Treating My First Respiratory Infection

[Aedryan Methyus]

Well... I knew the day would come sooner or later... I discovered my Mystic girl - Misty in her tub with her mouth hanging open and wheezing today. Sadly, it occurred to me that she has been like this for probably 3 or 4 days, though. She has been refusing food, so I have been just leaving her alone as much as possible. I check in on her daily to make sure she has water and her tub is clean, but the last time I actually got a good look at her a few days ago she was like this. I thought she was just in a mood and being hissy even though she has never been like that. So, I didn't think much of it and I feel horrible now! Another lesson learned... As a side note, I know exactly why she got the RI and the problem was resolved a few days ago. Long story short, I had been battling with the temperature and humidity in my snake room for a few days when it got really cold here and discovered some very drafty areas in the room. I did some winter weatherization and everything has been perfect since. I've been keeping the temperature in my snake room between 77 and 79 degrees and the humidity has been staying between 55% and 60%...

Anyway, the moment I realized what was going on today I immediately setup a vapor chamber by placing a smaller tub with holes in it inside of a larger air-tight container. I boiled a small pan of water and dropped in some Vicks, along with a few drops of Eucalyptus Oil. After placing her inside the smaller tub I placed a towel on top of it with the pan of water and left her sealed in the chamber for 10 minutes. Afterwards, I returned her to a nice clean tub with some fresh water. I also boosted the hotspot temps up a couple degrees in that rack as well, because I realized they were only running about 87 degrees. Now, the hot sides are running about 90 degrees and the cool side around 78... Also, for what it's worth, i'm leaving the pan of vicks/Eucalyptus water sitting on top of my oil space heater for awhile and the whole room smells like Vicks. Immediately after the treatment, she was still opening and closing her mouth, but I didn't note any wheezing. I just checked on her again maybe an hour after the treatment and I still can't hear anymore wheezing, but she is still opening and closing her mouth. I examined the inside of her mouth pretty good with a flashlight while she had her mouth opened wide and there are a few small bubbles toward the back of her mouth. Not what I would consider excessive, but a few... She does seem to be a little better, since she doesn't seem to be wheezing now, but she definitely isn't cured...

Sorry to make this such a long post... What i'm wondering is, how long should I wait before doing another treatment, how many of them should I do and how often? Also, what is the longest I should leave her in the vapor chamber during treatments?

[zina10]

Honestly, since you are taking Dexter to the Vet, I would just make this girl tag along..It shouldn't make the bill that much higher since you are going at the same time, just make sure you keep them in separate tubs and that even you wear examination gloves and change them between handling the snakes. Do not cradle them against your body and if you do, just bring an extra shirt or jacket and change in between.

It may just end up saving you an additional trip to the vet.

Once they yawn and have bubbles, I wouldn't muck around with home treatments.

But thats just in my humble opinion.

You are really getting hammered lately, I hope that all your babies will get better soon!!

[SDA]

I seem to be chasing your comments but I promise I am not

Vicks and eucalyptus oil are great for treating symptoms but they are not a cure. If this is truly an RI the best thing to do while waiting for a vet visit is to increase temps like you did. Even up to 92 would be advisable. Think of it as a temperature when you have a cold. As far as having an RI, it could be bacterial, viral, fungal, or a combination. Each would need to be treated with separate meds, not home remedies. Raising temps might relieve symptoms and may help to have a snake's own immune system fight the infection. The bad news is if it is a RI, it most likely has gone unnoticed for a while (they don't just suddenly catch a cold) and most likely the snake's immune system is compromised.

If this is a RI for sure, don't home remedy it, snakes don't respond to that and it can't cure fungal or viral, go to a vet. If you are not sure it is a RI, then keep watching for more mouth gaping, confusion, mucous, discharge, lethargy, and trouble breathing.

[CALM Pythons]

The Vicks treatment was big 20-25 years ago when we didnt have many herp vets in NY and no Internet.. With that said, I have never heard of a single time that Vicks helped a snake at all. There is a Bacterial or Viral infection present and only the correct meds will help. There are people that use the F10 fogger but still to this day I do not know of a case that it cured a RI. I do know of snakes that have basically kicked them on their own, but I do not know how far along they were into the RI & I do not know enough to help. As far as reptiles being sick Id be to the Vet asap.


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[Aedryan Methyus]

I am definitely planning on taking this girl to the vet at the same time I take my Blood. Hopefully, the vet will be able to just give me some antibiotics for her... Unfortunately, it is probably going to be a few days before i'm able to take them due to road conditions and finances... Zina, you don't know the half of it... Just about everything that could go wrong has been going wrong lately! For example, my hot water heater also decided to stop working. It has just been one thing after the next lately... I'm definitely hoping for some better luck soon!

