Treat a Respiratory Infection (RI) from Home. DIY

[TheSnakeGeek]

I actually think that bacterial RIs are not as common as we think. Doesn't mean that they are uncommon, just means that they should not be the first thing we assume when a snake has an RI. There are fungal causes, parasitic causes and viral causes.

In my time keeping snakes, I have had more imports come in with lungworms than bacterial RIs. When is the last time you saw someone talk about parasitic RIs on the forums? They don't because most vets just don't bother to do anything more than throw Baytril at a snake with a suspected RI.

The one time I had a spontaneous RI occur in a long term captive, it was due to a virus.

I'll repeat what I said earlier - until vets stop short-arming clients, no one knows the true breakdown of the incidences of each cause.

we can both repeat what we said until we're blue in the face, but that leads to nothing. i wasn't trying to turn this into a debate. just trying to help other people out. i do not think vets should assume and treat any illness without running tests first, and many vets do this. while i do agree with some of your points, maybe you can help me understand your side better and help me fix my logic if it's incorrect. my logic does not come from reptile keeping or posts on forums. it comes from my lifelong experience having parents as veterinarians, a pediatrician grandfather, and working at a vet clinic for 8 years. i realize you're older and have more experience when it comes to keeping reptiles, although i believe i may have more experience being around veterinarians, so please correct me if i'm wrong.

antibiotics treat bacterial infections, correct?

antibiotics do not treat fungal, viral or parasitic infections.

antibiotics would not work if an animal was infected with parasites or a virus.

if illness is unknown, veterinarians (or doctors) treat an illness with the most common drug that clears these symptoms.

in a snake, if viral respiratory infections were more common than bacterial, antibiotics would not be the most common drug that cleared these symptoms.

in veterinarians' experience, antibiotics work more often than not.

-therefore, my logic is telling me bacterial respiratory infections are more common than viral or parasitic.


i'm in no way trying to offend you, belittle you, or start a heated debate, and i would appreciate the same respect in turn. just explaining where my logic comes from and putting it out there for criticism.

[Skiploder]

we can both repeat what we said until we're blue in the face, but that leads to nothing. i wasn't trying to turn this into a debate. just trying to help other people out. i do not think vets should assume and treat any illness without running tests first, and many vets do this. while i do agree with some of your points, maybe you can help me understand your side better and help me fix my logic if it's incorrect. my logic does not come from reptile keeping or posts on forums. it comes from my lifelong experience having parents as veterinarians, a pediatrician grandfather, and working at a vet clinic for 8 years. i realize you're older and have more experience when it comes to keeping reptiles, although i believe i may have more experience being around veterinarians, so please correct me if i'm wrong.

antibiotics treat bacterial infections, correct?

antibiotics do not treat fungal, viral or parasitic infections.

antibiotics would not work if an animal was infected with parasites or a virus.

if illness is unknown, veterinarians (or doctors) treat an illness with the most common drug that clears these symptoms.

in a snake, if viral respiratory infections were more common than bacterial, antibiotics would not be the most common drug that cleared these symptoms.

in veterinarians' experience, antibiotics work more often than not.

-therefore, my logic is telling me bacterial respiratory infections are more common than viral or parasitic.


i'm in no way trying to offend you, belittle you, or start a heated debate, and i would appreciate the same respect in turn. just explaining where my logic comes from and putting it out there for criticism.

Simply put, there is no way of knowing if one is more prevalent than the other. Most vets assume everything is bacterial and treat it as such. Enlightened vets culture and treat accordingly. In may cases, the cultures show there is no proliferation of harmful bacteria.

All you have to do is talk to other keepers and find out (1) that many vets actually dissuade them from taking a culture and (2) many vets prescribe antibiotics without knowing if the cause if bacterial.

There are too many cases on this forum alone of unresolved RIs that miraculously survive round after round of antibiotics. When the boneheaded vet finally decides to take a culture, that culture is questionable because the animal has already been through two rounds of gram negative cephalosporins or other drugs.

Until culturing is the norm and until people spend money to necropsy animals that die after not responding to the blind dosing of baytril or other common antibiotics, no one has enough data to prove what the most common RI causes are.

Some RIs are secondary acute infections caused by the compromising of the immune system due to ............... wait for it ........viruses. Antibiotics may cause a temporary period of relief but do not address the underlying cause. The snake shows a lessening or cessation of symptoms, the round of meds finishes but since the CAUSE (the virus) is not identified and treated, the secondary respiratory distress eventually comes back.

