Spine problems

[larigirl007]

I have had my corn snake for about 2 years and have never had problems with her. I just recently moved and after a couple of days noticed that my snake's spine was visible. It looks like she has tensed her muscles and you can see a rigid line running all the way down her spine. She isn't moving much and when I pick her up she doesn't respond much. She does move around but not a lot.

Is there anyone who may know what is causing this? I am very worried.

[larigirl007]

Well, my snake died today......

Still not sure of the cause but it is very sad.....

[howiet4702]

wow...sorry to hear about your snake. I wish I knew more.

[Vinman]

Look I'm noty trying to be mean but if you can see the spine then your snake has been sick for a long time, I would say more than a month. Most likely you haven't gave it much attention lately with the move and all . It is understantable , You know better next time remember your snake depends on you . You are its god . You should feel guilty , but dont get overcomed with remorse. Just know better next time.Sorry for your loss, good luck in the future. Vinny

[hediki]

sorry to here it must suk

[Susan]

It sounds like your snake had some illness causing dramatic weight loss, either not eating enough or at all, continual vomiting or regurgitation, or a malabsorption contition. Weight loss to cause an obvious looking spine takes at least a few weeks or more, depending upon the snake's original condition. With a more complete history, we may be able to more accurately determine what went wrong.

[JTGoff69]

Sorry for your loss. It's always tough to lose one. Can you tell us how it was acting before you noticed the problem? When it last ate, shed, pooed? Your viv setup and temps?

[Vinman]

Susan you never can tell what went wrong without lab tests. How can you tell what illness killed the snake. It could have died from a virus, bacteria, parasite, cancer, or a organ disfunction. Over the computer you cant diagnose a sick animal . This snake was sick for over a month ,lets face the fact and call a spade a spade . Neglect is the #1 cause for this snakes death. He just noticed somthing was wrong with the snake a day befor it died. You mean to tell me that he did not notice the spine showing until a day befor its death. Enough with the sympatheic B.S. It was neglected, it died, I hope they learned valuable leasson and never do it agin. I can see in a large collection where you are giving a large number of hatchlings water and missed one cage or skiped a row of cages by accident and a snake or two died of dehydration .This has happend to me and I have heard it happend to other breeders over the years too many times. There is no excuse for a adult snake and someones pet , thats totaly wrong

[JTGoff69]

Susan you never can tell what went wrong without lab tests. How can you tell what illness killed the snake. It could have died from a virus, bacteria, parasite, cancer, or a organ disfunction. Over the computer you cant diagnose a sick animal . This snake was sick for over a month ,lets face the fact and call a spade a spade . Neglect is the #1 cause for this snakes death. He just noticed somthing was wrong with the snake a day befor it died. You mean to tell me that he did not notice the spine showing until a day befor its death. Enough with the sympatheic B.S. It was neglected, it died, I hope they learned valuable leasson and never do it agin. I can see in a large collection where you are giving a large number of hatchlings water and missed one cage or skiped a row of cages by accident and a snake or two died of dehydration .This has happend to me and I have heard it happend to other breeders over the years too many times. There is no excuse for a adult snake and someones pet , thats totaly wrong


Vinny, you say over the computer you can't diagnose a sick animal, so how do you know the snake was sick for over a month? They've had the snake for 2 years, how do you know it was neglect? Without any other info than what they have provided? I think your reply is really harsh, and this person has only 2 posts. With replies like yours, I wouldn't be surprised if they never come back. They came here for help, not to be verbally bashed. Maybe you could try some tact in your responses? It goes a long way to earning respect.

[larigirl007]

Thanks, Vinman. You don't even know me and you assume that I neglect my snake? I didn't, but thanks for asking anyway. I was extremely careful in transporting her to the new home and making sure that she was back in her tank and usual surroundings as soon as possible. The only thing that may have been part of her cause of death is that her feeding was two dayw after the move and maybe she was still stressed, I don't know. All I know is that the morning of my post I came into the room and looked in her cage and she had regurgitated a mouse. I cleaned that up and held her for awhile and she was fine. When I came home from work that night she had barely moved and I could visibly see her spine, which I had not seen that morning. That's when I found this forum and asked for help. I checked on her repeatedly and left for work the next morning. When I came home she was dead. I went to the store I have been getting her food from and asked them if they knew of any reasons why this would have happened and the only thing they could tell me was that maybe in her transport she caught something.

I have never in the two years that I have owned her neglected her.

[Drizzt80]

Great post Susan! I agree that more information would be helpful in diagnosing what may have gone wrong here. Depending on where you live, help from a vet may not be any more valuable than what we can offer, but they could do a necropsy as long as you haven't frozen the snake.

