Oral Abcess

It was feeding night tonight, and everyone ate just fine. But as I was putting my pewter back in her viv, I noticed something odd...and looked closer and found this:





I called the vet and they don't have any openings till next week, and they said to just go ahead and bring her in when I bring our bird in for an airline certificate. They put me on stand-by in case of a cancellation.

So my question is, what can I do in the meantime to "help" her? I've got Betadine, Neosporin, and other first-aid type of things.

She ate fine with no hesitation, and I've since placed her in a clean viv with paper towels in a warmer room. The pressure from everything is so great, her left eye looks like a water bubble. The lens cap is all filled with fluid and her eye is pressed back in her skull.

I hope my prodding in her mouth didn't upset her enough to cause her to regurge. After a while, she gladly went limp and let me work, never seen anything like that before. She just stopped struggling and laid there, no restraint required. And yes, she was still alive. Breathing and a tongue flick occasionally.

And here I was bragging I've never had an incident of anything with my snakes last week. Blech.

And advice you can give is gladly welcomed.

What IS that?? And how's she doing now? I'm so sorry, Tac... I don't know what's worse. Not knowing or being forced to wait.

Well it's a firm pus-filled abcess is my thinking. I think the eye worries me more than the actual abcess. I'm worried about it causing irrepairable damage to her eye or nerves.

I brought them all into the heated garage a couple of weeks ago when it started getting too cool in the polebarn. And I checked everyone over and they were all fine. So whatever it is had to have happened in the past 2 weeks.

She's acting fine regardless, like I said..she ate before I noticed it. And she's active, drinking, crawling about, tongue flicking...pretty normal if you ask me.

She's always had a habit of rubbing her snout along the sides of the container, no matter what she was in. Like she had problems seeing and felt her way around. But she's not as "container aggressive" as some snakes that I think are gonna end up short-snouted my always pushing at the sides till their snouts bend.

I did find a piece of aspen stuck to it, but I think it was more from her dragging her nose through the bedding, rather than it causing it. It just looked like it was sealed up in the drainage from it, than it impaled in flesh.

I just want to know what I can do at home until we can see the vet..

oh goodness tac.
i sure hope your little one is okay.
i had a female that had a similar eye problem a little while back, i thought she hadnt shed her eye cap, but checked her last skin and she had shed it, took her to the vets numerous times and the vet said that sometimes these things just happens, it turned out she had some sort of conjunctivitous (sp?) but like 10 times worse, it started as a bubble, then her pupil was like a tear drop shape, changed colours to from red, to orange then a yellowy colour, her original colour is red, it looked all liquidy and there was pus, it was terrible, she had a series of injections to stop infection spreading, now she has lost her sight in that eye, its still a tear drop shape, but its just the way its gonna be for the rest of her life, and shes only 4 yrs old.
anyways thought id share that, sorry but mine never had anything like that around the mouth and nostril area though.
hope you find out soon and get her treated. if it gets any worse or if she doesnt seem to be right at all, ring the vet back up and insist someone sees her that day, at the end of the day its your pet and its your pets safety that matters.
good luck and please let us know the turnout okay.

Sorry to hear about your snake
I think I would talk to the vet again! The little guy should be seen as soon as possible.
I checked in Kathy Loves book and for mild mouth rot... she suggests a solution of 50% peroxide- 50% water, then add Betadine until it looks like weak ice tea- swab that on the wound 2 times per day (do not apply liberally- you want to try to avoid having the snake swallow it)
Maybe the eye swelling is related to the mouth infection??
Good Luck & Keep us posted!

Update!

I did call the vet back, and they're still booked solid until the 23rd unless someone cancels. So..I did some home-derived veterinary medicine.

Last Tuesday I lanced the abcess with a sterilized scalpel I had left over from AP Biology and managed to remove a considerable portion of the pus within the abcess. It was a thick, cheesy-like pus with an ungodly smell. I didn't find any sort of substrate within to point to a possible cause of the abcess to begin with. Afterwards I swabbed the mouth out with a 50/50 betadine-water mixture thoroughly.

Then I administered .10 cc bubblegum flavoured Amoxicillin I had left over from a cat with an infected bite a month or so ago.

I have repeated the mouth swabbing and antibiotic use for 6 days, and the swelling on the mouth is next to nothing, the eye has returned to its normal position within the eyecap, and the incision from the lancing is healing up with scar tissue forming.

So all in all, hopefully by the time the vet visit comes on Thursday she'll be well enough to withstand a week for us to go on vacation with the family in MT. I just wanted to get a head-start on healing before we had to leave.

Did you ever notice...that pet related emergencies always happen right before you're supposed to leave?

I'd find a new vet! If that was an emergency with your dog, they'd of fit you in. Sounds like you performed the vets job for him pretty well. Good Job!

Good job Misty! I am glad to hear she is looking good. I guess I somehow missed this thread when you posted it. It doesn't sound as if I could have helped any more, though. I would have told you the same thing...lance it, clean it, and get her on antibiotics.

I agree with tai_pan...the vet should have worked you in. Believe me, it is not always fun when you have to work in appointments, but sometimes those animals REALLY need to be seen. Where I work, if there is an emergency, our doctors will meet the client at the clinic no matter what time of night. And we always work in walk-ins during the day. Does your vet not allow walk-ins at all?

Well this is the only exotics vet office in the area. I'm sure I could have pressured them into taking me without an appointment. But I know what a hassle it is when I get there 15 mins early for my own appointment and end up being seen an hour later than my appointment was scheduled for...all for people with "emergencies". The last time I waited for some elderly hypochondriac of a dog-owner brought in a toy poodle that has seen better years because it was wheezing. After 2 hrs of me waiting, all it was was an inhaled pigeon feather in its throat.

