Random sneezing last night and a little clicking now

[Kimchi~]

My ball python is 1 year and 7 months old, around 775 grams. She's showing signs of an RI. I have a heat pad set to 92° and a heat lamp that keeps the ambient temps around 79°. I've bumped the ambient temp up to 86°. Humidity is usually 50%.

Last night she (ball python) was sneezing quite a bit, loud enough for me to hear two meters away in the dead of the night. Today she exhibited absolutely no sneezing or wheezing, but made clicking noises for two minutes, and I haven't heard any more clicking since then. I checked the side of her lip too, I've never seen bubbles. There seems to be something in one of her nostrils though, I'm thinking bedding. I kept her on aspen and switched her to paper towels today. Last night I found that she pooped, maybe from the day before. I admittably also had paper towels in the cage that I sprayed for humidity and there were a few tiny black mold dots on them. I threw them out immediately. I also diluted a small amount of witch hazel and sprayed down the cage to sanitize it. I lwt it air out a bit before placing my snake back in.

My question is, could my snake have an RI? If it seems like it, I'm going to schedule a vet visit on Saturday as I have absolutely no time tomorrow or Friday. Will she be okay until then? She doesn't have any other RI symptoms. As I'm typing this, I'm deathly afraid of her having an RI.

I've also tried the vapor rub + eucalyptus oil method once today. I read it worked on mild cases and then some say menthol is very dangerous?


Thank you in advance for anyone that replies!

[Sauzo]

Any chance she's going into shed? I know my big BCI gets kinda noisy when shes rdy to shed. I think its the scales/skin inside the nasal passages loosening up. Heat pad set to 92F is good and I would keep the ambient around 85F all the time. Humidity is decent as well. Anyways if you didn't see any discharge around the mouth/nose and don't see her stargazing or yawning excessively, I would just keep the temps up and watch her. Yawning is a sign of shedding too but in an RI, you will notice it a lot more as well in bad cases, they can sit with their mouth actually opened alittle but by that point, I'm sure you will see discharge.

I would pick up either Chlorhexadine or F10 to use as your cage cleaning cleaner.

Snakes are usually pretty hardy. Like I said, I would keep those temps and watch her to see if she is going into shed. the one nostril thing kind of leads me to believe that as my Big BCI girls nostrils both get tiny when she is getting rdy to shed and like I said, she kind of gets noisy, not clicking or gurgling but a much more vocal breathing. I attribute this to the tiny nostrils. After shed though, her nostrils and are large normal size and she is quiet again. It wont hurt to take her to the vet except a bunch of stress on her so I mean, if you want to, by all means do it. But if it was me personally, I would wait until next week and see if she goes blue into shed and/or if that noise comes back or you see symptoms I mentioned above. Then I would definitely make an appointment for following Monday. Generally antibiotics are pretty rough on a reptiles system and you don't want to use them unless you really need to because the stress and stuff can lower their immune system and then they really can get ill.

[Kimchi~]

Any chance she's going into shed? I know my big BCI gets kinda noisy when shes rdy to shed. I think its the scales/skin inside the nasal passages loosening up. Heat pad set to 92F is good and I would keep the ambient around 85F all the time. Humidity is decent as well. Anyways if you didn't see any discharge around the mouth/nose and don't see her stargazing or yawning excessively, I would just keep the temps up and watch her. Yawning is a sign of shedding too but in an RI, you will notice it a lot more as well in bad cases, they can sit with their mouth actually opened alittle but by that point, I'm sure you will see discharge.

I would pick up either Chlorhexadine or F10 to use as your cage cleaning cleaner.

Snakes are usually pretty hardy. Like I said, I would keep those temps and watch her to see if she is going into shed. the one nostril thing kind of leads me to believe that as my Big BCI girls nostrils both get tiny when she is getting rdy to shed and like I said, she kind of gets noisy, not clicking or gurgling but a much more vocal breathing. I attribute this to the tiny nostrils. After shed though, her nostrils and are large normal size and she is quiet again. It wont hurt to take her to the vet except a bunch of stress on her so I mean, if you want to, by all means do it. But if it was me personally, I would wait until next week and see if she goes blue into shed and/or if that noise comes back or you see symptoms I mentioned above. Then I would definitely make an appointment for following Monday. Generally antibiotics are pretty rough on a reptiles system and you don't want to use them unless you really need to because the stress and stuff can lower their immune system and then they really can get ill.

