RI treatment

[marckitt]

Hi. I have been at the vet with my snake. He made two swaps - one from the mouth and one from inside of the air pipe. A few days after the probe i got the results. Common pneumonia bacteria and another one, normally found in the mouth of reptiles. He said, maybe the pneumonia bacteria grew too much, because of the stress the snake had because it´s new environment. Until yesterday the snake had no more signs of an R.I. She started gettin blue last saturday and is clear now for 2 days, so she should shed today or tommorrow. Yesterday i got her out to look at her and she produced one big bubble in her right nostril, no bad sounds, no other signs. I talked to the vet and he said during the swap and growing a culture they made tests with different antibiotics and found one that killed the found bacteria really quick. I forgot the name. He said, i should give this medicament as a fluid daily orally to the snake for a week.
I think this will stress me and my snake out a lot. I would rather like to give injections. Isn´t a week too less for an antibiotical Treatment ?

[marckitt]

Talked with the vet again. I should give the fluid orally every 48 hours 6 times. So the treastment will last 12 days. Enough ???

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Find a new vet


Oral antibiotics are very inefficient in snakes to treat a RI (your vet should know that) you want an injectable antibiotic and the treatment should be no less than 30 days.

[marckitt]

The AB is marbocyl and is known in europe. I read a little bit about it and it says normally after one week there are no more symptoms, after 2 weeks everything is gone. My snake has 293 gramm - I have to give him 0,15 ml every 48 hours 6 times. I have to say the snake has the mildest form of RI.

[JodanOrNoDan]

Wow. Another vet that shouldn't be working on snakes.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

The AB is marbocyl and is known in europe. I read a little bit about it and it says normally after one week there are no more symptoms, after 2 weeks everything is gone. My snake has 293 gramm - I have to give him 0,15 ml every 48 hours 6 times. I have to say the snake has the mildest form of RI.

Because it's known in Europe it still does not make an oral antibiotic efficient with a snake being treated for RI, mild or not.

If you want to educate yourself on RI and treatments this is what the one of the best HERP vet in the country has to say http://www.blogtalkradio.com/reptile...ile-veterinary

[aahmn]

I was under the impression that oral administration of antibiotics wasn't as effective either, but thought I would look up some info. I found a journal article that compared oral vs. IV administration of marbofloxacin (marbocyl) in ball pythons. By looking at serum concentrations of the medication by both methods, the paper concluded that oral administration can achieve good levels. They do mention that this could be affected by how long ago the snake ate and other factors. Obviously the injectable works more quickly though.
Here is the graph of the measurements from the paper, along with the reference.

PRELIMINARY SINGLE-DOSE PHARMACOKINETICS OF MARBOFLOXACIN IN BALL PYTHONS {PYTHON REGIUS) Rob L. Coke, D.V.M., Ramiro Isaza, D.V.M., M.S., Dipl. A.C.Z.M., David E. Koch, M.S., Marie A. Pellerin, B.A., and Robert P. Hunter, M.S., Ph.D, Journal of Zoo and Wildlife Medicine 37(1): 6-10, 2006

[Aedryan Methyus]

Wow... I'm sorry to hear you're still having trouble with this little girl. I hope she gets better soon...

[marckitt]

So more then 7 weeks have gone since i´ve first recognized signs of an RI or better i thought so. He is eating like a champ, is providing me 100% complete sheddings. Inside his tube i can hear nothing, when he breaths. He shows absolutely no signs of an RI - neither by lifting up his head or breathing with open mouth, no saliva, no mucus, no bubbles. He is absolutely calm and stays in his hide with just laying his head and a portion of his neck outside on the ground. When i take him out, i first pet his back with the hook, then take him out slowly, supporting the first and last third of his body. He increases his breathing, hisses when I try to lay me ear on his body for trying to hear suspicious noises. And still since day one he has this crackling, smacking sound when he breaths. It is like "crackling - like a plastic bag" - nothing - nothing - crackling - nothing - nothing and soon. I was wondering if that maybe could just be because of his increased heavier breathing - maybe I just hear his glottis then and he is perfectly healthy.
I also have been twice at the vet and he said, that his mouth , his glottis and his throat are perfectly clean, with a nice colour and no mucus. A x-ray of his lungs was perfectly fine too. We also made two swaps - one of his throat and one of his glottis and the results just showed normal "standard" bacteria, included also pneumonia bacteria, that could get optional pathogenic - but haven´t. I also treated him with F10 nebulization weeks before but stopped after the 5 th treatment, because he did not react well on F10. I used the right dosage - 4ml of F10SC on a litre of water. He was stiffing up and gapping his mouth, wheezing and really had difficulty to breath. After a few hours he was back to normal. This bad reactions started at the 4th treatment. After the 5th was the same, I stopped it. He got 6 dosages of 0,2 ml marbocyl orally - one every 48 hours "Preventive - Just for the case of it", because on the swap samples the bacteria reacted well on this antibiotics. It did not alter anything. so I tend to think , what I've written above- that he is fine and I just misinterpret the crackling or smacking sound - maybe really just breathing noises - from his glottis........

What do you think, what should I do??

[marckitt]

He is in his second tube now - 15,75x13,2x6,7 inch or 40x33,5x17 cm. He has 384 gramm now. He has more then doubled his weight in this 7 weeks. I tend to give him in his final enclosure when he is reaching 500 gramm - in 1 or 2 months. But what should I do , when he the situation with his noises stay the same? I would feel uncomfortable and always suspect he is still ill. Also the enclosure of my ball python is on his final enclosure so I fear she might get ill too.....