Reptile & Amphibian Forums

After two days on flagyl and antibiotics, Eva took a turn for the worse and just passed away. Can't even describe how devastating this is to me. It has been a huge wake up call to. Eva went from what appeared to be a perfectly healthy bp last week to a dead one this week. It can happen that fast. I will be having fecal samples run on everyone ASAP despite whether they have any symptoms or not. Eva was quarantined for over two months before being put in with my collection, but I hadn't had a fecal done on her because she never showed any symptoms of any problems. I will never make that mistake again. From now on any snake that comes in my house is going to first have a full screening (IBD, Crypto, you name it) at the vet's office.

Thankfully, since I have always been really good about washing my hands between each and every snake (to the point where my hands are very very raw) and keeping everything very clean, the chances of anyone else getting this (Entomoeba invadens for those who didn't read my earlier post) from her are less than if I wasn't so careful. According to my vet and an article in a parasitology book he copied for me, Entomoeba is spread through feces/urine/bodily fluids. The only snake I am worried about is my pastel who was in with her a few weeks ago. He will be getting a check up asap!

Keep your fingers crossed for me that next weekend goes by without incident! It's hard not to get discouraged when it is one thing after another...

p.s. I have had her for close to 8 months for anyone thinking that I was nuts to put a pastel in with her after two months quarantine. I waited much longer than that before I put my pastel near her.

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Amber

Boas
1.1.0 Colombian (Austin & Ava)
1.0.0 Suriname (Aloysius)
1.1.0 Albino (Bo & Daisy)
Balls:
1.28.0 Normal (Tucker, Taylor, Big Eva and girls)
1.1.0 Pastel
1.2.0 100% Het Pied
1.0.0 100% Het Albino (Bubba)
0.1.0 66% Poss. Het Albino
Corns:
1.1.0 Amber
1.1.0 Butter Motley
1.1.0 Crimson
1.1.0 Ghost
1.1.0 Hypo
0.0.1 Normal
1.1.0 Okeetee
1.0.1 Snow (Aiden)
1.1.0 Sunglow Motley
Milks:
1.1.0 Hypo Honduran (Damien & Lucy)
0.1.0 Pueblan (Marishka)
1.1.0 Sinaloan
Other:
2.1.0 Dachshunds - Dakota, Montana, & Cheyenne
2.0.0 Ferrets - Bailey & Keyta

SO SO sorry for your loss i know what its like.was her passing attributed to the mite problem you were having a while back,im a firm believer in quarantine even if i got them from Jesus Christ himself when you feel ready to talk about it id like to hear all the info, again very sorry for your loss

Thank you everyone for the kind words. It's nice to be able to talk to people who understand. It's not like I a can tell anyone here at work why my weekend sucked so bad and expect any remote form of sympathy (no love lost for snakes here). I can say though that I have an awesome mom who endures her grown daughter calling her at 10 p.m. and crying about her snake dying. Thanks mom!

Eva's lab results from her visit on Saturday should be back either this afternoon or tomorrow morning. They had diagnosed the amoeba problem from a smear they were able to get when Eva unloaded on me in the office, but the actual lab work should tell us for sure whether that was all she had. Unfortunately for me, the Dr. is out on vacation until Thursday, so I will not be able to find out anything more concrete about how she could have contracted this until then. His assistant promised to have him call me to discuss. She (the tech) thought though that perhaps she has been harboring this problem all along and the breeding was enough to stress her and cause it to become a serious problem. I am keeping a close eye on everyone in the meantime until I can talk to the Dr. about possibly screening them all - fecal floats. No one is showing any symptoms though and I am super anal about not letting the snakes come in contact with each other and washing everything in between dealing with different snakes, so that should help.

As far as the mites, I hadn't found any in the cage stack that Eva was in, but that will definitely be a question for the doctor when he calls me. I know they can transmit some blood born illnesses, but not sure about the gastro-intestinal type.