D80

[Vinman]

sorry I was wrong but I have seen this type of case before and they all end up neglected . your case is not the norm , you should have told us this story in your first post. you snake died of internal injuries due to regurging.sorry agine If you want to pay for shipping I will gladly give a baby or two on the house this spring when they hatch out and are well started . they will be het for something or another let me know. vinny
P.S. never feed a snake for at least one week: in a new environment ,move the location of the cage, or getting a new snake. The snake will try to get out of the cage when it smells the new smells in the new air.all this moving around wil irritate the stomic and make the snake throw up and in rare cases the snake will die of internal injuries. When getting new babies I wait 4 to 5 days before offering food.

[JTGoff69]

sorry I was wrong but I have seen this type of case before and they all end up neglected . your case is not the norm , you should have told us this story in your first post. you snake died of internal injuries due to regurging.sorry agine If you want to pay for shipping I will gladly give a baby or two on the house this spring when they hatch out and are well started . they will be het for something or another let me know. vinny


That was nice of you Vin to apologize and offer one of your babies. See why we should not jump to conclusions?

[Vinman]

look when I'm wrong I'm wrong I'm a man about it, many people have been wrong about what they wrote in their posts about me and never said I'm sorry, it shows you the type of person they are. thank you for acknowledging my apoliogy

[larigirl007]

Thank you, Vinman. I appreciate your apology. I know now that I should have waited to feed her, she just hadn't been moved in two years so it honestly didn't occur to me.

I also appreciate your offer of a baby snake. It was extremely sweet of you to offer. I think I'm going to hold off for now but if I decide in the near future to add to my family again I will let you know. Thanks again, that was really nice.

[Vinman]

the offer will always be their as long as I'm breeding snakes . 20 years under my belt and a life time to go.

[E. g. guttata]

sorry I was wrong but I have seen this type of case before and they all end up neglected . your case is not the norm , you should have told us this story in your first post. you snake died of internal injuries due to regurging.sorry agine.

Are you 100% certain of this?? There are some people on this site who have had snakes regurg at least 3 times. How come snakes that regurge 3 times don't die of the same thing? Can this problem affect the snake in less than 12 hours and kill it in less than 24? And if so, what organ would have been damaged? Have you dealt with this before, or is this something that you have read (if it is something you've read, plase cite so I can learn more)? Could there possibly be a different problem? If so, what would it be and how long would it take to affect the snake?

[Serpwidgets]

look when I'm wrong I'm wrong I'm a man about it, many people have been wrong about what they wrote in their posts about me and never said I'm sorry, it shows you the type of person they are. thank you for acknowledging my apoliogyThat's it. I call shennanigans!

An apology means two things: 1- you recognize that your actions were wrong and you've wronged someone and you regret that, and 2- you will make an effort to ensure that you do not repeat the offending behavior.

Accepting an apology means that the person will forgive (NOT forget) and give you the chance to go on to a new path where you do not repeat the same mistakes again.

Based on all your apologies in all these threads, it appears that what you mean by apologize is "everyone has to stop disagreeing with me and pretend as if my past transgressions never occured in the first place." That's not how it works. Shennanigans!

Practically every time you are involved in a thread, you end up "apologizing." This does not prove you are a man, and frankly I find your statement offensive to anyone who actually is a man. But you are right that it does show what type of person you are. What it does prove is that your prior apologies are 100% insincere and meaningless since you continue to repeat the same offenses over and over and over, and that nobody should bother to take your "apologies" seriously because you have proven time and again that you do not mean it.

[moth]

MAN...this site is getting way too argumentative .... cant we all just be nice and get along...there is no need for all the harsh words being given around here .. i am new here and it might not be my place to say... but ithought this was a place to get helpful info not get threads full of arguing this is a good way to lose new members ... please people lets just be nice and get along if no good words can be given lets not give any what do youthink sound good? :-puke01:

[Vinman]

When I say I'm sorry is when I have ,to not ever post. Serpwidgets this matter is resolved you are just trying to stir up s**t have a nice life

[E. g. guttata]

MAN...this site is getting way too argumentative .... cant we all just be nice and get along...there is no need for all the harsh words being given around here .. i am new here and it might not be my place to say... but ithought this was a place to get helpful info not get threads full of arguing this is a good way to lose new members ... please people lets just be nice and get along if no good words can be given lets not give any what do youthink sound good? :-puke01:

I thnk this is a good idea, however, the same reason there seems to be a lot of figting recently, supports my theory on how utopia is unattainible. When I first came to this forum, everyone was mostly content to be here with everyone else. As of late, this is very unfortunate as well, more and more people come to the threads here to "start ****" (quoting vinny) instead of take the criticisms given to them (note the thread "are you still feeding your snakes mice"). My theory for why utopia can never be attained is that humans will eventually tire of being happy and will start chaos, arguments and war within their society. It's almost as if humans just can't be happy and need some kind of disturbance, whether it be war, or the occasional argument, to be at least somewhat content.