All right, I'll watch her then. I've only seen her yawn once and very sure that's normal. I'm going to order the F10 Sc today. Thank you so much for replying!

[O'Mathghamhna]

Another technique you can try (if your snake is not completely intolerant of having its head held) is to very gently press under the space between the lower jaws behind the chin with your thumb. Start towards the back and gently rotate your thumb forward towards the tip of the nose. If bubbles or discharge come out of the nose/mouth/heat pits, you have an RI or possibly infectious stomatitis (mouth rot). Good luck!

[Kimchi~]

Another technique you can try (if your snake is not completely intolerant of having its head held) is to very gently press under the space between the lower jaws behind the chin with your thumb. Start towards the back and gently rotate your thumb forward towards the tip of the nose. If bubbles or discharge come out of the nose/mouth/heat pits, you have an RI or possibly infectious stomatitis (mouth rot). Good luck!

Thank you, O'Mathghamhna. My snake isn't too head shy, gladly.

She seems to be fine. I hope I don't have anything to worry about... I keep her in my room so I monitor her whenever I'm home.

[bcr229]

Stop with the Vicks/eucalyptus treatment, it's no good for snakes and there's some evidence that they don't tolerate it well. If your snake has an RI then bumping up both the heat and humidity is fine.

Otherwise, if you only heard the odd coughing noise but didn't actually see your snake exhibit the behavior since it was dark and your snake hasn't been showing any other signs of RI, what you heard just may have been a fart.

[Kimchi~]

Stop with the Vicks/eucalyptus treatment, it's no good for snakes and there's some evidence that they don't tolerate it well. If your snake has an RI then bumping up both the heat and humidity is fine.

Otherwise, if you only heard the odd coughing noise but didn't actually see your snake exhibit the behavior since it was dark and your snake hasn't been showing any other signs of RI, what you heard just may have been a fart.

All right then.

I saw her sneezing. As in, she moved her head while sneezing and then she rested her head on the bedding.

[Kimchi~]

Okay. I'm concerned. She has been aggressively rubbing her nose all over the cage. I had just been trying to feed her. A few hours ago I out in new cypress mulch bedding (she has never been on mulch) that I treated with reptile spray to get rid of any mites in case there were any. I put down some paper towels on top to make sure she wouldn't injest any bedding, that's all. And then in the middle of trying to feed her she randomly started to rub her nose. Last night she was bumping her nose all over the cage for a long time. I don't know when she stopped since I fell asleep. I will upload a video.



And so I took her out for a few minutes, she keeps her head elevated. She keeps it elevated in her cage sometimes too. I'm sure now that it could be an RI...should I take her to the vet tomorrow? She still never has bubbles when I check her mouth and when she yawned nothing was amiss. She hasn't sneezed or clicked since when I said she did.

[Sauzo]

The video looks pretty normal to me. I don't think reptiles quite grasp the concept of glass. Looks like she is just exploring but at the end of the day, you know your snake better than any of us and if you feel she has a RI and needs a vet, then by all means make the appointment. Oh also BPs will stand up and look around, its called periscoping. My girl does it a lot when I take her out and let he roam on the bed. Its like she is surveying the area. All my snakes will do the push their head into the ground when they want to be put back. Its like they are trying to find something to crawl under to go hide.

[Kimchi~]

The video looks pretty normal to me. I don't think reptiles quite grasp the concept of glass. Looks like she is just exploring but at the end of the day, you know your snake better than any of us and if you feel she has a RI and needs a vet, then by all means make the appointment. Oh also BPs will stand up and look around, its called periscoping. My girl does it a lot when I take her out and let he roam on the bed. Its like she is surveying the area. All my snakes will do the push their head into the ground when they want to be put back. Its like they are trying to find something to crawl under to go hide.

That's good then. I'm going to try scheduling an appointment either way. I'm too paranoid. I'll wrap my snake in a towel and place her into a box with a warm water bottle, does that sound all right? It's terribly cold where I live.

I'm a pet owner with a super pastel female BP who is very much loved!