For anyone who hasn't heard of Entomoeba invadens, here are some symptoms to look out for:

Loss of appetite (which I took for normal going off feed in winter)
Excessive Drinking (she started doing this in the last two weeks)
Lethargy (we thought she was gravid )
Loose and frequent stools - very smelly, almost like a sweet vomit smell
Blood in stool - can be a lot or just very small amounts - maybe on a smear on the paper. This is caused by ulcers that form in the digestive tract.
Not sure if this is a sympton in all snakes, but Eva herself smelled and the scales near her cloaca were ruddy looking like she had just been sitting in poo.

There are a lot more technical details, but these are some of the main symptoms that showed up in Eva's last week. Hope that helps someone else.
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Amber

Boas
1.1.0 Colombian (Austin & Ava)
1.0.0 Suriname (Aloysius)
1.1.0 Albino (Bo & Daisy)
Balls:
1.28.0 Normal (Tucker, Taylor, Big Eva and girls)
1.1.0 Pastel
1.2.0 100% Het Pied
1.0.0 100% Het Albino (Bubba)
0.1.0 66% Poss. Het Albino
Corns:
1.1.0 Amber
1.1.0 Butter Motley
1.1.0 Crimson
1.1.0 Ghost
1.1.0 Hypo
0.0.1 Normal
1.1.0 Okeetee
1.0.1 Snow (Aiden)
1.1.0 Sunglow Motley
Milks:
1.1.0 Hypo Honduran (Damien & Lucy)
0.1.0 Pueblan (Marishka)
1.1.0 Sinaloan
Other:
2.1.0 Dachshunds - Dakota, Montana, & Cheyenne
2.0.0 Ferrets - Bailey & Keyta

Be sure to let us know the results of the lab tests when you get them. And again, sorry for your loss.

Quig

This amoeba is supposed to be fairly easy to treat with a week's worth of antibiotics and flagyl (according to my vet). Unfortunately for Eva, we didn't catch it soon enough. Just wanted to let everyone know that it is curable and most likely (fingers crossed of course) no one else in my collection would die should they happen to have it - now that I'm aware. It's just a matter of catching it before it becomes serious. Wanted to make sure that I added in the prognosis since I gave all the symptoms!
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Amber

Boas
1.1.0 Colombian (Austin & Ava)
1.0.0 Suriname (Aloysius)
1.1.0 Albino (Bo & Daisy)
Balls:
1.28.0 Normal (Tucker, Taylor, Big Eva and girls)
1.1.0 Pastel
1.2.0 100% Het Pied
1.0.0 100% Het Albino (Bubba)
0.1.0 66% Poss. Het Albino
Corns:
1.1.0 Amber
1.1.0 Butter Motley
1.1.0 Crimson
1.1.0 Ghost
1.1.0 Hypo
0.0.1 Normal
1.1.0 Okeetee
1.0.1 Snow (Aiden)
1.1.0 Sunglow Motley
Milks:
1.1.0 Hypo Honduran (Damien & Lucy)
0.1.0 Pueblan (Marishka)
1.1.0 Sinaloan
Other:
2.1.0 Dachshunds - Dakota, Montana, & Cheyenne
2.0.0 Ferrets - Bailey & Keyta

Lian, I'm so sorry to hear you lost Eva. Prayers from here that everyone else comes up clean, especially that pastel.

Quig

Yeah,i hate to hear it.
Hope your male doesn't get ill now.(Fingers crossed for you!)
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Charles Glaspie

Tanstaafl:
"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch".
An acronym created by my favorite author Robert A. Heinlein.

Very sorry to hear that ... we will most definately keep our fingers crossed for the pastel and the rest of the collection.
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Tosha

"Nihil facimus sed id bene facimus"

11.42.0 Ball Python (Harry and Fluffy and gang)
1.0.0 Angolan Python (Anakin Skywalker)
0.0.1 Green Tree Python (Verdi - yeah I know but my kids love the book)
0.1.0 Bredls Python (Smurfette)
0.2.0 Feline (Pippen and Pandora)
0.0.1 Desert Tortoise (Pope John Paul aka JP )
2.2.1 Fish (1,2,3,4)
0.0.0 frogs rescued from pool skimmer