• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

not eating and has a kink

csingleman

csingleman

csingleman
I have a male albino who is about 3.5 yrs that I've had for just over 3 years. He stopped eating about 6 months ago, about 2 months after we moved. Temp is kept between 72-76 F. A little after he stopped eating I noticed a kink in his back had developed, it twists him in a backward loop and his body has flattened out from it. I've tried giving him smaller mice than he was used too, tried cutting the skull of the food to entice him, tried a bunch of things. After about 3 months, went to the vet, she did xrays, and his spine looks fine, and checked him out for parasites and infections and gave him an antibiotic shot just in case she missed something, and a vitamin shot to try to stimulate him to eat. After the recheck a month later, he had lost a bit of weight (he's about 3/4 lb and almost 4ft long) and still hadn't eaten, but he shed. She gave him another vit shot and said there still wasn't anything wrong with him and to try to feed him again. he shed a bit over a week after that and pooped 4.5 months after he stopped eating, but still wouldn't eat. I added a humidity box to his viv, and tried feeding with pinkies and nothing. it's now been over 6 months and I worked with a friend last week and force fed him 2 ml of watery cat food and have been trying to get him to drink high protein kitten formula to get some nutrients into him.

I've read a bunch of posts about snakes with kinks living full lives, and some others about males not eating during breeding season, but I feel like this might be a bad combo of both, especially since his kink is getting worse. I'm worried about muscle atrophy and that he might not be able to pass food easily.

I'm sorry about the long post, but we're going to force feed a larger amount of food tomorrow and he seems to tolerate the feeding okay.

I've included two photos that I hope will work. One is the kink the way he keeps it, and the other is how it looks stretched out.
 

Attachments

  • tama kink.jpeg
    tama kink.jpeg
    83.1 KB · Views: 92
  • tama straight kink.jpeg
    tama straight kink.jpeg
    79.2 KB · Views: 92
If the kink isn't skeletal, has the vet been able to explain what's causing it? Surely if it's causing physical distortion, there must be some sign of it on X-rays? Could it be a tumour or muscle spasm? If he's in pain because of it, that would be enough to make him refuse food.

I'm no expert - obviously the vet has given him a thorough workout. However, it feels to me that force-feeding without first disgnosing what's causing that kink, is trying to deal with a potential symptom rather than the underlying cause.

Are you getting any poop out yet, and if so, does it look normal?
 
Wow, I just saw this and had to say something...
my 2007 lavender girl Vidalia looks just like this!
She started off quite normal. When I got her Dean mentioned that he noticed a small flat spot on her neck, but I never saw it.
Then last summer she went off feed for a few months. I did not want to handle her to stress her out while she wasn't eating, and she virtually became just like your boy over the summer. I never force fed her back then, and eventually she started eating again. But she twists in a loop just exactly like your snake does. These days when I offer her food, she eats most of the time if I leave it in with her.
 
Thanks for the comment, the Xrays didn't show any distortions or anomalies, and the vet actually had no explanations for my questions about the kink and suggested the force feeding in the first place. I decided to have a friend who worked at a zoo for a time help me since it's getting pretty expensive going to the vet.

He just pooped about an hour after the force feed, and while it looked pretty good, I did also sent it to the vet to get tested for parasites and w/e else she looks for. waiting to hear some news.

I never considered a tumor... would I be able to feel it as a bulge if there is one do you think?
 
Thanks so much for replying starsevol! while I'm not happy at your expense, at least I know this isn't some crazy thing only with Tama. Hopefully he'll start feeding again and will be okay, but at this point, he seems vaguely interested in food, but won't eat and I tried leaving food with him over night and still nothing.
 
would I be able to feel it as a bulge if there is one do you think?
Click to expand...
Not necessarily I think. I lost one to a tumour the year before last and it went lengthwise through him before it got wide enough to be felt or show up as a bulge when I looked at him.

However, I'd have thought that a tumour might at least show on an x-ray as causing his ribs to be slightly distorted. The fact that he's pooping is a good sign - at least there doesn't seem to be a blockage.
 
Rather than the catfood, when I had to force feed one of my corns for a while, I chopped and blended whole mice and syringed the resulting mixture into her. I won't pretend it's fun, but I felt it was the closest to a normal corn diet I could get for her.
 
Wow, that is amazing to see, my prayers go out to you and Tama, that everything will right it's self.((((HUGS))))
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top