ronhalling
Very Well-Known Member
Hi to all the guys and gals at APS, It is with a sad heart that tell you all i have had to have my beautiful 8 year old Female Intergrade put to sleep. In October 2014 she came out of her hide after Brumating for app 3 months and looked to be very stiff in the 1st 1/4 of her body and when touched she recoiled violently and almost formed a pretzel shape, i figured she was just cold and stiff after Brumating for so long, so i upped her temp to 36 deg and added another 3 hours to the time the CHE was on, this seemed to alleviate the symptoms a bit and taking her out into full sunshine for for an hour or 2 every day also seemed to make her move around more and she did not look to be in so much pain, I rang the reptile vet (Gavin Rippon) about it and he seemed to think it might be a bit of arthritis but to just keep an eye on her and if she got any worse then bring her in.
I left it a week before i tried to feed her but she refused the feed and every other feed for the next 3 months, she was drinking ok had no discharge of any description and was breathing with no noise or dysfunction so i ruled out any RI's, she had some trouble shedding but was ok after i helped her get rid of some of the more difficult skin.
It was at this point my health nose dived and i spent the next 3 months in and out of hospital and left the care of my beautiful girl in the hands of my son, over that period she seemed to stiffen up more and seemed to be in much more pain, so i advised my son to take her to the Reptile vet for an evaluation, the Vet kept her for another 5 days and took xrays and blood, these he sent off to the Sugarloaf Vet Hospital and the results he got back were not good, they said she had something called Arthritic Septicaemia and the ribs in the 1st 1/4 of her body were all fused together and showing some spots of infection hence the inability to eat and the pain, there is apparently no cure or treatment for this syndrome and the only option was euthanasia which sadly i agreed to.
Now !!! i have never heard of this disease or syndrome and the only thing close to the description i found on google is here ------> http://www.researchgate.net/publica...steoarthritis_and_osteoarthrosis_in_15_snakes according to the vet it usually occurs when a snake has some sort of infection when it is young and when it gets better a germ or small bacterial cluster becomes dormant in the snakes system somewhere and when they get to about 7-10 years old this germ re activates and goes on the rampage metastasising into a myriad of problems.
So i have a question of you most knowledgeable of keepers (MIKE or JAMIE maybe) "have you ever come across this problem before and what was the outcome.
.............................Ron
I left it a week before i tried to feed her but she refused the feed and every other feed for the next 3 months, she was drinking ok had no discharge of any description and was breathing with no noise or dysfunction so i ruled out any RI's, she had some trouble shedding but was ok after i helped her get rid of some of the more difficult skin.
It was at this point my health nose dived and i spent the next 3 months in and out of hospital and left the care of my beautiful girl in the hands of my son, over that period she seemed to stiffen up more and seemed to be in much more pain, so i advised my son to take her to the Reptile vet for an evaluation, the Vet kept her for another 5 days and took xrays and blood, these he sent off to the Sugarloaf Vet Hospital and the results he got back were not good, they said she had something called Arthritic Septicaemia and the ribs in the 1st 1/4 of her body were all fused together and showing some spots of infection hence the inability to eat and the pain, there is apparently no cure or treatment for this syndrome and the only option was euthanasia which sadly i agreed to.
Now !!! i have never heard of this disease or syndrome and the only thing close to the description i found on google is here ------> http://www.researchgate.net/publica...steoarthritis_and_osteoarthrosis_in_15_snakes according to the vet it usually occurs when a snake has some sort of infection when it is young and when it gets better a germ or small bacterial cluster becomes dormant in the snakes system somewhere and when they get to about 7-10 years old this germ re activates and goes on the rampage metastasising into a myriad of problems.
So i have a question of you most knowledgeable of keepers (MIKE or JAMIE maybe) "have you ever come across this problem before and what was the outcome.
.............................Ron
