Let's Clear Some Stuff Up About IBD

[Skiploder]

I'm just taking a guess here, but it may be that IBD is like another retrovirus, HIV, in that there is not just one "strain."

Common knowledge used to be that once you turned up HIV positive, your days were numbered and that the number wasn't a large one. Now that we're a few years into recognizing HIV, strains that do not appear to cause the disease have been discovered. link We're also finding out that some folks are genetically resistant to HIV. link

I think that a lot of the conflicting information we hear about IBD is not that some folks don't know what the heck they're talking about but that they are possibly seeing the effects of different strains of IBD and how they affect animals with different inherent genetic resistances or predispositions.

Since IBD hasn't had the research money spent on it that HIV has, we're not getting a good overall view of what the true nature of the beast is. We do know that it can kill. We see that it can kill quickly in some cases; we see that in some other cases it has apparantly lain dormant for many years before becoming symptomatic, and we see indications that in some others it might not be deadly at all.

My hunch is that many different people are getting a good picture of what IBD does and does not do in how a particularly strain they have encountered affects the particular animals they have dealt with. It's kind of like the way HIV was perceived when it was first recognized. We "knew" what it did, or we thought we did. Now we know that HIV can do many things, or in some cases, it doesn't do anything at all. At this point I don't discount anyone's experiences with IBD. I just try to remind myself that whatever their experience is that it's not likely to be universal. Mine, if I do have one, might be wildly different from the next guy's and that doesn't make either of us an idiot.

My $0.02 worth. I've only ever seen one strongly suspected case of IBD in person but I have seen many cases of AIDS as a nurse and I know that the clinical picture with that retrovirus differs wildly from case to case. Viruses "like" to mutate--it's one reason that they are so difficult to pin down. Smallpox can kill, it can be survived, and it can occur undetected. Tricky things, viruses. We can't even all agree if they're alive or not.

To some extent I agree with you, however in the case of IBD, a lot of the misconceptions have been deliberately spread.

If you look at the research from a decade ago they were noticing that seemingly healthy snakes submitted for research purposes tested positive for the disease. So to make a long story short, the information that there was a large number of animals out there carrying the disease (but never showing any symptoms) was out there.

What ended up happening was that a few websites parsed information from these papers and these ended up making the rounds on the forums. The scarier aspects of the disease were highlighted and some of the subtle points were ignored.

Then you had a second contingent (which the researchers will gladly talk to you about) of flat-earthers who swore up and down that IBD did not exist.

For years the boid community has done little to assist in finding a cure. In some aspects, because of their reflexive denials and poo-pooing the disease, they have only assisted in prolonging it's effect in this community.

Your analogy to AIDS is spot on and in my discussions with people dealing with IBD, that comparison inevitably comes up.

This retrovirus seems to "bloom" in asymptomatic animals when they become stressed or are afflicted with something that lowers their immune system. It was theorized at the time that my snake that became symptomatic may have been stressed by a change or surroundings. The change from asymptomatic to symptomatic occurred when the animal was moved from a cage to a rack.

What I do know is that in the many years I've been keeping snakes, I've dealt with countless RI's, bacterial infections, viral infections, protozoal infections, etc. etc. It comes with the territory of importing and breeding snakes.

In all those years I have seen quite a few snakes exhibit neurological symptoms, however none of them from snakes with IBD.

So while we sit here and dissect IBD and discuss it's seriousness and how it may be present in healthy snakes, it's important to stress that the odds of people on this forum having to deal with it are slim. While we should all be concerned, we should not be worried. And while we should all be vigilant, we should not do so to the point of being paranoid or inducing fear into people who come here seeking advice.

I had a woma python who for about two weeks exhibited classic CNS symptoms - corkscrewing, holding his head at weird angles, sleeping with his head inverted and acting really weird. If I had posted a video of him on here everyone would have screamed "IBD!".

Fearing the worst, I took him into my vet. Visions of another bout of dealing with costly biopsies and the like swam through my head.

My vet upon examining him, found that one of his lacrimal ducts was blocked at the pressure of it was literally driving him nuts.

If your snake is acting funny, take it to a vet.

If someone comes on this forum claiming their snake is acting funny - recommend they go to a vet.