Respitory infection questions

[satomi325]

I posted another thread about this a few weeks ago but now I can't find it. Anyway here is the deal.

A almost a month ago I noticed one of my ball pythons had bubbles and the other signs of a respitory infection. Removed him from my rack system and called the vet immediately. the next morning i brought him there. He gave me a prescription For fortaz and said I caught it early since he was still very active and everything. This is a vet I trust he has scene all of our guinea pigs one of our parakeets one of our Leopard geckos and my western hognose. He gave me 5 shots to administer myself every 72 hours. After the 5 shots were up we went back and he said there wasn't really any improvement but it wasn't worse so he gave me 5 more. He said we could do a lung cleaning and a culture which he recommended unfortunately it cost 800 dollars which I don't have at all. I just administered his 8th shot yesterday. Now my question is how long can it take to show sings of improvement? I gave him a bigger house with higher heat for less stress iv been soaking him almost every day for at least 20 mins I bought a nebulizer that I'm going to use with saline for him which was all recommended by the vet. The antibiotics brought on a shed which he said would happen. The only thing is he dosent look that much different excpt occasionally I get some green mucus out of his mouth. He won't eat but He's still strong and active.

Basically I just want to know from people who have experienced this if I should be worried and if it will start to go away soon. And none of my others have gotten anything or are showing signs of anything.

Thanks in advance

Stop soaking him. It's a stressful act and stress can actually lower the immune system.
RI can take from around 30 days to 3+ months to show signs of improvement.

And $800 for a culture is absurd. Should be around $200 at the very max.
I do agree with your vet that a lung wash+culture should be done. But if you choose to do that, I would go to a different vet to do it. Your vet is overcharging several hundred dollars.

An instead of saline, you can try F10 for the nebulizing treatment. Just make sure it's diluted correctly.