks will help break and drain the mucus as well as keep her hydrated. Just fill your bathtub up with a few
Inches of water at 88.f. Your
Going to need to use a digital thermom to measure the temp of
The water. And then let her swim around while supervising.

im going to try that this afternoon.

she is breathing better but still having some troubles. she hasnt eaten in about 3 weeks. should i try to feed her or wait until she is almost better?

She won't eat until she's feeling better. Since they can go for months without feeding a few weeks won't be detrimental. Concentrate on getting rid of the RI and then once it's gone try and resume feeding.

she has 4 doses left which is 7 days. she still has a good bit of mucus in her mouth and is still doing a good bit of open mouth breathing but its not bothering her as much as it was but its still not gone. i dont think she is drinking enough water either. suggestions?

Definately give her soaks 1x daily. Take a thermometer and put it in the water and give her a 15-20 min soak at 88.f. Hopefully you have checked all of the husbandry stuff. Making sure she has a hot spot of 92.f. Making sure the ambient temps aren't too low. A good temp is 80-85 for ambient temps. Giving her the soaks will rehydrate her. But she may have an antibiotic resistant RI. Since she still has alot of mucus left I'd check with the vet to make certain if anything needs to be changed you can do it in time.

my temps are great. i can tell a huge difference in now and when she started her antibiotics. she is breathing a lot better and there is less mucus then there was but its not totally gone. i have started soaking her and its helping. i still have 3 shots to give her so im thinking that will finish kicking it out of her.

I think so! That's great. I'm glad she's getting better. The soaks have always help any I've had with RIs.

i gave her another shot tonight and after that i soaked her in warm water for about 20min. she seemed a lot better after the soaking. i put her back in her tank and come back in about 30 min and shes out roaming around the tank for the first time in weeks. i left and came home in about 4 hours. i just went to check on her and shes in her water bowl. all 3ft of her in her bowl coiled up with just her nostriles above the water. this is the first time i have seen her out of her hide for this long let alone in her bowl. i take it as shes feeling a lot better. :D and she just shed a few days ago all in one piece :D

Good to hear:cool:

shes been in her water bowl since i put her back in her tank from her soak. that was at like 9 last night. is this odd? i didnt know bps liked water so much.

i took her out today to check on her and her breathing still isnt better and sometimes she has mucus bubbles on the side of her mouth. she is starting to breathe through her nose again but its making a lot of noise. i am starting to get worried that is not going to get better so i called the vet today. i am taking her back thursday to see what they say. im so ready for her to get better :(

Don't be too down-hearted, it's taken eight injections of Baytril to my boy Kumo before I saw a remarkable change for the better (and I've still got 6 to go). Best of luck!

i have given her 7 shots of fortaz and no remarkable signs of getting better. im going to see about doing baytril. i just hear people talking about loosing their snakes to RIs and that scares me. on top of that i think she might have mites :(. im doing all of the husbandry things by the book. im going to soak her in the tub tonight to see for sure about the mites.

Did the vet do a tracheal wash when you took her in? Mine did one, and at first started with the Fortaz, but after the results came back from the wash, I was switched to Baytril because the bug she had was resistant to the Fortaz.

no he didnt. i would hope he would do one this time a do something different but we will see. im going to try to feed her tomorrow because she has not eaten in over a month.

she wouldnt eat. is this common with an ri? its been about 5 weeks since she ate last.

Yes it is very common. I just had a male resume feed after 6 months of not eating. She will be ok with 5 weeks. The stress of the injections, and soaks will make her refuse feed. I have a feeling that she will resume a couple weeks after she is done with all treatments. How is that going btw? Has the mucus cleared yet? If she hasnt started showing signs of getting better yet id suggest to the vet to try baytril. After she's all better and there are no residual signs of the RI, handle her only when absolutely necessary and try feeding a wk or 2 after that. If you haven't been keeping track if her weights you should bc you will know way ahead of time if there is still a problem.
Morgan

its still not cleared up. i have not weighed her but the vet did last time so im sure he will this time too. i figured thats why she wouldnt eat.

took her to the vet today. he looked in her mouth and there was still a lot of bubbles so he did a fecal test to check for parasites just to rule it out and it was clear. he changed her meds to baytril. a shot every other day for two weeks. she hasnt lost any weight at all. he didnt want to du a culture because its still soon and he likes to do them when they have been off meds for atleast a week. he said if the baytril doesnt work then we will take her off meds, do a culture and decide from there. there is a lot of mucus in her mouth but she isnt doing any open mouth breathing anymore. i dont really understand that part but im hoping the baytril will kill everything :snake::D

What don't you understand about the open mouth breathing?
I hope she feels well soon! Good luck with the treatment, I don't think I'd have the guts to give my BP shots, so kudos to that! :P

just because there seems to be more mucus in her mouth now but now shes not opening her mouth to breathe. the shots arent too bad to give her but i still hate sticking her with a needle.

Oh! I'm sorry I guess I read that wrong.. well maybe that means the medicine is working if she can breathe without opening her mouth now :)