Possibly sick BP, could really use some help figuring out if it's a big deal or not

[Rai]

Okay, sorry for the very long post, but things have been weird and I'm stressing.

So I have a beautiful 4 yr old Albino BP named Daisy. I've had him for a little under two years without any issues, up until this past winter. The issues started slowly, but suddenly escalated over this past weekend. Also, I have a second BP named Basira, who's in a similar set up and is the same age.

I had to move in December, and with it being winter and also having the move, I did not question it too much when Daisy stopped eating as consistently. But then, around mid Feb, his behavior started to change. He started soaking in his water bowl daily. He has never done this before. I looked into various different causes and discovered that apparently in the new apartment, the tanks won't hold heat as well as before, and the temp was dipping too low during cold days. (He did not have mites, and while he did shed, that did not stop the soaking behavior. In fact, he kept shedding. Like... 3 times in one month). So I insulated the tanks more and went back to checking the temp manually (as opposed to relying on the thermostats to tell me when it got to cold, because they did not tell me there was a problem).

At the time, he didn't look any different, but since the soaking habit didn't seem to be going away, I lowered the humidity some and just kept an eye on him. The tanks still won't get quite as warm as I'd like (can't seem to get them past 85-90), but they aren't dropping below safe levels anymore. Then I just tried leaving him be to see if he just needed extra time to settle. Of note, his tank has not changed at all. Just the room it's in.

The last successful feed (F/T small rat) was early March. Around mid April, he ate but then regurgitated it up a couple of days later (another thing he's never done before. I also was not handling him at all at this time). He stopped soaking daily around that same time, but still dirties his water way more often then he used to. He has also refused to even touch any food since the regurgitation.

Then, this past weekend, I went to handle him for the day and realized that he had some scale rot towards the base of his tail. Slightly upsetting, but I thought I caught it early. So I scheduled a vet appointment and went about cleaning the scales once a day while I waited for the appointment, which was today. Now we get into the really messy stuff.

There's only one vet in my town that will look at snakes, and he admitted before we even started that he wasn't as experienced with them as he could be. Which, fair. It sucks, but fair. I told him all of the above and showed him Daisy's belly. That's when he drops that he thinks its actually Septicemia. (Cue panic) His reasoning was that daisy's belly was very pink, which it is. (I initially discounted the pink belly because Daisy's belly always gets a little pink around shed time. But upon pointing it out, it does look a little different from that sort of pink belly), and also that his eyes were cloudy (once again, not the same as when he's about to shed. His eyes turn kind of pale orange when he's about to shed, but currently his eyes are straight up foggy). I had not noticed the foggy eyes somehow, and I'm really mad at myself for missing that.

Problem is, that vet doesn't have the tools to do blood work on snakes. If I want to know for sure, I'd have to drive two hours to the nearest mega city for a specialist. I thanked him and left. Called the specialist and set up an appointment for the nearest time I could manage, which is Friday morning. Functionally speaking though, I could go in tonight. It would cost twice as much, and would really mess with my work schedule for tomorrow, which is the only day of the week where I need to be on my game. But like... I love my babies and I will do it if I have to.

Problem is I don't know if I have to? I tried looking up stuff about Septicemia and realized that it was way scarier than I originally thought. The posts I found (on this forum), mostly showed images of snakes much farther along than Daisy seems to be, but they also were all too late to save them, and like... I panicked. But I know I have a tendency to do so, so I tried to get a second opinion, just on whether or not I needed to go tonight, or if I could wait till Friday. So I reached out to the friend who originally gave me Daisy and Basira, and she told me to call the local "Expert".

Dennis is not a vet, but he is a BP breeder, and he's been doing it for a long time. The vet did say that he wasn't as experienced with snakes, and with no other options, I figured a breeder with lots of experience would hopefully be able to tell me if this was "Go tonight" bad or just "go when you can" bad.

According to him though, there is nothing wrong with my snake at all. He didn't even think the scale rot was scale rot, insisting instead that it was just dirt. He said the pink belly and foggy eyes just meant that Daisy needs to shed (ignoring the fact that I insisted this does not look the same as pre-shed belly and eyes stuff), and when I mentioned the feeding issues, he said it was because I was feeding F/T and that I needed to just feed them Live. He (very forcefully) opened Daisy's mouth to check in there and said it all looked good, and then rubbed his eyes to try to prove that the hazy eyes were just old eye caps...

If it is not apparent yet, I did not really like my interaction with Dennis.

I can acknowledge that I have a tendency to assume the worst and worry over things that aren't actually that big of a deal. That's why I was willing to ask for a second opinion. And of note, I still intend on bringing Daisy to the vet regardless. I am just still stuck on the issue of "is it dire or not?" So now I'm asking for a third opinion.

I don't have a very good photo of Daisy's belly, since his encounter with Dennis stressed him out and I didn't want to bother him anymore, but I have these photos if they will help at all.




So yeah... Any help would be appreciated. Even if it's just reassurance that I am over-reacting to some minor scale rot. It's just... this is all coming after months of steadily increasing worry over slightly strange behaviors.