Scab? Thing between his eyeball and scales keeps growing back?

These things keeps coming back again soon after Yukon sheds. When he sheds, it comes off. There is one on BOTH eyes, in the same location! It makes me wonder if it's a health issue or something wrong with his eyes that's causing it? Is it really a scab? You can see that it even kind of pushes his scales back from his eyeball... It looks pretty much the same on both eyes.

If it's a scab, what can it be from? His tub is currently just a water bowl, aspen, and a hide.

I've tried scratching it a little, and it is very solidly stuck to his eye/scales- it has a rough surface, like a scab.

http://s11.postimg.org/okfn4asnn/df5...f80e635484.jpg

http://s11.postimg.org/3otct1wgj/e10...0f916fa24c.jpg

just looks like he is missing a scale

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rstrui

just looks like he is missing a scale

---

You don't see the humongous bump in front of the eye on the bottom picture that is making the snout look extremely distorted from the top picture??

To the OP ... I do see what your talking about but your pictures are rather small and not very clear if you could get some better pics up it would probably help .... either way I'm sorry but I have no idea what it could be .... hopefully someone else can guide you in the right direction .... best of luck to you :gj:

The fact that it's on both sides makes me think something is going on and that a trip to a herp vet is in order. How many times has it come back?

EDIT: also it looks as though the area around the eye is swollen?

Those scales have kind of a shiny-puffy look to them that make me think it's an infection of some sort... That could cause the swelling as well. Infections can often 'go away' to the point that you don't really see any visible symptoms, but enough bacteria is left inside each time to allow it to come back. I think a vet is your best option here considering the swelling under the eye. Even if you treated the discolored scales at home, the root of the problem would likely still remain.

Sorry for the dilemma red. He doesn't seem to have it in the bottom picture that is framed. Well, not as defined as in the top pics. If you look very closely at the framed picture there is a hint of a very light discoloration around the ocular scale. When did you first begin noticing it ? In any case I think it should be evaluated by a exotic vet. Mainly bc it is near and potentially affecting the eye which is a critical body part. Also you will feel better once you get professional evaluations. It may be something easily treated or not much at all. Good luck, he has really grown into a beautiful animal.

My unprofessional guess would be that there is an eye issue and it's not really a scab but more a build up of some fluids coming from his eyes since it's both sides in the same location. Maybe there is a mild issue that causes regular discharge but the shedding process irritates it since it can't escape when the eye caps have a gap between layers. Did that make sense? Can snakes need eye drops? Sorry I'm not much help.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HannahLou

My unprofessional guess would be that there is an eye issue and it's not really a scab but more a build up of some fluids coming from his eyes since it's both sides in the same location. Maybe there is a mild issue that causes regular discharge but the shedding process irritates it since it can't escape when the eye caps have a gap between layers. Did that make sense? Can snakes need eye drops? Sorry I'm not much help.

---

Yes Hannah, this makes a lot of sense. Kudos to you for that deduction, very possible. :gj:

Thanks for the replies guys! Hannah, I think your deduction sounds very possible too. It probably is a discharge related to either his eye or something else near his eye.

His snout unfortunately has always looked like that, not necessarily swollen. When I received him straight out of the shipment box last October as a baby, I had noticed the two "bulges" on the side of his head were kind of sunken and distorted, and that his snout was a different shape. The breeder sent me a bad hatchling, I guess. He also has some neurological/equilibrium problems, similar to a spider. But I didn't bother messaging him about it at the time, just to be nice. :s I kind of regret not doing that now. Hope he doesn't have a variety of issues in the future and die early or something.

Now I'm looking for a herp vet around my area (Los Angeles/Orange County). Does anyone know of a good one local to here? Or... I remember someone telling me a website a long time back where you can search up your local herp vets that are a member of that "herp vet association" website, with a name something like that... I don't remember what it was.

Albert, what is the ocular scale? Do you mean the discoloration on his eyeball? He has also had the weird coloration (light orange/blue eye) on both eyes, ever since I received him as a hatchling.