The person, who I got this treatment information from claims that he has treated many RIs and has had a 100% success rate with the Vicks and Eucalyptus treatments. I have no idea how true that is, but that's what he says... For the time being, can you guys tell me how often and for how long it will be safe to give her these treatments until I can get her to the vet?

[PitOnTheProwl]

There are people that use the F10 fogger but still to this day I do not know of a case that it cured a RI. I do know of snakes that have basically kicked them on their own, but I do not know how far along they were into the RI & I do not know enough to help.

I have had several brought to me over the years that are now doing great.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

leaving the pan of vicks/Eucalyptus

out of all the things that can be done this is the worse one, I still do not get where people get those idea, the pulmorery system of a snake is not like one of a human and everyone know that oils are VERY bad for snakes.

Even if it was working like with human all it would do is alleviate symptoms, it would not be curing anything.

A RI is not a cold that goes away with time and for which symptoms can be aliviated until gone, a RI would be the equivalent of a pneumonia if you had to make a comparison when it comes to the seriousness of it.

It's not something that goes away, not something that you treat at home with stupid homemade remedies.

1# RI must be diagnosed, there are things starting off like RI that are not, but I will stop there on that to avoid paranoia.

2# once diagnosed it is important to know what cause the RI, there are several causes, once that is assessed the proper anti-biotic will be prescribe for no less than 30 days.

Finally the sooner it is done the better, the longer you wait the harder it will be for the animal to recover.

[Godzilla78]

the pulmorery system of a snake is not like one of a human.

I was thinking the same thing, like, “How on earth can anyone think that eucalyptus or Vick’s supposed to help a reptile respiratory infection?” It is strange to me how some people can treat them like humans. You might as well make the snake chicken soup.


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[Aedryan Methyus]

I'm 99% sure what caused the RI... The temps and humidity were all over the place in my snake room for a few days when it got down 0 - 7 degrees here last week. Like I mentioned, I discovered some really bad drafts in the room, which I fixed and everything has been perfect again. I was almost anticipating RI issues to start surfacing because of it. The sides and backs of my racks are enclosed and the temps in the tubs were alright, but I had to keep opening and closing the heater vent in the room to keep it warm enough, because my oil space heater wasn't keeping up. So, opening and closing the heater vent also kept causing the humidity to go up and down and I kept misting all of the tubs down once or twice a day to make sure the tubs themselves had plenty of humidity. In my opinion, it's pretty obvious what caused this and i'll be really lucky to not have other snakes ending up with RIs...

As far as treating in a vapor chamber with Vicks and Eucalyptus, all I know is there are A LOT of people using that method of treatment that are saying it works. Perhaps it does only help the symptoms, but that is my goal right now until I can get her to the vet... I am going to call tomorrow and maybe he will be nice and just prescribe me some antibiotics for her until I can get her in there...

[Aedryan Methyus]

Here are some facts about Eucalyptus Oil that I found:

https://www.organicfacts.net/health-...ntial-oil.html

In addition to a lot of other unrelated health benefits, here are some key benefits they talk about on that page:

The health benefits of eucalyptus oil are well-known and wide-ranging, and its properties include being an anti-inflammatory, antispasmodic, decongestant, deodorant, antiseptic, antibacterial, stimulating, and other medicinal qualities.


Treats Respiratory Problems


Eucalyptus essential oil is effective for treating a number of respiratory problems including cold, cough, running nose, sore throat, asthma, nasal congestion, bronchitis, and sinusitis. Eucalyptus oil is antibacterial, antifungal, antimicrobial, antiviral, anti-inflammatory and decongestant in nature, which makes it a good ingredient in many medicines that treat respiratory problems. A study published in Laryngoscope in 2004 shows its usefulness in treating nonbacterial sinusitis. Patients suffering from nonbacterial sinusitis showed faster improvement when given the medicine containing eucalyptus oil. Gargles of eucalyptus oil mixed with warm water are consistently effective in treating sore throats.


Asthma is a condition that affects millions of people around the world, and there are many known treatments for the condition. One of them is the use of eucalyptus essential oil. Simply massage 1-3 drops onto the chest and the soothing effect of the aroma and vapors will calm the throat and dilate the blood vessels, which will allow more oxygen into the lungs and normal breathing can be achieved. The anti-inflammatory properties of eucalyptus essential oil also come into play in using it to get relief from asthmatic symptoms.


I don't see how this could possibly be a bad thing...