IBD strikes again :(

[cinderbird]

Agree... IBD can only be diagnosed through a necropsy. The animal must be dead. They check tissue samples from the brain. liver and various other organs. Blood has nothing to do with it. Even then, the cells conclusive to IBD are found in these organs anyway so it is not a rock solid diagnosis.

Blood work? I would tell your friend to find a new vet as well as a private breeder for snakes.

knew i forgot the brain tissue. *doh*

i knew i wasn't crazy, thanks for clarifying this.

[mpkeelee]

im sure the vet did a necropsy on the snake cuz she had some papers n stuff from the vet saying it was IBD. she only had the snake 1 month and wanted to go back and get store credit or something. i told her about this website and a bunch of breeder sites and everything so i hope she has better luck with her next one if she decides to get one.

[spitfireashlea]

I currently work at a petsmart in NY and I have to say this is disturbing. Depending on the people working in the petcare department, this should NOT have happened. Petcare associates have higher standards than people think.

Our store credit/return system only works after 15 days, but if the snake was bought sick, I would not return to that store.

[Warocker's Wife]

horrible news.. poor snakie

and agreed IBD can not be done by blood work and only 100% tested when animal has died. I have heard of liver biopsies while the snake is still alive but this is NOT 100%

[bearhart]

I just got two new snakes and I've been trying to keep up some sort of quarantine but its tough to do 100%. Worst part is that I never bothered with it in the past when I was just getting started. But now I've got several pythons that I'm attached to and that are worth well over a grand. I didn't think of it right away when I got the two new guys so now I'm doing my best after the fact and sweating it for the next few months.



Thought this was appropriate:

http://www.anapsid.org/ibd.html

According to this Melissa Kaplan article, IBD can be diagnosed in live snakes through bloodwork.

[Skiploder]

http://www.vetmed.ufl.edu/college/de...easeVirus.html

Inclusions can also be seen in lymphocytes and other white blood cells in peripheral blood films stained with Wright-Giemsa or the following modified hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) technique.

I have found this staining far superior than using Wright-Giemsa staining. With Wright-Giemsa staining the inclusions stain basophilic and may not be readily recognizable. With H&E staining, inclusions stain exactly the same as in tissues embedded in paraffin, sectioned and stained with H&E. Blood films should first be examined before tissue biopsies are obtained and submitted for histopathology. However, we do not know how often inclusions are seen in a peripheral blood film of a snake with IBD. It must be remembered that absence of inclusions in a blood film does not necessarily mean the snake is free of IBD.


So it CAN be determined from a blood test. If Dr. Jacobsen says it can be - it can be.

Quoting Melissa Kaplan is risky. She's an idiot. However, sometimes even a blind idiotic slug of a lying pig finds an acorn now and then.

[jonf]

I'd be willing to be that this wasn't IBD. Why does it seem that vets are quick to throw the IBD diagnosis on every dead and/or dying snake that comes in??

........not saying that it definitely didn't have IBD (of course I do not know all of the details) it could have had IBD.....but the clinical signs of IBD are quite variable. Really could have been a number of things.

In any event, kudos to pointing your friend in the direction of a private breeder. There are too many people out there working with BP's to NOT buy captive bred.

[bearhart]

Quoting Melissa Kaplan is risky. She's an idiot. However, sometimes even a blind idiotic slug of a lying pig finds an acorn now and then.

I did not know that. For whatever reason, I've always had the impression that her articles were of above average quaity. I haven't experienced any ill fortune as a direct result of her publications but, other than that, I can't say I have any reason to endorse her. I will say your statements about her certainly seem overly strong based on what I've seen. I'd be interested in hearing more....

[Skiploder]

I did not know that. For whatever reason, I've always had the impression that her articles were of above average quaity. I haven't experienced any ill fortune as a direct result of her publications but, other than that, I can't say I have any reason to endorse her. I will say your statements about her certainly seem overly strong based on what I've seen. I'd be interested in hearing more....

If you research her, you'll find that she is firmly in league with the HSUS and PETA folks in terms of not keeping reptiles as pets.

Furthermore, the majority of her articles are at best, re-hashed and at worst, utter garbage.

Have you read her stuff? She is a veritable font of misinformation.......she is also a hypocrite.

Dig a bit deeper.

[Skiploder]

I'd be willing to be that this wasn't IBD. Why does it seem that vets are quick to throw the IBD diagnosis on every dead and/or dying snake that comes in??

Because the symptoms mimic everything from GI infections to respiratory illness to subclinical infections.

If the OP could scan and post the results of the necropsy or blood work, we could tell. A sure kicker is that the necropsy has to really be accompanied by a histopathology of the affected tissues/organs. That ain't cheap.