Sick Ball Pythons - need help with diagnosis

Recently I lost a snake, a Mojave morph to an unknown illness. Now my four year old normal is coming down with similar symptoms. I am asking if any one knows what this possibly could be.

These are the symptoms: cloudy eyes (this is not them in shed or stuck eye caps!), severe respiratory infection that does not respond much if at all to antibiotics (injection, oral, nebulized), lethargy, loss of appetite, extreme weight loss and death.

I took my Mojave to the vet several times. We tried Fortaz, an oral antibiotic (it was pink), Doxycycline, Baytril and a couple other injected medications that I can't remember the names of and can't locate the paperwork to find out. Baytril was nebulized due to its necrotic effects when injected. Cultures showed a few minor bugs that the medications should have cleared up, but they seemed to have no effect. This snake was kept in quarantine isolation his entire life, but still my other snake seemed to get infected.

She only recently started to show signs: cloudy eyes, respiratory infection, lethargy and loss of appetite. She was taken to the vet for cultures and blood work today (unfortunately they were unable to get blood from her tail and did not want to risk sedating her for a heart draw). The doctor is looking into what this could be and talking to a specialist for me - but I would like the opinions of snake owners as well. She was given an injection of Fortaz to hopefully help her through the weekend and is in isolation in a high humidity, 95f heated tank.

Please help if you can or point me in a right direction. I don't want to lose another snake if at all possible!

I'm sorry I can't help you, just wanted to say I wish you the best and hopefully since you caught this soon it will be easier to treat! Good luck :(

Except for the eyes, could be paramyxovirus.
How good is your quarantine? Something as simple as forgetting to wash hands, or wearing the same clothes to clean cages could transmit a virus.
Put everything with the slightest symptom into strict isolation, and use air filtration. Have your vet do a necropsy. If it is that virus, the vet can't actually positively confirm it on a live snake, only a deceased one. Supportive care with antibiotics, nebulizing, and high heat is the only treatment. Most die, some survive, from what I understand.

Fingers crossed for you that it's not that, or that it ends with the mojave if it is.

If it is, consider your collection quarantined for a year--that bug can incubate for up to 11 months, sometimes. (The 3 month quarantine recommended by most people is not sufficient, and after researching all this, I switched my standard quarantine to 12 full months).

A necropsy is a good idea so ur vet can find out exactly what went wrong with the Mojave and hopefully prevent it in ur others.

Did you ever try giving them Flagyl?

Flagyl for a protozoan treatment, correct? I believe that (as well as potentially increasing an petite in snakes) is the main use for it. If they were able to run a fecal of anykind, that'd tell if their were protozoa present.

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Originally Posted by 2kdime

Did you ever try giving them Flagyl?

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Yes, that sounds very familiar. That's likely one of the meds names that I can't remember.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mpkeelee

A necropsy is a good idea so ur vet can find out exactly what went wrong with the Mojave and hopefully prevent it in ur others.

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Unfortunately it's too late for a necropsy. He died about a month ago. :(

Flagyl is used for flagellates

But it also has anti-bacterial affects

Ive heard by a number of sources that RI's can be the byproduct of a Flagellate infection. Whether they are the cause or if they weaken the immune system to allow naturally occurring bacterial to grab hold and cause an Ri, I'm not sure.

But if antibiotics haven't worked, I'd try that

Or consider Mycoplasma and grab for the Tylan

I'm not a vet so any ideas I have are just that. All actions should be discussed with your vet first.

X2, definitely talk to your vet every step of the way. If your vet thinks he's out of his depth, ask him to refer you to a specialist.

I don't know what it is either, but it looks like you have a lot of great advice. I hope you get her well!

I'd quarantine all your snakes, and hopefully the result is not the same, but if the worst should happen I would get a necropsy with pathology. This way you know what might be going on with your collection.

Whenever you have an animal is you're collection die of unknown causes a necropsy is 100000% necessary. I know it doesn't help now but for future FYI. I have never seen these syptoms so I can't help with that. But hopefully you get this figured out. I'm so sorry.


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I am not able to offer any advice to you as well, but I just wanted to say that I hope you are able to get things figured out and that your other snake is able to make it through.

The best of luck to you.