Over the last 5 years alone I have got God knows how many PMs and emails from keepers whose snakes do not respond to antibiotics or whose cultures come back negative but the vet still puts them on a baytril treatment cycle. Again, until we weed out the hack exotic vets, until culturing becomes the norm, until deceased snakes are routinely necropsied, I would not hazard to say what the common cause of most RIs are.

I lost my hero worship of vets a long time ago. No disrespect to your parents, but I've seen too many hacks who I wouldn't hire pull a tick off of my butt. I've got three decades in this hobby dealing in snakes, importing snakes, breeding snakes and selling snakes. I've treated a lot of imports for a lot of diseases and I've helped customers deal with their own health issues. I've got a vet I've used for a long time who is a true exotics vet and who I trust implicitly. I can honestly tell you that in my time, in my experience, I would not be so vain that I would dare state that I know what the most common cause of RIs in snakes are.

Your post is informative and based on experiences from people I know and trust, the F10 nebulizing treatment shows a lot of promise. Let's leave it at that.

[TheSnakeGeek]

preciate the schoolin.

[Skiploder]

preciate the discussion.

There, fixed it for you.

F10 is a fungicide and a virucide - correct? If so, maybe the F10 nebulizing treatment acts on three of the four known causes of RIs in snakes..................

[JD Constriction]

An honest question.

Around the time of BHB's video I had asked my vet to look into F10 nebulizer treatments and get back to me on her thoughts.

Her recommendation was not to use F10 as some of the ingredients in it she was concerned with their affects on the animal. I'm spacing on the exact ingredient but something specific that was more acidic/caustic than what she would feel comfortable an animal inhaling.

She offered up that she thought you would see similar results with saline solution as you would with an F10 mixture. Insinuating the actual nebulization is where the real benefit is, as opposed to F10 itself.

What if any experience do people who nebulize have with not using F10 in the mix vs using it?

Just curious.

Thanks!

[kitedemon]

I too FIRMLY believe a culture is the best way to deal with RI, it is important to remember a culture should be done BEFORE any antibiotics have been given after it skues the result.

That said it is possiable F10sc will effect fungal and viral (very sketchy viral is wicked difficult) It is a broad spectrum chemical.

There is annother point that needs to be very very CLEAR!!!! F10 is a name of a manufacturer not a product. It is like me saying Bayer daily can help thin the blood... The disenfecting system from F10 includes products that if you nebulize them will most likely KILL the snake. Lets be CLEAR F10SC and only SC should be nebulized.

F10SCxd, F919, F10 odour eliminator or any other F10 product (some are listed as toxic to reptiles period) should NEVER be used in a nebulizer!

JD, no vet would risk suggesting any treatment that was NOT approved in the US (F10 is not), she could lose her licence. There are a lot of European case studies,
http://www.f10biocare.co.uk/F10factsissue1.pdf
http://www.f10biocare.co.uk/F10factsissue4.pdf
http://www.f10biocare.co.uk/F10factsissue7.pdf

there are more I just don't have links in front of me. I am on the fence as a treatment I would recommend a culture be done. It is also clear that not everyone can get to a vet or find a good vet (treating without at least suggesting a culture = poor vet IMO) F10 may offer a better than nothing solution. I believe this to be the spirit creepin intended. (sorry to put words into your mouth, creepin )

[JordanRussell]

This is something which has frustrated me for some time.

There is (as far as I have seen) an unchecked problem in the ball python community, stemming from respiratory infections.

There are a few main reasons this has remained an unchecked problem, and bloomed into a potentially disastrous scenario.

1.) Misinformation - spreading information like this is a big culprit. This is not veterinary medicine 101, this is reckless and dangerous.

2.) Not utilizing proper veterinary care.

If you have a snake which is sick, you start with a culture w/sensitivity - period. If this illuminates the problem, then treat accordingly.

Blindly treating, without testing to see if it is effective is about the most dangerous thing you can do.

Here are a few reasons:

1.) If you are treating against a bacterial infection which is resistant to the infection you are doing little more than damaging the immune system and allowing the bacterial infection to flourish.

2.) If you are treating with the correct antibiotic but at the wrong treatment, you are encouraging the bacteria to mutate - potentially making a resistant strain in your wake.

3.) SOME Bacterial infections are zoonotic, here's a great for instance (especially considering that in my opinion, this bacteria is responsible for MOST of the respiratory infections in ball pythons, carpets and burmese pythons). Let's say Pseudomonas aeruginosa is the cause of the infection, which requires a very aggressive treatment path - and you don't test. So then you slam it full of baytril (which should kill it, but because of the efflux valve it does not effectively eliminate the infection). You work in the room and pick it up on you, you visit your child, neighbor or friend's kid who has Cystic fibrosis - well you basically just gave that kid a death sentence.

