Quote Originally Posted by babyknees View Post
I haven't read the whole thread but I'll give you some advice from personal experience and from a friend's experience and reiterate that we're not vets and you need to get her to a good herp vet asap.

One of my BPs had an RI that was caused by too low of humidity (as per my vet). She was prescribed Fortaz and Baytril and it cleared her up. I bumped up her temps and tried to keep her humidity high. How it has been explained to me is that low humidity can cause minute tears in the mouth and throat in which bacteria can grow and cause an RI. Alternatively too high humidity without proper ventilation can allow bacteria to grow in the enclosure causing an RI. I was advised to wash my water bowl regularly (I used 10% bleach) to keep additional bacteria from growing in there and to soak her regularly in warm water to help replenish hydration lost by being on antibiotics AND to hopefully help open up her nostrils. Also, regularly clean and disinfect her enclosure to keep bacteria from growing.

To give you some hope that your boys won't catch it I'll tell you this story. A friend of mine had two BPs housed together and the male came down with an RI. They were never separated but the female never caught the RI. The male ended up succumbing to the RI (probably linked to the stress of being housed with another snake) but the female is still alive and never showed an RI symptoms. Knowing what I know now I would have pushed harder for her to separate them. Obviously I don't advocate keeping BPs together and you should QT your girl asap but I wanted to give you some hope that your entire collection isn't doomed. I'd just monitor them REALLY well to make sure they don't start showing symptoms and bump up their heat as well just to be safe. Try to avoid all stress because my vet told me that RI's can be brought on by stress.
Thank you so much for the hope!

I just got back from getting her the Vicks but I got a kid-safe type with no turpentine/cedar oil/thymol.
[who knew that much toxic stuff was in VapoRub??]

This just has menthol, eucalyptus and some other essential oil that's not poisonous.

Until the ill-advised/regrettable breeding attempts, none of my snakes were probably even actually aware of the others.

Never kept them together.

Never handled one without using hand sanitizer after another.

[maybe my Bee's "girl trouble" was discovering he wasn't actually the only snake in the house, after all]

As of right now, she doesn't have the mouth slobber going on, just some mild, very watery [versus 'thick snotty'] nose bubbling.

The rumbling that I felt all through her body this a.m. has now moved to the area just below her neck, proper.

[upper RI, maybe?]

The local herp guy is getting Baytril for me Monday in case it takes a while to get an appt.

He's dealt with this many times over the last 3 decades, both with his own snakes and the snakes of other people and is confident she'll be okay.

She's calmed down substantially and is back her old cranky, jumpy, offish self.

At least she's not foaming at the mouth and gasping any more.

Would diluted isopropyl alcohol be okay for sterilizing tubs?

We don't keep bleach in the house because I'm really sensitive to it.

I use antibacterial dish washing liquid and a handheld steamer to clean stuff right now.

I am monitoring them to the point where I think I'm annoying them.

Me sitting and staring at their faces and their breathing rates seems to make them think I'm up to something....except for the Bee and the Dumerils who just hope I've got food for them.