Bad news on my BP

[missbenzo]

So finally after the vet visit... it seems Sam is doomed. The vet is 90% sure that it is Cryptosporidium parasite... parasite causes constipation and we've just been told to wait for a fecal sample to be sure of the parasite... just wondering if anyone has had any experience with this before though I hope not. The vet seems sure it's a death sentence. The parasite is also highly contagious and Sam must have been infected before we got them. Dean has shown no symptoms so far.. luckily....

[stevepoppers]

I came across this thread a few days ago. http://www.reptileforums.co.uk/forum...at-hell-4.html That page and the rest have some info.

I'm really sorry. That stuff sounds so horrible.

[loonunit]

Oh, no! I hope the vet is wrong, and it's something else--I had a friend lose her leopard geckos because of crypto, and it was the saddest thing ever. I'm so sorry!

[BPelizabeth]

Ok...I read this....put my hair up and got my books out. I am taking this info from Understanding Reptile Parasite by Roger Klingeberg DVM. I might suggest picking it up as I am not going to write everything but ...will kind of phrase some things up.

In the book it states that you should do at least 3 tests that are acid smeared fecal tests. Anything that eats mice could give you a false positive. It also states that you need to feed the snake before the testing. Also they stated that you can also do a tube feeding to be sure so that again the mice do not cause a false positive.

Now...for the cure....as your vet stated there is no known cure...at least not the time that this book was written. However it did state that they can try HBC which is Hyperimmune Bovine Colostrum. That there might be some cross reactivity of the antibodies to the reptiles. This was tried on 4 different monitors and 2 of the four tested clean after they did this. Now also in 2004 they were trying a different med...not sure if it was approved or not.

You can call my vet Dr. Jarchow at (520)877-2626 and leave a message I am sure he would call you back. He is one of the top 5 reptile vets in the world. I would think he would know all of the cutting edge meds out there and just might be able to help.