[Silvergrin]

Larigirl -- I'm sorry for your loss, that would be terrible. :/ I can't think of what would cause such a rapid decline in looks/health... only thing I can think of would be organ damage, as only extreme dehydration (from some internal problem) comes to mind as something that would cause a healthy animal to have a protruding spine within a day. Do you have other herps?

On regurge -- I would be interested in hearing cases where regurge killed a snake (quickly, not by malnutrition and stress). Just curious!

On bickering -- I think it's just a case of growing pains. The more people you get, the more likely you will get a few cantankerous sorts, and the more you're likely to have conflicting personalities rubbing against each other. *shrug* Overall this board is still a lot friendlier than a lot of boards out there. Still, I do wish people would be a little slower to cry "neglect!" Ask questions FIRST!

[moth]

i agree with the statement silvergrin made it is better to ask questions first and not to cry neglect but growing pains or not it is still easyer to say things nicely even criticism can be done nicely bad things are done and said everywhere do we really need that here.... a place where most of us go for advice and friendly chat?????

[E. g. guttata]

I can't think of what would cause such a rapid decline in looks/health... only thing I can think of would be organ damage, as only extreme dehydration (from some internal problem) comes to mind as something that would cause a healthy animal to have a protruding spine within a day.

Again, in reguards to the organ damage, which organ would it be? The only organs I can think of that would allow this kind of dehydration/waste build-up would be the liver, kidneys, and/or gall bladder. I'm not sure which, if any, of these would cause this problem.

[Serpwidgets]

i agree with the statement silvergrin made it is better to ask questions first and not to cry neglect but growing pains or not it is still easyer to say things nicely even criticism can be done nicely bad things are done and said everywhere do we really need that here.... a place where most of us go for advice and friendly chat?????Most of the people here are friendly. There are plenty of discussions on a lot of different issues where people disagree and they argue facts and ideas without ever getting personal. That is one of the things that separates this board from most others. :santa:

However, if you look at the threads vinman has been involved in, you will find a clear pattern: he jumps down peoples' throats, gets out of hand, swears at people, and then offers an "apology" and swears a bit more because everyone hasn't instantly shut up when he unilaterally declares the matter "resolved."

How many times can I continuously punch you in the face and then apologize before you figure out that I'm not really sorry and I will probably continue to punch people in the face and "apologize" for it? How long will it take before you conclude that I'm just saying "I'm sorry" as a way to avoid retaliation and make you out as a bad guy when you try to tell me I should stop punching people in the face? :shrugs:

[Silvergrin]

gutta -- I have no idea, I'm just throwing out suggestions, as it's the only thing that sounds at all plausable to me. Liver or kidneys is what my BS opinion would be... I've never heard of a snake dying from damage directly suffered by regurging food, but then again, I'm far from an expert. I would suspect some sort of trauma (like a smooshing) before regurge, but I trust the owner to know what happened/could have happened and to be reporting the facts. Other speculation doesn't have much point :P

Serp -- I've seen you around and you seem pretty cool, just to say, I wasn't talking about you or anyone in particular, just noting general trends. :) I'm not familiar with vinman at all *shrug*

[FlaStangBabe]

I'm a noob to this forum so i won't take any sides... but i do belong to another forum (not for snakes but for mustangs) that has a lot of locals and we have an online social basis and a personal social basis, there is a lot of arguing back and forth and we get away with it because we know eachothers personalities...maybe the problems are occuring here because of personality conflicts...

as a sid note: the other forum i belong to there is a lot of banning and that sort as well...sometimes they even let banned members back in with a warning...

:shrugs:

[larigirl007]

How about this. Vinman apologized to me. I accepted his apology. Let's just leave it at that and not jump down his throat, okay?

In response to someone asking me if I had any other herps, no I don't. But maybe someday....

[Vinman]

Serpwidgets it was you who called me a nazi and a troll you started the name calling get on with your life

[Alias47]

Serp...AMEN, my friend. :cheers:
I tried to add to your already amazing wealth of rep points...but it won't let me yet... :shrugs:

I really have nothing personal against Vinman... and, to his credit, his spelling and typing ability have increased TEN-FOLD in the last month...which I think is wonderful...
HOWEVER, it seems to me most of his initial posts are very argumentative...or aggressive at the very least. Repeated apologies with no attempt to change the behavior that spawned the apology in the first place. As well as, for lack of a better term, a coarse attitude conveyed in the responses to many of the people here and conveyed in the speech chosen in said responses.

I do not intend a personal attack against Vinman with my observations...just to point out from a fairly impartial view what it is I have noticed...and a bit of unsolicited advice..."You will catch more flies with honey than vinegar"...don't be so abrasive...or so defensive...and I am sure you will get along fine here.

[Susan]

Serp...AMEN, my friend. :cheers:
I tried to add to your already amazing wealth of rep points...but it won't let me yet... :shrugs:

A great big DITTO!

[MegF.]

Larigirl: Is there anyway to get a necropsy done? It would hopefully clear up any questions. Is there any way a regurge could rupture a stomach?