Posted by:
jfmoore
at Sun Dec 14 09:54:54 2003 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by jfmoore ]
Hello Mark –
Bear in mind that I am not a medical professional. Why don’t you post this on the Herp Health Forum, also. Maybe there’s someone with medical experience there who could help.
Okay. So my answer to your question would be, no, this is not a “healthy looking mouth”, at least it is not normal, but it doesn’t look terrible to me either. About whether he has an “optimal smile”, if you mean does the gape look right, I would say that looks fine. You were really luck to get such a nice photo (I’m hoping he isn’t yawning constantly, right?).
Here’s what I’m seeing (with right and left being the snake’s right and left sides): Overall, the oral mucosa look somewhat inflamed; a normal color should be a very pale pink, almost white in places. The lower jaws look pretty good; the upper jaws look the worst. There is some sort of damage to the tissue on the right maxilla (the outside jaw bone). The area around the right palatine teeth (the inside row towards the front of the mouth) looks swollen. The premaxillary teeth seem to be missing (they would be right at the top of the photograph between the left and right maxilla), but for all I know that might be normal. What I mean is, they are very small and maybe they are easily dislodged, but there seems to be a groove where the labial scale right at the front of the mouth is abraded or missing due to nose rubbing.
The left maxillary area looks swollen. Do you know what the tissue on the outside surface of the left maxilla looks like? I can’t tell if I’m just seeing things or maybe it’s the result of incandescent lighting in the background – but it looks like there may be some abrasion or hemorrhage there, too. Also, if you look halfway down the left maxilla, it looks to me like there is at least one fluid-filled bleb (and maybe some smaller ones). That definitely shouldn’t be there. But, again, it is hard to see from the photograph. You should be able to take a q-tip and lift the labial skin on that side to take a look. Has your snake been pushing against the cage front more with the left side of its mouth?
But after all that, what to do? I don’t believe a reptile vet would suggest injectable antibiotics at this stage. It doesn’t look that serious yet, but there is trauma there. I would think that Listerine mouthwash would sting like crazy! But Rob does say he has had success with it. I’ve heard of applying topical antibiotics like Silvadene cream. But unless you have help restraining him, you’ll have a difficult time doing much more than running the cotton swab around the perimeter of his mouth. Doing anything inside a snake’s mouth is difficult unless the snake is really small and easily overpowered. And you risk causing further damage trying to pry open its mouth. If you don’t have a speculum, try a rubber kitchen spatula or perhaps a smooth metal snake probe.
It can be an endless circle. He wants to get out of the cage (perhaps to breed?) or he has the beginning of a respiratory problem, so he probes and pushes with his head, he causes some damage to his mouth, maybe his nostrils get clogged up, he can’t breath as well, his mouth probably hurts, so he rubs some more.
Make sure you keep your temperatures up. Obviously you want him to stop cruising and rubbing, so if he will feed for you at this time of year, that would be a good idea, too.
Good luck,
Joan
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RE: Mouth Condition Photo - opinions wanted... - jfmoore, Sun Dec 14 09:54:54 2003