The Importance of Selecting an Experience Reptile Vet

[Skiploder]

Three weeks ago I got a call from a person who I sold a trio of children’s pythons to seven years ago.

Apparently, one of the males died displaying all of the tell-tale signs of IBD – you know, corkscrewing, regurgitation, etc.

The owner was in a panic, demanding his money back, wringing his hands about the threat to the rest of his collection etc.

After talking to him for about 30 minutes, I got the entire scoop. The timeline goes like this:

• 6 weeks before the animal died, it regurged a medium sized rat.

• 5 weeks before the animal died, it regurged a small rat.

• 4 weeks before the animal died, it regurged a small rat.

• 3 weeks before the animal died, it began refusing meals. It also began having issues with “musking” for a lack of a better word.

• 1 week before the animal died it contracted a respiratory infection.

• 1 week before the animal died the owner took it to a vet who noted the respiratory infection, the onset of septicemia and odd posturing.

• The vet, without taking any tests, declared that the animal had IBD and recommended euthanasia.

• Two days before the animal died, it began doing death rolls and thrashing, sub-marining and other signs of neurological damage.

We were lucky enough that not only did the owner live relatively close by, but that he refrigerated the carcass. I offered to assist him in paying for a necropsy with the understanding that if it was IBD we’d discuss testing the rest of his collection.

The body was handed over to my vet along with the feeding/poop/shed history.

We got the final results back yesterday and I thought that some people might find them both interesting and instructive.

The snake died of gastritis that was brought on from multiple regurges. The owner had a leftover medium size rat that a woma python refused so he fed it to his “garbage” disposal – the children’s python. The size and weight of the rat was way too much for the snake who threw it up after 3 days. A week later he attempted another feed which was followed by another vomiting and then a third feeding close on the heels of that.

Three regurge/vomiting episodes in less than three weeks led to the gastritis which initially manifested itself in a loss of appetite. At this point, the animal was critically sick and its immune system was down. It contracted a respiratory infection and it is probable that the onset of septicemia occurred just prior to the URI.

The stomach of the snake was full of cheesy discharge and was in overall tatters. The necropsy/histology also noted large widespread infection of the entire digestive system which had spread into the lung and the liver.

No inclusion bodies were found and the cause of death was wholly attributed to gastritis.

What I found interested and the main reason why I am sharing this is that I truly feel that if this incident had been reported on the forums, people would have been shouting IBD from the rooftops. The fact is that this is a simple case of a person offering an inappropriately sized meal to an animal, having a regurge and then not properly allowing or assisting the rehabilitation of the digestive system. If the owner had not refrigerated the animal, I am certain we would be testing his entire collection for IBD.

When my vet called the vet who made the initial IBD diagnosis, she was informed that the client’s vet really only saw a handful of snakes a year and based on the presentation of the corkscrewing and other neurological symptoms, he was certain it was IBD. He completely disregarded the recent health history of the animal.

I’m not going to go into what a grossly inappropriate and presumptive diagnosis that was, but I will emphasize this: in the final stages of a critical infection, be it from an RI, septicemia, viral or fungal infections, the final progression of the disease ultimately ends with the snake displaying odd motor control abnormalities including corkscrewing and a general inability to right itself.

I asked my vet, who specializes in snakes and services the local zoos how much IBD she is seeing and she said “some” but stated she is seeing far more OPMV these days.

This led to a discussion on how she has seen other vets mis-diagnose OPMV as IBD due to the rapid onset death and final stage neurological abnormalities.

Then she said something that threw me for a bit of a loop. She mused that the early earth-shaking cases of IBD in boa and python collections, notably the ones that quickly wiped out entire collections, could have been OPMV in a collection with a few IBD asymptomatic animals. She dealt with an OPMV outbreak with a boa/ball breeder last year in which a total a 10 animals eventually died. Testing confirmed OPMV in the collection, but 4 of the 10 animals were also discovered to have IBD.

This has led her – and this is her opinion only – that IBD may be "present" in a lot of animals but may be present asymptomatically. Another virus like OPMV comes through and devastates a collection. The vet, noting an RI and neurological symptoms, tests for IBD and incorrectly assumes it to be the cause of all the mayhem when OPMV or another virus/infection is actually doing the killing.

Nothing set in stone, but interesting nonetheless. If nothing else, it emphasizes the need to take your animals to an experienced reptile vet when they fall ill, to perform necropsies on any animals that die of unknown illnesses, and to not assume IBD when an animal displays odd behavior.