Hmm, I took her out for a closer look and her throat does look a bit puffy too.
Any chance that you vet would have missed a broken tooth because a broken tooth that gets infected will create this type of swelling due to the infection, in some cases there is an abscess that needs to be removed in other cases a simple treatment of antibiotic will do the trick.
2 Likes
what are you using to disinfect the enclosure, that could also be causing an allergic reaction as well. How ever most of the time with this kind of swelling it is typically an infection that has progressed and needs a round of stronger antibiotics and possibly steriods.
There was one instance she smacked her bottom jaw into the side of the tub going after a rat, which happened several months ago.
Perhaps it did break a tooth and the vet didn’t see it.
I’ll definitely get a vet appointment made ASAP, but with the other vet I heard about. I didn’t care too much for the vet I was seeing for her, he was kind of condescending towards me at times.
We usually just use dawn dish soap when we do deep cleaning of the tubs, but it wasn’t an issue before.
Ah! I had taken a video of this feeding, and this did happen — she smacked her bottom jaw into the side of the tub going after a rat (here’s a screenshot of the moment)
Perhaps that could have broke a tooth?
That feeding was on May 12th.
@stewart_reptiles
1 Like
I’m leaning towards an abscess.
1 Like
Yeah, could be. I did get an appointment scheduled for her on Tuesday the 10th, so hopefully the vet will have answers for me!
3 Likes
Update! She went in to the vet, it was determined she did have an abscess of sorts. She was put under and an incision made to drain the abscess.
The vet left the hole open so that it would keep draining any additional fluids out.
She was sent home with some oral pain meds and antibiotics.
Will keep ya’ll updated on her recovery progress!
Here she is right after she got home. Luckily she was awake by then.
9 Likes
Update on this beautiful girl! She’s doing much better, and she had her two week checkup this past Wednesday. Vet said she’s doing better, we’ll continue the treatment and she’ll go in for another checkup here in another two weeks.
8 Likes
Glad to see she is on the way to recovery.
1 Like
I’m glad you were able to figure out the issue, and that she is doing great! Look forward to reading up on her condition after your next checkup!
1 Like
She looks night and day. She will be good as new in a few more weeks. Keep up the good work.
1 Like
So happy that she is doing better! Yay!
1 Like
I guess I hadn’t updated this, whoops! The swelling still did not go away, so I saw a different vet at the same office. He tried to tell me it was “scar tissue” … but I was having a hard time believing that.
I took her to an actual board certified vet in Indianapolis to have her looked at, and they did an explorative operation on her jaw… it turned out to be an abscess in the jaw itself.
There was no abnormal bacteria that they could find from the culture, so I don’t think I have anything to worry about now.
She’s recovered from that operation, and is no longer having any swelling issues in her jaw or throat. It doesn’t look perfect by any means, but she is doing a lot better.
In fact, she’s apparently developing follicles too… she suddenly gained 200 or so grams and just went off food, and is showing a bit of a build:
Since I discovered she was developing follicles, I’ve thrown my super mystic male in with her a few times and they’ve locked up.
I’ve palpated for follicles and felt around 7-9 that are quarter size in her, so I guess we’ll see how this goes.
It might end up being a “who’s your daddy” clutch because she did lock up with my butter spinner male sometime early last year as well — but I’d be hoping for a bunch of BELs for this clutch, if she does go!
This might also give some insight on how females do with developing eggs when they’ve recently been on antibiotics, so I’m curious to see how things go. I haven’t seen a whole lot of solid info out there on how medication would affect a female going into the breeding season.
2 Likes
I’m really glad she’s back to business 
You are a absolute example of a good snake keeper 
Shit happens and you dealt with it perfectly.
I’m really interested in seeing if medication plays any role during egg building. If she lays all slugs it might deter people from attempts in the future. If they are healthy then . Either way we have a statistic to start with.
3 Likes
@trnreptiles
Thanks for sharing this has been an interesting case to follow.
So abscess in the jaw…did they specify it was likely from a broken tooth that it developed or some unrelated or unknown reason?
1 Like
This is actually pretty common. Good to hear they got it sorted.
In my experience the best you can do is just guess what happened. It’s usually a bacteria and in many cases it isn’t even an active infection: just a big lump of white blood cells and plasma that have no way to drain.
It can become very serious and some of the ‘guesses’ you can make as to why it happened could be things like… tried to eat an item backwards and had a claw scratch/poke which lead to a small infection. 
When more people fed live you used to see this kind of thing on boa faces, heads, etc, too. They’re wounds that healed over but still had some foreign and irritating substance in them (like bacteria). They can become serious over time and can result in necrosis. 
I’ve had a snake with an abscess in nearly the same spot as yours. iirc the vet I had at the time was trying to treat stomatitis and xray for broken bones 
Went to another vet and it was pretty much a tiny poke away from being solved forever. Sounds like the same story 
eagle pretty much summed it up.
2 Likes
@thecrawdfather
The vet insisted it was because I fed her live, and she must have gotten bit. Though I supervise all of my feedings very closely and I am completely sure she had not been bit in the mouth… I was actually the one that took a bite to the thumb once holding the rat’s face away from her! Left a nice scar too 
That vet seemed kinda rude and “I’m an authority on this so I must be right” but I still think it was due to broken teeth when she smacked into the side of her tub. Just the placement of her jaw in that moment pretty much lined up with where the abscess was.
1 Like
I appreciate it! I’d do anything for my noodle kiddos, even if it means driving nearly 3 hours to the only board certified vet in Indiana to get them proper care.
Though I might stick to the local vet for less unusual cases like mouth rot/scale rot and URIs… though I haven’t had that issue with any of my snakes besides Butters here so I don’t think I’ll have to worry about it too much!
2 Likes
This looks to be an ovulation from her, my boyfriend said she looked more swollen earlier today when he was checking on them.
Her tail does look slightly dipped in underneath and the tail suck is rather evident.
I’ll write down the date and keep things updated here!
Edit: adding some more photos!
3 Likes