Vet visit to treat RI cost?

Can anyone that has been to the vet to treat RI give me a rough estimate of the cost of a visit and treatment?

thanks,

Dave

I'm sure it varies by state and area. A vet visit in my area was about $80 just off the top, any testing and/or medication would obviously add to the cost. I'd say you'd get a better answer by calling the vet you are interested in and asking them their specific price.

To get an accurate estimate you would need to call YOUR herp vet and ask him, different vet in different areas will have different prices.

It's always different. I cured my first snake with only a couple hundred bucks. I rescued one and after 1000 bucks she still died. You need to get to ur vet ASAP and get it taken care of.

Just made an appointment for tomorrow. Thanks for the replies! My Pastel is making weird noises when I picked him up and he just shed, so I was thinking piece of skin in nasal. But now he keeps opening his mouth, so now I'm pretty sure its RI. :(

wish us luck,

Dave

Most vets will charge $55-80 for exotics, just for the visit. Baytril injections are generally $4-6 each, and will probably prescribe 8-10 shots depending on how bad the RI is.
My vet just sells me a vial of baytril at a time and a box of sharps. ONce you get a good relationship with your vet, he'll let you buy what you need and treat your own animals to save money. Pay attention to what they say, and get involved with the treatment, help them treat your herp, and most times they will help you out. I have two vets that I use, both trust me to treat my own animals, of course knowing that I will call or bring it in if/when it gets too over the top.
Chances are, your local herp shop/reptile expert will know and help you out also... Never hurts to ask!

forgot to say.. make sure you clean your snake's enclosure with a herp safe, antibacterial cleaner, remove all the substrate, clean the bowl every day, and bump the heat up a few degrees.
I just use newspaper until the snake is better so it's easier to clean.

Cost is always a factor, but sometimes you have to spend tons of money to treat an animal. I bought a baby albino(from a member who I will graciously refrain from mentioning) last year, it was sick when I got it, 6 months later, no telling how much money later, it eventually died. Just couldn't kick the RI... it does happen, unfortunately.

when dealing with resp you need to know the stages. once it gets bad enough where they start blowing bubbles and mucous its usually too late. best thing to do is get some batryl and keep it on hand just in case. if you start treating as soon as you notice it you can resolve it pretty easy. a vet is gonna charge alot either way so that is why its important to know if its gonna be treatable or its a loss cause. if you think its resp then get the animal on paper and put the heat to about 91. if it just shed this could be just a nasal thing from the shed. around here a vet visit with batryl will run about 350 bucks. the last time i had resp was when i got an animal in on a trade that came in with it. he was blowing bubbles and i hit him with batryl but i knew he was too far gone and he didnt make it.

If it is indeed an RI, your vet will need to culture the infection to figure out what antibiotic will be most effective.

I get worried when I hear people saying "Baytril" over and over gain when discussing RIs. If your vet is doing nothing but prescribing Baytril without taking a culture, he is shooting in the dark. There are many bacterial strains that are resistant to Baytril.

That's why people come on here and complain that even after months of treatment, their animals lose the battle. You need to be prepared to spend the money to treat it right and your vet needs to take the time to identify the bacteria responsible. Is it gram negative? Gram positive? Which antibiotics is the bacteria susceptible to? That one little test makes sure that your animal will be treated quickly and effectively the first time and not have to endure months of injections and illness.

In the long run, spending the money to culture the infection could save you money. How many people have we seen post that were prescribed Baytril and it didn't work. Then they were prescribed amikacin - and it didn't work, and so on.

As for the visit, it varies from area to area, vet to vet.

