Worst news ever :-(

[Big Gunns]

Wow Ash, I'm sorry to hear about this!

Sounds like your vet was right to do the culture and prescribe the antibiotic. Like others have said, snakes have a very slow metabolism and sometimes the medication doesn't even have time to make a big impact before it succums to the illness.

One thing that has me baffled is the vet recommendation that she soak the snake for 20 mins daily. From my expeirence (not vet school) this is illogical and bad advice. RI is dangerous because it inhibits the snakes ability to breath. Putting the snake into the tub of water while it has RI, is extremely dangerous and exacerbates the problem. The fact that the snake died during one these sessions does not surprise me!

Ash if you or your friend wish to call and talk through all that happened, please do. My cell: 706-599-4850

Justin

Ah...BG was just on his way back here to say something similar.

A snake soaking in water doesn't have its breathing inhibited. The increased humidity and hydration helps thin the mucous secretions so they can be expelled.

But a snake with an RI that goes into convulsions and dies suddenly--I would have a necropsy done. You want to make sure it wasn't something nastier than just a bacterial RI.

Big Gunns is gonna take a wild guess(not really he's pretty sure)on what happened to this snake. It drowned. If you're drowning you'll start "convulsing" all around. You'll also try and expel everything from your insides just like this snake did.

The Vet probably said to soak it to make sure it was well hydrated, but will a smaller snake, you need to keep an eye on them....especially a sick one...and even more especially a stupid Spider. They don't know what's up or down sometimes.

BG suspects that this animal drowned. NO...he's pretty sure that's what happened. It may have had an RI, but what happened when it was being soaked tells BG it drowned.(or suffocated because it could not breath correctly in the water...same thing really)

[kc261]

I am so sorry for your friend's loss. I hope this doesn't turn her off our hobby.

[djansen]

sorry to hear of your friends snake!

I could be wrong, but I thought that a snake with RI should be treated and put on higher temps and to be kept pretty dry. Im no expert or vet though.

[Boanerges]

Very sad news Sorry to hear this and my heart goes out to your friend

[Ash]

To answer everybody's questions (I'm not gonna go through and quote cuz there were so many)

- My friend went into credit card debt to try to save its life. I've spoken to her about a necropsy already and she doesn't think it's worth it. Either way it's dead now.

- The medicine prescribed was "25 mg per ml amikacin" and the prescribed dose was 1.5 cc's every 72 hours. The snake didn't even make it to her second dose. It died at around 2 AM, the day the next dose was supposed to be administered. The first dose was given by the vet tech in the lower portion of the snake's body, the vet tech said to do it there to avoid hitting hearts/lungs etc, although she said the needle was very short and it would be hard to do.

- The vet did a culture, a blood test, another test where she looks at a sample of the mucus under a microscope. She told us to soak in warm water every day for 20 minutes, raise the heat in the enclosure and give the meds. (I was under the impression that RI's are caused in part by low humidity, so it seemed logical to me to soak. Also the antibiotics would do less harm to the snake if it were well hydrated.) She had called back the next day regarding the blood test and it was good news, she said the bacterial infection was only in the lungs and hadn't spread, and that the amikacin was a good choice of medicine to fight it off.

- We didn't get in touch with Justin while this was happening because we figured all he could tell us was to go to the vet, and we'd already made an appointment. Also, we are confident he had nothing to do with the illness. I for one am certain that it was healthy when it got to her house. After about two months of having the snake, we let her spider come into contact with my snakes for a photo, and my snakes are still 100% healthy, which tells me that her snake wasn't sick back then. Either that or I'm extremely lucky.

Thanks, everybody, for your sympathy. This was really traumatic for her, she was very shaken by it. :-(

What's interesting to me is that the snake only missed two meals before it died. I always thought that if a snake was even slightly distressed, it would go off the feed. If it had stopped eating earlier, we might have taken it to the vet sooner and this all could have been nipped in the bud. It's awfully frustrating.

[Ash]

On second thought, I might pay for the necropsy myself. I'm a little curious as to what happened, because it makes no sense to me that given it's care, it would have died. Depends on how much it costs, though.

[Seru1]

Never easy to lose a loved animal. I hope this doesn't discourage a love of reptiles for her.


Like the others I'd encorage a necropsy. Atleast she's have answers.


I didn't know certain morphs had unique problems. Anywhere I can go to learn more?

[Big Gunns]

Big Gunns sees a problem. Let's see who else caught it. Looks to BG that at least one mistake was made.

[jkobylka]

"The first dose was given by the vet tech in the lower portion of the snake's body, the vet tech said to do it there to avoid hitting hearts/lungs etc"

Injections are to be given in the first 1/3 of the body or the kidneys will filter the medicine and make it ineffective. Unfortunately the injections didn't have much of a chance because of this vet mistake.

Justin

[Big Gunns]

"The first dose was given by the vet tech in the lower portion of the snake's body, the vet tech said to do it there to avoid hitting hearts/lungs etc"

Injections are to be given in the first 1/3 of the body or the kidneys will filter the medicine and make it ineffective. Unfortunately the injections didn't have much of a chance because of this vet mistake.

Justin

You see...this is how you tell who the pros are. Justin got it. It's BG's understanding that giving a shot in the lower portion is harmful to the snake(good vet told him). Although BG still believes why it died, giving the shot there didn't do it any favors.