Ibd?

My Ball is acting crazy and im afraid his days may be numbered. He is corkscrewing on himself and laying in a tight ball with his head in the middle and his chin flipped over with his mouth wide open. He is still breathing and he has fits where he spins in circles with his mouth open. The only time he is acting kind of normal is when he gets water, which he has done twice in as many days. This has been going on for almost 24 hours. Any advice? It looks like IBD to me but there have been no new snakes introduced and no contact with other reptiles.

How long have you had the snake? Can you describe your setup in detail? How are you heating the tank and how are you regulating and measuring the heat? What are the temps on the hot and cold sides and what is the ambient temp? What type and size is the enclosure? Pics of your setup could help also...

I have had the snake for almost 5 years. The tank is a 25 gallon long terrarium with a heat lamp and a heat pad on one side. Warm side is currently 84 and cool side is currently 72. Im using compressed coconut bark reconstituted as substrate. There are two hides, water bath and basking rock in the tank as well.

With those circumstances, I would hesitate to jump to an IBD diagnosis. My (admittedly limited) understanding of IBD is that it won't lie dormant in a ball python for that long. Generally you will see physical symptoms manifest within a few weeks and it kills pythons quickly. My first thought was neurological damage from overheating, but if nothing has changed about his setup, I don't see how that could be. How are you regulating the lamps and UTH or are you? I guess if you had them on a thermostat/rheostat and the stat failed, it could be running your heat sources at 100%, which could get too hot and overheat him. Was this a sudden onset thing or did his condition deteriorate over time? Either way, I'd probably be trying to get him to a vet ASAP. I hope he pulls through for you.

Have you changed cleaning supplies recently? Used any insecticides?

it was sudden onset. He started acting weird a few days ago, sticking his nose down into the substrate like he was trying to dig out. I took him out of the tank for a while and as soon as i put him back in he started the behavior. Im just not really sure what to do at this point besides the vet.

no changes that i know of. I have removed him from his current tank now and have him in quarantine with clean substrate. Maybe this will help

Make an appointment with your veterinarian ASAP, and make sure to mention that it *might* be IBD so that they can take the necessary precautions. I'm not saying it is IBD, but it could be contagious.

These symptoms are far too serious to be debated and discussed on a forum. That snake needs professional medical attention. Please keep us updated on his condition!

IBD can be asymptomatic in ball pythons for an indeterminate amount of time.

There are many things that those symptoms can indicate. Take him to vet.

I didn't see anything that stated or aske but is this a spider ball python? My spider has probably the worst corkscrewing problem you have seen.

IBD is often jumped on. There is lots of miss information and poor understanding of this disorder. Even when asked the foremost researchers answer with unknown and inconclusive far too often. Most of the research is being done on Boidae and not pythons. It is possible but there could be many other reasons too. Have you treated for mites at all in the near past? It could easily be poisoning.

As a completely sad note and I am very sorry for mentioning it but if it turns out to be IBD some thought might be given into contacting Dr. Jacobson

A partial correspondence I have had with him and his lab.

"Hi Alexander,

We are currently validating several diagnostic tests that can be used to screen IBD snakes with blood samples. We focused on boa constrictors, which seem to be the most common species that are infected during the pass 10 years. I believe that right now, we don't yet know the exact disease transmission and pathogenesis. So it is hard to conclude how a species response to IBD progression. Most of the assumptions were based on observation in very small sample size, which can be highly biased.

We currently accept blood and tissues samples for IBD testing, which is $100 each case. If you have confirmed IBD material of non-boa species, we may be interested in testing them for research collaboration.

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
Elliott Jacobson, DVM
2015 SW 16th Ave
PO Box 100126
Gainesville, FL 32610-0126"