Need advice for sick snake

[Armiyana]

Also... Snakes heal VERY slowly. It took me 5 months to heal up a snake with a burn wound. 3 months for a gash on a one's neck.
With possible septicemia, it can take a while for everything to line up and begin healing because the body won't always start healing properly until the cause of the infection in the bloodstream is gone.

If anything, photograph the progress so you can compare it. When you're looking at it every day it may not seem like a big change when really, that's just how snakes are.

[Bogertophis]

Can you describe his habitat? What kind of enclosure, how are you heating it, and how are you regulating the heat? What kind of substrate were you using when you first noticed the problem, and is this snake now in a minimal environment that is easy to clean and disinfect?

Ceftazidime (Fortaz) is one of the big gun antibiotics for reptiles. It hasn't been in use nearly as long as Baytril so there fewer (not zero) issues with resistant bacteria.

Not sure about in Canada but in the US you need a prescription for silvadene (silver sulfadiazine), except for one online store I found will sell it without. Highly recommended for burns.

- We didn't get much info to go on here, did we?

- When I searched staph aureus, ceftazidime wasn't considered that effective, at least not in ppl- not sure if there's anything else that's safe to use in snakes though- hoping the "right vet" can help.

- I mentioned Silvadene too, & it still "could be" a burn (no idea if he's using UTH?) or infection from damp & dirty substrate-

[Malum Argenteum]

Don’t think it’s a burn as I’ve tried a handful of antibiotics you rub on the belly.

Mader's (herp vet book, for those unfamiliar with it) seems to recommend against using topical antibiotics on dermal S. aureus since in humans it increases the pathogen load dramatically by reducing beneficial competitor bacteria (p. 239). Since A. aureus is opportunistic, the primary pathogen may have been since eradicated by one or more of the drugs used. Not sure how likely this is in this case, but worth considering.

Maders also recommends against using Ceftazidime as a first-line drug to avoid creating resistance (p.1143), FWIW. I'm sure there is a ton of pressure on vets to simply get the situation under control quickly (both for the animal and maybe even more for the owner, many of whom are less than interested in big-picture considerations and who use Google Reviews as catharsis), but I thought the recommendation worth passing along here.

Best wishes for the snake and for you.

[David Sisko]

Glass tank, was on reptibark when it started, has been on newspaper ever since. Heat pad under tank regulated with dimmer switch and temp gun. I do a thorough clean whenever he makes a mess. I did the full course of injections starting immediately after seeing the vet. Also rubbed betadine and flamazine on his belly every day for two weeks as instructed by the vet. The culture came in a week later which is when they wanted to give me the parasite medicine.

[David Sisko]

Thanks malum I do find this interesting because sometimes it does look grey as if it could just be a scar or dormant infection. But I do not know for sure so of course I do worry about him.

[bcr229]

Glass tank, was on reptibark when it started, has been on newspaper ever since. Heat pad under tank regulated with dimmer switch and temp gun. I do a thorough clean whenever he makes a mess. I did the full course of injections starting immediately after seeing the vet. Also rubbed betadine and flamazine on his belly every day for two weeks as instructed by the vet. The culture came in a week later which is when they wanted to give me the parasite medicine.

When you measured the temp over the heat mat was it on top of the Reptibark or was it on the glass? Same with the paper - it can "float" a bit over the glass, creating a thin air gap which will give you a falsely low temp reading.

Does the ambient temp in the room fluctuate, or did it when the problem first showed up? A dimmer doesn't keep the heat mat at a constant temp, it just limits how much electricity goes to the appliance, so they only should be used if your room temp is stable. If your room was 70*F and the heat mat was 90*F initially, if the room temp happened to increase to 80*F for some reason then the heat mat would be 100*F.