The reason so many opinions are flying around is because most are not based on fact. If you aren't running cultures you don't know what your snake has.

If your vet is over-priced, or you're paranoid, or whatever... there are labs which can run them on the cheap! www.Caadl.com is one of them, swab your snake and mail in the culture yourself if you need to. I do not use them (I have a vet I trust), and there is a disparity between the care a competent vet can provide vs. a lab.....but the disparity is much smaller than that which is a great chasm of difference in online help from breeders and your vet.

As far as F-10 goes, this is a a cleaner. This is NOT an antibiotic. Although it can reduce the bacterial growth on the lung tissue (which can AID in treatment in conjunction with antibiotics) it is not a treatment. It's most effective component is that it keeps the biofilm growth in enclosures from propagating.

Running a less harsh bactericide/fungicide/virucide (like Nolvason-S) in a room humidifier while treating can serve the same purpose, while being less invasive.

If your results come back with Pseudomonas aeruginosa clinical studies have shown that a dual antibiotic approach is the most effective, 2 full courses of ceftazidime coupled with one full course of amikacin. Wipe down enclosures, bowls etc.. daily with a bactericide, and treat the entire enclosure with rocal, nolvason-s, bleach or f-10 thoroughly at the end of treatment.

Good luck,
Jordan

[kitedemon]

...
Running a less harsh bactericide/fungicide/virucide (like Nolvason-S) in a room humidifier while treating can serve the same purpose, while being less invasive.
...
Good luck,
Jordan

I agree with everything mostly but this. CHD (Chlorhexidine Diacetate) the principal component is de-activated by organic materials so the humidifier would need to be new and cleaned daily or more. It also is reckless advise, CHD changes with heat (not all humidifiers are cool) to become quite toxic. Your points around drugs follow true for disinfectants CHD/CHG both are sensitive to organic material and have relatively poor stability. You have suggested a method that would create resistant bacterium as well. A deactivated disinfectant is not going to do anything else. Like you I cry against misuse/incorrect use, of in my case disinfectants, and sadly there are more whom mis-use disinfectants than correctly use them.

http://www.vetdepot.com/product-labels/nolvasan-s.pdf

How exactly is F10 more 'harsh' than CHD?

CHD MSDS has far more cautions than that of F10. F10 is basically stable and does not have any hazardous decomposition products. For that matter any condition or state or exposure that makes it a hazard. CHD does for both. F10 if mixed with strong alkalis, may neutralize or reduce disinfectant qualities, and is an irritant if in eyes and ingested. CHD may release toxic vapours when subjected to heat, may be harmful if swallowed, and medical advise should be obtained if you get it in your eyes. It is hard to say F10 is harsh compared with CHD/G.

[JordanRussell]

You are absolutely correct, and thank you for pointing this out.

I want to make sure it is clear, anyone planning to treat an issue needs to consult their veterinarian - do not take my word or anyone else's.

With that said, I made a blunder as well as an unclear point.

My intentions were to state that utilizing a microbial filter in the treatment room in conjunction with nolvason treated water in a humidifier (mine is an evaporative fan unit, heated units would be dangerous as mentioned) - is safer than fogging with f10sc in an enclosed environment as a treatment method.

Also as you mentioned if this were done daily you are increasing the probability of whatever infection is present towards mutation.

This is what I have done during treatment in an isolated area, as recommended per my vet. This is not a day in day out procedure. The purpose of this approach (in conjunction with antibiotics) is to decrease the ability for the Pseudomonas to propagate a biofilm on the inanimate enclosure, during treatment.

Hopefully this clarifies.

Cheers,
Jordan

[kitedemon]

Better but the fact still remains that any organic matter renders CHD/CHG useless with the nature of a humidifier it would need to be solely used for this purpose and also mixed with distilled water (always with CHD/CHG is best it has a short a shelf life.) Also there are there any case studies I have not found one. Also the precautions listed for misting/fogging are crazy. I do not think this is a good idea full stop!
From the instructions on nolvasan

"When applying by wet-mist fogging: Applicators and other handlers exposed to the fog during wet-mist fogging applications and until the fog has dissipated and the enclosed area has been thoroughly ventilated must wear: Long- sleeve shirt and long pants, rubber gloves, socks plus shoes, and a full face respirator with a canister approved for pesticides (MSHA/NIOSH approval number prefix TC-14-G).
Do not apply this product in a way that will contact workers or other persons, either directly or through drift. Only protected handlers may be in the area during application."

It is more aggressive than F10 I would suggest it being a more effective and far safer method than CHD chg.

http://datasheets.scbt.com/sc-359873_mfr.pdf


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk