**Ball Python Health Concern! Never seen this before!!**

[janett]

First of all-

Thank you to everyone who responded with great information. She did in fact have a URI also a bad shed. I was given SSD cream for her scales, and Baytril for oral suspension. It is now the 22nd of October, so about a month since this I first started this post. She has been doing marvelous. Ate a small mouse. Taking nothing bigger, has not lost weight, no more wheezing, or bubbles, no more popping, she has shed again and it was a complete shed. She is still in quarantine until she is completely cured. Only thing she is showing at this moment is thick mucous toward the back of the throat. Nothing around the jaw line anymore. So, basically this will be my last post on this thread. If you are curious to how she is doing, please feel free to send me a message. Thank you again to everyone that helped during my time of needed assistance.

[meowmeowkazoo]

Very glad to hear she is doing better.

[xdeus]

I'm glad she is doing well, but I thought I would comment on a couple of items that nobody seemed to have mentioned.

First off, you said that you bathed them in warm/hot water. Warm or hot water to you is probably scalding to your snake. The water should be around 88F which would probably feel lukewarm to you.

Second, snakes do not need to soak in order to have a good shed and it will probably cause your snake to have a poor shed. They produce a fluid which is secreted between the old skin and the new skin and is used as a lubricant to get the shed off. Too much water will dilute the lubricant and may cause your snake to have a poor shed. The only thing is needed is to bump up the humidity if your snake is in an environment with low humidity. If your snake does have a bad shed, bathing in lukewarm water is sometimes used to remove a stuck shed.

[janett]

I'm glad she is doing well, but I thought I would comment on a couple of items that nobody seemed to have mentioned.

First off, you said that you bathed them in warm/hot water. Warm or hot water to you is probably scalding to your snake. The water should be around 88F which would probably feel lukewarm to you.

Second, snakes do not need to soak in order to have a good shed and it will probably cause your snake to have a poor shed. They produce a fluid which is secreted between the old skin and the new skin and is used as a lubricant to get the shed off. Too much water will dilute the lubricant and may cause your snake to have a poor shed. The only thing is needed is to bump up the humidity if your snake is in an environment with low humidity. If your snake does have a bad shed, bathing in lukewarm water is sometimes used to remove a stuck shed.

Thank you for this. I actually talked to a breeder friend of mine out of Austin,TX who basically said that same thing you said here. I bathed her due to the vet in my area (supposedly reptile) said that bathing would help. My female that had the URI has been clear for I think about 3 weeks and is actually locked with my Spider at the moment. She has been back in collection for about a week and has eaten 3 med rats each week since the URI seemed to have cleared up. I did take a QTip and swab the mucous from her mouth every morning and evening and then gave her 0.1ml of Baytril Orally every morning. I think the swabbing helped a lot. The Baytril I am sure cleared it up, but it took awhile which was expected given their slow immune system response.

[babyknees]

I was wondering what the vet had said about the discoloration around the mouth.

[janett]

I was wondering what the vet had said about the discoloration around the mouth.

When I took her in to the vet, I asked her and she didn't say anything about it except that it was probably related to the bad shed that was going on around the neck/head area. Vet gave me some SSD cream. (Not sure what it stands for but she said I could also get it at walmart) and it seemed to go away as soon as she shedded again. She did shed 3 times that whole month that she was sick. So, im guessing they tend to shed more when they are sick/bad shed???

[Kara]

Vet gave me some SSD cream. (Not sure what it stands for but she said I could also get it at walmart) and it seemed to go away as soon as she shedded again. She did shed 3 times that whole month that she was sick. So, im guessing they tend to shed more when they are sick/bad shed???

SSD = silver sulfadiazine cream. It is an anti-bacterial/anti-fungal cream that is used to prevent subsequent infections on skin that is healing from burns & other trauma.

Snakes that have been exposed to dermal injury of some sort (cuts, burns, etc) will typically shed more frequently than uninjured specimens.

[janett]

SSD = silver sulfadiazine cream. It is an anti-bacterial/anti-fungal cream that is used to prevent subsequent infections on skin that is healing from burns & other trauma.

Snakes that have been exposed to dermal injury of some sort (cuts, burns, etc) will typically shed more frequently than uninjured specimens.

Wow, you are too smart!!! Share some of your wise knowledge with me!!! It was funny because she was going thru a bad shed, and then would hit her bin with her nose, like what they do to get the shed started from the head, and then I picked her up to check on her, saw that some was lose around her mouth/nose area, and pulled it off gently, that discolored her scales, so I got the SSD cream and it worked perfectly!

[Kara]

Wow, you are too smart!!! Share some of your wise knowledge with me!!! It was funny because she was going thru a bad shed, and then would hit her bin with her nose, like what they do to get the shed started from the head, and then I picked her up to check on her, saw that some was lose around her mouth/nose area, and pulled it off gently, that discolored her scales, so I got the SSD cream and it worked perfectly!

LOL...hit me up via PM if you'd like to chat on the phone. Always happy to help, ESPECIALLY a fellow Texan!

[janett]

LOL...hit me up via PM if you'd like to chat on the phone. Always happy to help, ESPECIALLY a fellow Texan!

lol thanks! Can I thank you twice for that comment???