Mandibular Abscess in Ball Python

@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?

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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. :woman_shrugging:

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. :scream:

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 :roll_eyes: Went to another vet and it was pretty much a tiny poke away from being solved forever. Sounds like the same story :slight_smile:

eagle pretty much summed it up. :slight_smile:

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@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 :grimacing:

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.

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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!

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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!

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