BP in hard shape....HELP!!

[Goodwin]

Ok, so I have a 2 ft female BP. She has been an awesome snake so far and has NO health issues. About 3 or four weeks ago I noticed that she got a small "cut" on her tail....so I cleaned it with peroxide/water solution and put some polysporin on it. It gradually got a lil worse (not alot) and then started healing up. NOW, she has some spots on her back that appear to be loosing the scales...its kinda gross looking but she eats good, handles well and so on. I also noticed after her last shed (few days ago) it looks like some of her "alien head" pattern is turning from a gold color to a pale white? My humidity is 40%...temp is 90 F in the hot spot, my cages are kept SPOTLESS...I have searched her MANY times for ticks and mites and have found NONE. Does ANYBODY have a clue what is going on with my girl?

Please dont tell me to take her to a snake vet cause the closest one is 3 hours away!! I am hoping somebody can give me a home remedy....

[ev477]

Please dont tell me to take her to a snake vet cause the closest one is 3 hours away!! I am hoping somebody can give me a home remedy....

I'm going to predict what everyone else will ask:
What are the temperatures?

How are you regulating them?
Can you get pictures of the enclosure/snake's condition?

Also, I think it might be a good idea to try to go to a vet, it sounds pretty bad.

[West Coast Jungle]

Hard to give any advice with that description, some pictures would give better insight.

[dizzy]

The scales turning white sounds like scale rot, but I don't have any experience with scale rot so I couldn't be sure.

Your humidity is a little low, and I was under the impression that too high humidity will cause scale rot, so I don't know...

[Bloodsong]

Sounds like scale rot. This is an internal bacterial infection and needs medicines to treat. A vet visit is your only alternative unless you can get oral antibiotics recommended over the phone and purchase them without a prescription. You also want to keep putting poly on those lesions. Remove the water from the cage as well. Bathing/soaking will accelerate the spread of the bacteria on the skin. Another good idea is to remove substrate and just use paper towels until it clears up.

All this is speculation as I am not a vet, just going on what I have experienced. PLEASE don't skimp out and get this BP to a vet to get an accurate diagnosis.

Good luck.

Bloodsong

P.S. for Dizzy, I have had scale rot happen in Beardies with humidity being as low as 30% or less. Scale rot can happen in any humidity level, but higher humidity will accelerate it on a smaller scale than soaking will.

[Kaorte]

What substrate are you using? It sounds like scale rot. I would switch to paper towels and make sure they stay dry.

I wouldn't remove the water bowl though, just make sure she isn't soaking. Although she should have no reason to unless she has mites.

[Goodwin]

Ok thanks guys!! I cleaned the cage all out AGAIN with disinfectant, i was using newspaper as a substrate but have how replaced it with papertowels...I removed EVERYTHING from the cage including the water dish and treated all the "spots"on her with antibiotic ointment. We see what happens in a couple days.

[rabernet]

The polysporin is likely the culprit for the individual scales coming off, and it's just the top layer of it, right? I had that happen with neo-sporin awhile back. It's not an actual shed, but looks like individual scales all over the enclosure?

Once the polysporin is off of him and he has a normal shed, he'll be fine.

As for the scales turning white, it could be stress related.