Shane,
While nebulization of antibiotics has been used successfully with RI treatment in smaller animals, I have not seen any good data with its successful use in larger reptiles, especially snakes of this size. The main problem with larger animals, especially shallow ventilating reptiles and the larger lung volume to be treated, is that many times the therapeutic levels of the chosen antibiotic don’t reach the required concentration at the site of the causative organism. Also, in most cases of nebulizer use, the chosen antibiotic is additionally being given systemically by injection, with the nebulized antibiotic being given concurrently as a secondary measure to help enhance the primary systemic treatment.

If you do nebulize an antibiotic, you will not need to dilute with physiological saline, as you are not injecting and so you can probably just use distilled water. To be honest, I’m not certain at what concentration you would even need to dilute any of the commonly used antibiotics for proper use in a nebulizer. If the RI is in the early stages, it can many times be resolved without antibiotic use by maintaining a substrate temp in the low 90”s for 24/7 and keeping humidity constant at 70% to 75%.

One other thing about the use of Tylan, or tylosin. This is a macrolide class antibiotic that is mainly effective against only gram positive bacteria. It has been used successfully to treat chronic RI in reptiles caused by bacteria of the genus Mycoplasma and in rare cases Streptococcus. Tylosin will usually work well only if the causative organism of the RI is Mycoplasma, otherwise it will usually be ineffective in resolving most other types of bacterial infections in reptiles. Tylosin is usually used when long term chronic RI’s are unresponsive to other antibiotic regimens as this is what is typically seen with Mycoplasma infections.

Most RI’s in boids are caused by gram negative bacteria species and these would require cephalosporin, fluoroquinolone, or aminoglycoside class antibiotics. These other classes of antibiotics will be much more effective unless the RI is being caused by Mycoplasma. I would recommend that a vet check any boa for which antibiotic treatment is anticipated and determine if tylosin is the appropriate antibiotic of choice, however be aware that susceptibility testing for target organisms is problematic as most of these species are present in healthy boids as well.

Just curious as to the reason you are looking at nebulization instead of systemic treatment by injection?

Kelly

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