What is this?? Growth on edge of eye!! Please look!

[Steve-J]

Opinions please!! Our female Spider has a small growth (?) on the edge of her eye, it's towards the back edge near the top (between 9 and 12 o'clock if her eye was a clock) We just noticed it yesterday, it was hard and looked crusty. I moistened a paper towel and let her gently go through it and it didn't come off. Today I gave her a short time in a warm 93F bath, then let her run through a paper towel again. It doesn't appear as crusty as before, could it be a cyst or a tumor?? Has anyone seen anything like this?
These are the closest pics I could get, you might be able to zoom in on one or two of them to get a closer look. I looked at it under a magnifying lens and does not appear to be a stuck shed issue, she has had perfect sheds with eyecaps, nostrils, heat pits, cloaca and tail tip all accounted for each time. It looks like a slight inflammation of the tissue pushing out from between the edge of the eye and the scales that surround the eyecap.
We keep all of our tubs super clean, we use the proper dilution of chlorhexadine for regular cleaning and do a complete tub wash every other week.
Thanks in advance for any helpful info!
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[Skiploder]

Opinions please!! Our female Spider has a small growth (?) on the edge of her eye, it's towards the back edge near the top (between 9 and 12 o'clock if her eye was a clock) We just noticed it yesterday, it was hard and looked crusty. I moistened a paper towel and let her gently go through it and it didn't come off. Today I gave her a short time in a warm 93F bath, then let her run through a paper towel again. It doesn't appear as crusty as before, could it be a cyst or a tumor?? Has anyone seen anything like this?
These are the closest pics I could get, you might be able to zoom in on one or two of them to get a closer look. I looked at it under a magnifying lens and does not appear to be a stuck shed issue, she has had perfect sheds with eyecaps, nostrils, heat pits, cloaca and tail tip all accounted for each time. It looks like a slight inflammation of the tissue pushing out from between the edge of the eye and the scales that surround the eyecap.
We keep all of our tubs super clean, we use the proper dilution of chlorhexadine for regular cleaning and do a complete tub wash every other week.
Thanks in advance for any helpful info!
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For various reasons, the tissue around the eye can become inflamed. More often than not, a piece of the spectacle remains between the ocular scale and the new spectacle resulting in irritation.

However, there can be other reasons. Your best bet is to take her to a qualified herp vet who can take a look at the space between the ocular scale and the eye itself and determine the cause of the irritation and remove it if necessary. The vet can also prescribe an ocular topical antibiotic.

[Steve-J]

Ok, thanks Craig, she is on paper substrate so it's not likely to be wood substrate related, would an inspection of previous shed skins reveal a missing portion of that edge of eyecap if that was the cause? Also, is gentamicin sulfate ophthalmic solution a common topical antibiotic? I have this topical solution already, is there any harm in applying a drop in am and pm to see if there is improvement? Thanks for the quick reply

[Skiploder]

Ok, thanks Craig, she is on paper substrate so it's not likely to be wood substrate related, would an inspection of previous shed skins reveal a missing portion of that edge of eyecap if that was the cause? Also, is gentamicin sulfate ophthalmic solution a common topical antibiotic? I have this topical solution already, is there any harm in applying a drop in am and pm to see if there is improvement? Thanks for the quick reply

It won't harm anything - but it also may not help. Is there any swollen tissue you can see between the eye and the scale?

When that tissue becomes inflamed, oftentimes the entire ring of tissue will eventually swell. That's not the case with your snake.

When it's localized to one area like in the picture you posted and there appears to be no other inflammation, it could could be several things. The easiest to deal with would be a small piece of retained spectacle edge or something else that lodged in there. Those are things that can be manually removed or flushed out.

Without being able to physically look at it, I can't tell whether or not it's an irritation under the rim of the ocular scale or something else like a cyst.

While the gentamicin may help against the spread of a possible bacterial infection, if it's a cyst or other growth it won't do anything. the best advice I can give is to take the animal to a vet and get them to take a look.

[Steve-J]

Ok, great info, thanks a lot for your input. If there is any chance that it is bacterial and could be contagious, I'll certainly keep her separate just in case, thanks again for the extremely useful info.

[Steve-J]

So this morning was our scheduled visit to the vet to have Melissa's eye looked at. BUT, last nite she finished her shed and that little thing was on her shed skin and her eye looked fine!!! It's super cold here and she seems to be fine so we canceled the visit, no reason to subject her to the stress of a visit when it all appears to be ok!!
Kinda weird that there was no evidence of whatever it was on any of her previous shed skins but we're just glad that she's ok!! Thanks to Skiploder for his excellent advice!!