Health problem with Adult Male RTB

I recently took in an adult male RTB. He was free, and I was helping a friend by taking it so I made room. Upon looking at the snake it seemed fine. Unfortunately I am new to red tails (especially adults) and didn't notice any problems upon the first examination. But, after a couple days of settling in I took him out again to see how he was. And I noticed his mouth was gaping to the side a bit. I didn't hear any clicking, and haven't really heard or seen many obvious RI symptoms. He eats good too, only missed a couple meals here and there. The main things I notice are the mouth gaping all the time, and maybe a little excess saliva but that could be because his mouth is open and I can see it. I took some pictures of him.

http://i1022.photobucket.com/albums/...n/IMAG0125.jpg
http://i1022.photobucket.com/albums/...n/IMAG0126.jpg
http://i1022.photobucket.com/albums/...n/IMAG0127.jpg
http://i1022.photobucket.com/albums/...n/IMAG0128.jpg
http://i1022.photobucket.com/albums/...n/IMAG0129.jpg

From looking at that bottom pic you posted (the in focus one) that part of his mouth that's staying open looks discolored in a greenish, yellow tint and almost looks like the site of an infection. I am no expert by any means, but that part of his mouth doesn't look good IMO and if I was his owner I would look into getting him to a good vet here soon to better be safe than sorry. Good luck!

Looks like the begining of mouth rot bro. I would drop the humidity to 35% and bump temps a few degrees. Mouth rot is usually secondary to a another problem. You might want to get a vet to take a look and swab and culture the swollen area.

Borrowed from the web on treatment -

Treatment of mild cases with no anorexia consists of improving the husbandry and nutrition and twice daily topical application of dilute iodine (Betadine) or chlorhexidine (Nolvasan) solution. Ask your veterinarian about the appropriate dilution for your particular pet. It is important that a solution and not a scrub is used. Scrubs contain soap and are irritating to the mouth. Hydrogen peroxide is also sometimes used as a topical medication.

In addition to the above, moderate cases of mouth rot usually require topical (applied to the mouth), parenteral (oral or injectable) antibiotics, or both. The bacteria that cause mouth infections in reptiles are often resistant to many antibiotics. Therefore, your veterinarian may need to change antibiotics once the culture results are available.

More serious cases require topical or surgical removal of the caseous debris, nutritional support (see anorexia in snakes), fluid therapy.

In mild and moderate cases, if husbandry improvements are accomplished by the owner in a timely fashion, the prognosis (estimate for getting better) for recovery is good to excellent. The prognosis is guarded for cases with significant caseous debris and grave for reptiles with significant bone involvement.

I agree with the above posters. That may require antibiotics...

Thanks everyone for your help!

I was thinking RI for a while, but something just didn't seem to add up. And then it dawned on me that it could be mouth rot. The pictures I did see of mouth rot seemed a lot more intense, but I guess this is the beginning stages of it. Has anyone ever dealt with this personally, or cured it without bringing it to the vet? The above post says if you catch it early you can cure it yourself. This TO ME seems like I caught it early, any ideas?

Why risk it? Doesn't have to be a "herp" vet to culture and prescribe antibiotics for that.

Funds are a wee bit tight at the moment....

I can bring a "culture" to my dogs vet your saying? How will he know what to prescribe if he doesn't treat reptiles? And j.w of the costs of something like this.

No what I meant was that it doesn't have to be a specialist "herp" vet to culture the infection and prescribe the appropriate antibiotic. Obviously a vet with more reptile experience would be best but you don't have to seek out and pay out for a specialist.

I'd call around to the vets in your area and see if anyone has worked with reptiles at all, that way you'd at least be able to talk to them before shelling out for a visit.

I'll call and check that out asap!

If anyone else has stuff I can do in the mean time please let me know!

I've read early cases of mouth rot can be treated at home with a dilute iodine solution 1-2 times a day. You can dip a Q-tip in the solution and lightly wipe out the area of the cheesy, gunky stuff where the infection is. I'm not positive how long this treatment may last but I assume maybe a few weeks or until the infection seems to be completely cured (even if at that I would still apply the solution to the infected area for a few more days or so just to be sure it's completely gone).

With more extreme cases, a vet visit would need to be in order to also get oral or injection medication to fight off the infection.

I've had to do this treatment with a Blood python a while back for a couple weeks and it seemed to work nicely. I would keep the snake on newspaper, bump up the temps a few degrees, and make sure anything in the enclosure isn't too damp. Always offer fresh water as well. Keep us updated on how he progresses!

Hey, thanks for the info Tiffany!

Last night before I went to bed, I soaked up as much saliva in his mouth with a qtip as I could. I wanted to remove as much of the "bad" saliva possible. I then used peroxide on the corner that was suspect, and BAM! Some small amounts of pus came out, and it foamed up nice. He was going NUTS! I wanted to open up his whole mouth, but he wasn't having it...I just restrained him, and pulled his lip down exposing his gum's. I applied it to all around his mouth which he was ok with thankfully. There so damn strong! Today (which let me say was all horrible due to my car being backed into) when I got home from work I checked on the little(big) guy. And it definitely helped with the swelling! His mouth is sitting better, and he seems more comfortable. I'm going to keep doing this until its gone, but was wondering if there are advantages to using iodine. When you use it how much do you dilute it?

Forgot one thing!!

I think I know where this came from! When I first noticed something was wrong with him I thought it was RI. He was clicking a lot, and seemed to be wheezing. One day he even blew a nice size snot bubble a young child could admire lol. I turned the heat up and kept it nice and humid for him. I also had some Colloidal Silver that my gf bought a while back. I knew the stuff was an immune system booster, as well as a bacteria killer. Now I know there is a lot of debate on this stuff, but honestly I'm not here to debate about it. I'm here to simply say that it worked. This was about 2 months ago about, and now all symptoms of RI have ceased to be. All I did was only give him about 3 dose's of about 5 drops each time, turn the heat up to about 95 for his basking, stopped handling him, and kept it humid. Once the symptoms we're improving I backed off I stopped using the CS. All that I've been noticing was the excess saliva in his mouth, and the misalignment. He always kind of had it, but it just seemed to progressively get worse. I really do think this stuff isn't some "snake oil" rip off, and really does have some science behind it. I barely had to give him any, and I'm sure it's much less stressful on their bodies then baytril. So what I'm thinking is that he did have RI, and was cured of it. Unfortunately what I think happened was that from all the bacteria from the infection sitting in his mouth caused the mouth rot. I'm sure if I kept up with the CS it would have killed that as well, but thought that the RI was to blame. I honestly didn't think the CS even worked, but now that I am sure that this is a case of mouth rot, and all the other symptoms are gone it seems very likely to be a possibility. Another thing that botherd me was that all you we're saying that it is usally from another issue within the snake. This just makes it seem even more likely. Unfortunately I don't have the money to take this guy to the vet. I just had a rough past few months, and funds are low. CS was really my only options, and I figured it couldn't hurt. I did lots of research on the stuff prior, and was leery but I had to do something.

http://i1022.photobucket.com/albums/...n/IMAG0131.jpg

Here's a pic. The foam you see there is from the peroxide. But the swelling has obviously gone down!! Woo hoo!