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Old 01-16-22, 09:11 PM   #1
Wlwyvern
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Health concerns

Hey all! I've been having some health problems with my corn..
For background, he's a ~4ft long adult male, I've had him for a little less than 3 years, the person I got him from did not know his age, but he was clearly already full grown, and can't have grown more than a couple inches since I got him. I feed him frozen/thawed adult mice from a local pet store and he has always taken food no problem.
A few months after I first got him, he stopped eating for a few weeks, I took him to the vet and he was identified as having worms, given a course of dewormer, it cleared up and he started eating again, I've had no issues with him since then.
Suddenly, around November 20th (maybe the 13th?) I tried to feed him and he didn't take it. I tried 2 more times the next 2 weekends, and then scheduled a vet appointment again. He had the SAME, somewhat rare type of worms! The vet (who was the same as I'd taken him to before) theorized that we didn't completely kill them the first time, just stomped them down enough that he stopped having symptoms. He went through a course of dewormer from Dec 19th through Jan 6th of this year. He still hasn't started eating. He shed on Jan 9th. He has a wound on his mouth that looks like it's healing but it's a little... Crusty? He's definitely skinny but I don't have access to my scale right now so I can't measure him to see how much he weighs. His vent is also looking sort of gross, and a lot of the scales on the edge of his belly (the yellow ones right next to the white and black pattern) are flaking and peeling off. I've already scheduled a vet appointment but they didn't have any until the 24th. I guess what I'm wondering is, does anyone have experience with this? Is there anything I can do for him in the meantime? What can I expect from the vet next week? (I'm... Pretty worried about the cost because I'm basically broke right now, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it)
Sorry for the long post! Just trying to get all the info...
Thanks!
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Old 01-17-22, 12:18 PM   #2
Aaron_S
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Re: Health concerns

1. Good for you for heading to the vets for your problems
2. Most snakes are in brumation right now. They aren't eating and getting ready for breeding season.
3. I don't know where this wound would come from on his mouth. Sounds odd.
4. He could be sick with something else that we have no clue on.

I don't really have experience especially without pictures
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Old 01-17-22, 02:00 PM   #3
Wlwyvern
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Re: Health concerns

Quote:
Originally Posted by Aaron_S View Post
1. Good for you for heading to the vets for your problems
2. Most snakes are in brumation right now. They aren't eating and getting ready for breeding season.
3. I don't know where this wound would come from on his mouth. Sounds odd.
4. He could be sick with something else that we have no clue on.

I don't really have experience especially without pictures
Oh, of course, I added so much detail and forgot to mention location. I'm in Florida, the past couple days have been the "coldest" we've gotten all winter, in the mid 60s, but for the most part our highs have been in the 70s or even 80s.
My guess for the wound is that when I gave him his dewormer, which was given by mouth with a syringe, at some point it managed to scrape his mouth. I feel really bad if that's the case

https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...108_205817.jpg
https://media.discordapp.net/attachm...108_205709.jpg
Here are links to the pictures of his mouth. The top one shows some redness and bubbling on the roof of his mouth, the second shows the bump that formed on his top "lip". These are pics from a week ago, so the redness has gone down but the lip bump has formed a scab? Or something? I'll see if I can get some pictures of his scales and vent but I don't want to stress him too bad if he's already sick...
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Old 01-27-22, 09:24 PM   #4
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Re: Health concerns

An update if anyone is interested (particularly future folks seeing similar symptoms)
We confirmed a mild case of mouth rot, he's been put on antibiotics, we'll see how that goes!
The flaking scales was probably just a simple bad shed. Possibly due to low humidity (we had a cold snap right before he shed) or malnutrition/stress.
He's not lost as much weight as I thought, but it's still teetering on the edge of worrisome, rather than normal brumation. Hopefully in another week or so once his antibiotics course is almost through, I'll be able to get him to eat.

Lessons learned:
1) I am a bit of a paranoid hypochondriac when it comes to my pets
2) even if you think you might be a paranoid hypochondriac, take your pets to the vet!
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