I am really regretting not messaging the breeder about getting his bad hatchling. I just didn't want to be a bother at the time, and thought Yukon would be fine when he's older. :| Bad decision. Too late to message now, I assume? LOL

Do you think this guy is a good reptile vet? I found him through the ARAV site (I remembered ahah).
Or are there more snake-specific vets that I should be looking for?

http://serranoanimalandbirdhospital....r-scott-weldy/

You're best off finding a reptile group on Facebook for your city and asking there who people use.

I went to the vet. It turns out they were still scabs, and not discharge! She ended up having to use a scalpel and picking off the brown stuff to figure out what was underneath, and it was just white flesh. Not infected or anything. Which is how she figured out that it was just scabs. The vet said it is probably irritation due to something in his environment, and she guessed it was the type of aspen I use. She recommended shredded aspen, which is softer...

But in terms of husbandry, she actually did not know much about snakes ahah. :s All in all, she basically thought that heat mats will frequently malfunction and burn snakes (did not know about thermostats and their use) so recommended I use an infrared heating bulb, and did not know that snakes have eye caps (said that Yukon doesn't have eye caps).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by redshepherd

But in terms of husbandry, she actually did not know much about snakes ahah. :s All in all, she basically thought that heat mats will frequently malfunction and burn snakes (did not know about thermostats and their use) so recommended I use an infrared heating bulb, and did not know that snakes have eye caps (said that Yukon doesn't have eye caps).

---

Perhaps what she meant about the eyecaps is that he doesn't have *stuck* eye caps. I think the term is different, and they're called brille or ocular scales when they're the integral body part, versus "eyecaps" when they're skin that is being/has been shed off. But that's just my understanding of it and I'm no expert in snake anatomy by far.

As for the husbandry, yep it seems she could do with a quick read of some of the stickies here on BP.net! Maybe her only experience treating snakes whose owners used UTHs was that they came in with belly burns.

In any case, that's good that there didn't seen to be any visible infection but I would bet Yukon does have an issue with his eyes.

Keep us updated for sure on how the bedding switch goes.

Hey red! The term ocular scale refers to those scales that surround the eye of the reptile. There are pre ocular scales that are in front of the eye. Then there are post ocular scales which are those scales behind the eye. The labial scales are those that are around the mouth of the animal.

I havnt used these people personally, but I talked to the owner at the Pomona reptile expo. She seemed pretty knowledgeable. They are in Pasadena.

http://www.exoticanimalcarecenter.com/

If it's a scab supposedly from bedding I still find it odd to be
On both sides in the same spot. Super Lessers are known for eye issues so I am curious to see if they reappear with the bedding change. Either way I hope the spots aren't bothering him!

Right, forgot to mention... She gave me a 1% silver sulfadiazine cream to put on his scabs daily. I actually have not applied it yet since the day I visited the vet, because I don't quite trust the knowledge of this vet on snakes? I thought I'd hear some of your thoughts first...

Well, just for info update... The brown stuff has not come back! His scales around his eyes are still deformed from the brown stuff in the past, but I assume it will grow back to normal after a few sheds.

I haven't applied the cream she prescribed at all though. All I did was switch out the aspen to paper towels and wait it out. So I guess it really was due to the aspen scratching/infecting his eyes somehow. Maybe something to do with his weird super lesser eyeballs that stick out to begin with.

I just googled silver sulfadiazine cream safe for ball pythons and an old thread from this site came up and it can be used to treat burns, scale rot, etc. The thread wasn't about the cream itself but someone telling someone else how to treat a burn and what else it is used for. Just thought I would let you know just in case it comes back you know its ok to use it. I'm glad everything is going good now though!

Ah I see, thanks for letting me know! I'm glad that vet knows enough for prescribing that to me LOL.

Glad it didn't turn out to be anything serious! You have really gorgeous snakes, it would be horrible if anything bad happened to them.