And no, they frown upon walk-ins. The one and only time I had a walk-in was when my bearded dragon was twitching every which way due to a chemical imbalance shortly after arriving. And I had to beg to get them to see me. I said I didn't drive 40 mins just to go home..and that's pretty sad to have to go to that level. In 15 mins I was on my way home with a much happier lizard.

They're really good vets, but I think they need to do a little less clientele at times. There are 4-5 veterinarians at this office and they're always booked solid. I don't want to make them sound like the "Vets from Hell", cause they're really not. I just think there needs to be a cut-off point on how booked your day can be. I think they should allow for some walk-ins, cause pets don't get sick on a pre-ordained schedule. =P

Anyway, she's doing better now. I'm going to take her with me Thursday regardless just to make sure I did ok and that she'll be fine on her own for a week. She drinks fine and she is acting normal for the most part. Only thing I'm somewhat concerned about is her recent poo's. But I don't know if thats a result from the antibiotics, as her poo's were normal beforehand. Yesterday's poo was jelly-ish in appearance and not too good smelling. So when I started her on the antibiotics, it had only been a day since eating. So I'm "hoping" thats what it is. Maybe they can get some poo out of her at the vet office for a proper fecal while we're there.

One hurdle at a time...I'll let you all know the results from Thursday. =)

Aww your poor snake. I really hope she gets better soon, and good luck getting her to the vet!

Well, one thing we don't do is see walkins before we see the scheduled patients (unless it is truly an emergency...hit by car, seizures, etc). We tell the walkins that since they don't have an appointment they may have to wait.

We are also a 5 doctor clinic. Maybe it helps things where I am because we typically have 3 licensed technicians there every day (we have 4 total). Our technicians (me included) do the majority of the bloodwork, fecals, treatments, etc.) That way, the doctors are free to see more patients.

And the antibiotics can affect the stool. You may need to put your snake on probiotics to balance the gut flora. I hope everything goes well for you on Thursday!

Glad misty is recovering well, it's just a shame you had to wait for the vet. My local reptile vet is appontment only and has a clinic twice a week, so i know i'm no more then 3-4 days from being seen.

It's just a shame their arnt more reptile vet's both over here in the UK and in the US that deal with emergancy case's like yours.

Glad all is going well though, well done.

One of my hatchlings had this happen only a couple of days after being born this year and so it was a couple of weeks of swabbing with a diluted hydrogen peroxide solution to clear it up but she healed without any problem at all and it has never reoccured. Haven't the foggiest what caused it but there were no issues with her feeding or anything else after it had cleared up.

As for the probiotics, I was thinking of doing a regimen of that since the antibiotics would probably have killed off everything in her gut. Even after I've done a round of antibiotics myself, I always "repopulate" myself with yogurt and capsules.

I was thinking of dipping a small cut pink (Hurley style) in the contents of an Acidophilus capsule and let the natural flora in the gut of the freshly killed pink and the Acidophilus help rejuve her gut flora, or would you suggest something else?

What's all this talk of Nutribac? I've never seen it before, at least here locally. I'm guessing from the name of it it's a probiotic as well. The health food store here in town sells several different types of human-geared probiotics, so I guess I'd just use that if all else fails. Something is better than nothing, eh?

Like I said, I can't say anything bad about the vets. They do top-notch work, they just have too much work to reasonably see everyone in a timely manner.

Yeah, I'd repopulate the gut with a fresh-killed mouse and probiotics. Nutribac is a probiotic powder that Kathy Love does sell. I've seen it elsewhere as well.

I'm planning a feeding trial for this year's hatchlings comparing a control group (frozen-thawed only) to a "natural source of gut flora" = feeding a couple feedings of live pinkies, then continuing with frozen-thawed, and to a "manmade source of gut flora" = Nutribac is the one I'm using. Same regimen, two feedings of a frozen-thawed pinky dipped in Nutribac.

Personally, I've used the nutribac with a few 'poor doers' or ones with the caramelly poops of poor digestion. I've had mixed to decent results with it.

We'll see if it makes a difference in normal hatchlings this upcoming season.

I would be very interested in seeing the results of that experiment...

I have wondered if there are a few I could have saved using more aggressive measures.

I use probiocin. It is another type of probiotic. I really like using it because it is a "paste" (kind of an ointment consistency). It is easy to either administer orally, or smear onto a mouse. I find it easier to use than a powder.

Here is a link to a page that shows the ingredients: http://www.probios.com/gels.htm

It's at the bottom of the page. I get Probiocin at work, so I am not sure what it costs through this company. There is a phone number on the page, however.

I work at a vet and I know we always reserve 2 slots a day for emergencys. If we dont have any emergencys(ya right)we use the time to get caught up on paperwork. I use benebac for a probiotic and at work we reccomend injecting a tube of it into the pinkies/mouse's mouth before the snake eats it...as with putting it on the outside sometimes it gets rubbed off. I have never heard of probiacin....sounds good though. Fast thinking with lancing the wound and antibiotics....ever consider becoming a vet tech? You have the instincts for it. Good luck

p.s. sorry for typos, got a snake in one hand.

I am going to have to pick up one or the other...for those slow-feeders and regurgers, at least see if it helps...sounds like it does.

To all of those interested, I did find an online source for Probiocin, although it took quite a bit of Googling to find it.

Link to buy Probiocin

Vet appointment tomorrow at 1pm, let you know how it goes. =)