Yes i agree there are strains resistent to baytril but if the resp is caught early most of the times baytril clears it up. If the resp is in the stages where you see bubbles or mucous the snake looses the battle. There comes a point where you have to look at risk vs reward. If the snake is in the later stages with bubbling and mucous you have to make the decision that do i want to spend upwards of a grand to take a shot in the dark that spending that kind of money will clear it up? The odds are not good in that case. Also snakes have a slow healing rate. Even if you spend big money and try different antibiotics this takes a huge toll on their system and all your doing is prolonging the inevidable. Im not saying baytril is the only answer im just relying of my 20 years of personal experience. But i do agree on your post that an infection should be cultured but its helpful in making the decision to know the signs of the stages in resp infections cause there is a point in where its a loosing battle

Quote:

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Originally Posted by snake lab

Yes i agree there are strains resistent to baytril but if the resp is caught early most of the times baytril clears it up. If the resp is in the stages where you see bubbles or mucous the snake looses the battle. There comes a point where you have to look at risk vs reward. If the snake is in the later stages with bubbling and mucous you have to make the decision that do i want to spend upwards of a grand to take a shot in the dark that spending that kind of money will clear it up? The odds are not good in that case. Also snakes have a slow healing rate. Even if you spend big money and try different antibiotics this takes a huge toll on their system and all your doing is prolonging the inevidable. Im not saying baytril is the only answer im just relying of my 20 years of personal experience. But i do agree on your post that an infection should be cultured but its helpful in making the decision to know the signs of the stages in resp infections cause there is a point in where its a loosing battle

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There are RIs that are completely resistant to Baytril. Doesn't matter whether or not you catch it early or late, the bacteria is completely resistant to the antibiotic. There have been whole papers written on the over-use and subsequent growing bacterial resistance to Baytril in both veterinary medicine and the livestock industry.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolib...050915_baytril

http://www.rabbitnetwork.org/articles/growing.shtml

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC89461/
Cut to "Discussion" for the pertinent info.

Part of the reason - a combination of every hack vet blindly treating RIs without culturing and animals not getting the full treatment - the owner sees improvement and stops administering the drug. Then you couple that several animal for food industries use it prophylactically to treat large lots of animals and you have all the making of an antibiotic that isn't as effective as it once was.

When you get the culturing results back from the lab it tells you several things - first, what bacteria is responsible. It also will rank the effectiveness of several antibiotics against the particular strain of bacteria.

Lots of good info right there. Thank you. It is something i will copy and hang on to. Like i said my response was based on personal experience. Now i should have said that i dont have a ton of experience with resp in my collection over the years and i believe its cause im so anal about my collection and the care so ive been lucky. But this is good info for everyone reading this post to copy and save. Thanks again

Thanks for all the help everyone! I did take Morpheus to the vet today and they gave me Baytril and Meloxicam (anti-inflammatory). Don't believe they did a culture. I will see how it goes for a couple days. He was not blowing bubbles yet. Did not know to have them do a culture (first time I ever took a snake to a vet).
I will keep you posted on his progress!

thanks,

Dave

Quote:

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Originally Posted by saber2th

Thanks for all the help everyone! I did take Morpheus to the vet today and they gave me Baytril and Meloxicam (anti-inflammatory). Don't believe they did a culture. I will see how it goes for a couple days. He was not blowing bubbles yet. Did not know to have them do a culture (first time I ever took a snake to a vet).
I will keep you posted on his progress!

thanks,

Dave

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Some vets recommend a culture but give you the option, others don't.

But since you are footing the bill, you are in charge of what they do and don't do - to a degree.

Maybe a non-challenging way to approach it is to simply tell the vet that you have talked to some fellow keepers who have run into bacteria that are resistant to Baytril and that you would feel more comfortable with a culture.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by saber2th

Thanks for all the help everyone! I did take Morpheus to the vet today and they gave me Baytril and Meloxicam (anti-inflammatory). Don't believe they did a culture. I will see how it goes for a couple days. He was not blowing bubbles yet. Did not know to have them do a culture (first time I ever took a snake to a vet).
I will keep you posted on his progress!

thanks,

Dave

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Well, its been just over a month and Morpheus is doing a lot better! Looks like a full recovery! :D He is eating again and put 210 grams back on.


http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s...3/100_2541.jpg

Once again, thanks for all the help and support!

Dave