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Pneumonia

C

cornsnstuff

New member
Okay, this isn't about my corns, but it IS my snake and I'm so worried about him. He is a 4 year old Candoia (Paulsoni). He is about 2 feet long and weighs 150g.

He has pneumonia. The local vet is nice, but I don't know if he is telling me to do the right things!

He prescribed Baytril. I've been dosing him with that X 3 weeks. No improvement. He also had me raise the temp in the cage to 87-100 degrees, low side/hi side. He also had me take out the water bowl, which Paul was resting in, and put in a small water bowl that he couldn't get into. I've been misting him twice a day to keep him moist.

Now Paul seems worse than ever! He is dry feeling, His entire chest cavity is hollowed out to the point that I can lie my finger in it all the way to his stomach and is touching his spine. Two days ago I turned down the heat to 80-90 degrees. He had gotten to the point where he was just lying in a tight bowl occasionally cracking and popping. Now he is moving around again. However, I can tell he is very dehydrated. I have forced water down him when I dose him (i use a feeding tube). He won't eat, but his stomach and the rest of him look to be in good condition. He had this before and the Baytril fixed it back then, but I think it is much worse now.
 
I am sorry to hear your snake is going through such a rough time.
The best person on here that I can think of who might have some advice/info for you would be Elle (TulaMontage) as I believe she may also have some Solomon Isle Boas...
She is in Scotland though - so she is on here at different times than a lot of us in the US. You may want to try sending her a PM.

Good luck!
 
If the Baytril isn't working, you might want to talk to your vet about Amokacin (I'm not sure if that's the correct spelling). I had to use it with one of my Dumeril's boas a few months back, and it cleared him up in 3 shots.

And I would definitely PM Elle on care information.
 
I took Paul to the vet yesterday. It was a different vet and She was very nice. We discussed what was going on and she saw how retracted his chest cavity was when he tried to breathe. When I mentioned Amikacin, she said we would change him to that immediately. She also wanted a fecal sample so she could see if he had any unusual parasites or bugs that could be causing this. However, Paul hasn't eaten in a while and when they squirted the fluid into his cloaca, nothing came out. They actually put some additional sterile saline in, hoping it would absorb, because she noticed he was very dehydrated. Then the vet showed me where to inject Paul. I have given lots of animals shots, but not snakes. I was worried I'd stab him in the heart, abdomen, or some other essential organ.

On the way home, I stopped off and bought some probiotics and a mineral/electrolyte additive for the water. When I got home, I moved him into a hospital shoebox with a thermostat set at 85 degrees and only clean white paper towels. I mixed up the water with the electrolyte solution and the probiotics and put that in the water bowl. I also went ahead and used a feeding tube to put 4ccs of that into him. Then I left him alone.

Today he's active and barely retracted at all. I'm supposed to give him Amikacin injections every 3 days for 21 days. None of the fluid she put in has come back out so I believe that between what I put into him, he has gotten about 7ccs worth of fluids.
Hopefully, he's on the road to recovery. I'll try to get him to eat a pinky after a couple more doses.

Thanks for everyone's support.
 
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