So, as some of you may know, the love of my life is my Green Patternless Burmese Python named Ivy. I found Ivy on an unnamed forum that I no longer frequent anymore. She was from a couple in Colorado, who did not plan on his ten Reticulated Pythons to reach the lengths that they had, and admitted to being in over his head. Ivy was his only Burm. To have her, I paid for shipping.
When I first got Ivy, she had an upper respiratory infection. No big deal, my Exotics Doctor (I work at an animal hospital), dispensed meds for me. A few injections, and as expected, it was gone. This was appx a year and a half ago.
Since then she got a second URI, that I decided to take the blame on. I called it her caging, and fixed it by building her a new enclosure, started her on meds, and gone. This was the end of last year.
Wednesday, September 22nd I noted her right eye seemed whitish and cloudy in color. I blew it off, as she was very blue and deep in shed. I figured I'd let her go through her shed cycle and take it from there. The following Thursday, the 30th, I checked on her again - she had completely shed and her eye was much worse. Milky white, puffed out, and full of fluid. Eye infection, awesome. Although she wasn't showing outward signs, I decided to open up her mouth and check her out: gooey-ness to again prove that she had ANOTHER decent start on ANOTHER Upper Respiratory Infection. This means the eye infection is secondary to the URI, awesome.
My snake room is approx 20x13 feet. The ambient temp in the room itself fluctuates around 77-81 degrees. There is carpeting, and two windows with black-out curtains. She lives in a 6'W x 3'D x 2'H black melamine cage with two side-swinging Acrylic Doors in the Front. There is appx 8 feet of 11" Flexwatt in her cage, under linoleum - up the left side, and across the back about 4-5 feet. The Helix is set against the tape under the linoleum at 102 - the linoleum is thick, and I have to make up for the degree loss through it. She lives on aspen bedding, though not enough to cover the floor, just enough for her to push around.
Why does she keep getting URI's in ideal temp settings?
How come none of my other snakes are getting sick?
You would think, living with 60+ others someone would have caught something??
So I take her to work to see our NEW exotics doctor. He's so frikkin awesome. We decided to do a lung culture to figure out what was going on, and sent it out to A&E, the Avian & Exotics lab. This was Friday the 1st. This turned out to be a nightmare, as FedEx decided to not show up on Saturday the 2nd. The culture's shelf life before it starts yielding false results is 72 hours, and we all know the mail doesn't work on Sundays... So we had to lung wash poor Ivy AGAIN on Monday the 4th. In case you're not sure what a lung wash is, it is when you shove sterile saline into someones lungs and suck it back out in order to culture what is in the lungs. In most species, like horses/cats/dogs, you are sedated for this. It feels like you are drowning. Reptiles? Not so much.
Culture results came back on Saturday the 9th, and go figure - She is resistant to every drug on the planet. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating, but it explains why I haven't been getting anywhere with this. She is now on a special COMBO of antibiotics to see if this does the trick. We suspect her issues may be congenital. Which would explain why although she is a perfect weight, she is only 9 feet long at appx 2.5 years, and she has NEVER missed a meal - shed or no shed - and also would explain why none of my other snakes have gotten sick.
Sorry for the long post, wish me luck!!
By the way: do you have ANY idea how much of a pain in the ass it is to give a snake eye drops?!?
OLD PIC ( WHEN I FIRST GOT HER):
