Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I took my fire skink to the vet wednesday because I had noticed (on Sunday) a lump on his back just anterior to his right hind leg. The vet anethstetized him and drained the abcess. My instructions are to apply a topical antibiotic once a day and administer an oral antibiotic twice a day for three weeks. Now as I'm sure some of you know, giving a skink anything orally is a very stressful affair. My only success is in upseting him enough for him to bite the syringe. Also, I had to take out his soil substrate and switch to paper towels to keep the incision clean. The problem is, all this stress of the last few days has caused him to stop feeding. His last meal was Sunday. My gut feeling and experience with reptiles is telling me to stop the medication and leave him alone until he starts eating again. However, the vet said three weeks and he is the Dr.. Any opinions? What would you do?
-----
International Snakes Meetup
International Herpetology Meetup

Hmmmm, I feel for you. It's a wonder your vet didn't administer an antibiotic injection...this is what my skink had recently after being bitten by a cat. But perhaps abcesses are different and need antis over a longer period. Try posting a query on the Herpatological Health forum on kingsnake - I always seem to get good specific advice on health issues there. Hope your skink makes a good recovery.
Susan

I don't know of any injectable antibiotic routinely given to reptiles that lasts any longer than 72 hours. So if the vet wanted this skink to get antibiotics for the next 3 weeks, oral is usually easiest for the people involved. Most vets don't like to teach clients how to do injectables at home due to the risk (it's much harder in a reptile than a mammal- plus they need to be given into muscle- and the most common antibiotic rx'ed to reptiles really hurts when given into muscle), or the client needs to come in several times a week to get the injection given at the hospital- and most clients won't come in consistently when they are supposed to. So most vets send home oral antibiotics and cross their fingers that the client will give them.
Some special clients can handle giving IM injections at home, but the other 95% would rather not touch a needle or might do more harm that good trying to give a muscle injection into the eeeny weeny reptile.
cheers, Jess b

Hello Jones,

Now I run a reptile rescue, but I have no "Offical" training as a vet. So take what I say however you feel comfortable..

An abses can be an infection, or it may not be. I am guessing since you vet is suggesting antibotics that there was some type of infection. You never mentioned what antibotic and how much you are supposed to give to your lizard.. Also did you see the fluid that came out of the abses, what color was it?

Let me give you a suggestion that has worked well giving lizzards (yes skinks included) oral meds without having to pry the mouth open.. Try getting a feeder syringe, even the baby bird syringes from the petstore work well. just get 2 inches or aquarium air hose, use a razor blade and round the one end, so no sharp edges are there.. Put the other end on the feeding syringe. Put the needed amount of meds in the syringe, and get some 9 Lives Turkey strips dinner, get the "New Savory Taste" one. Glob the turkey all over the end of the syringe, let the skink go in for a taste. Normally he will just start chewing, slowing depress the meds into the back of its throat. Let him swallow. After you get the meds in him, use a clean popsical stick and offer more. Worked like a charm every time I tried it.. Most lizrads with go off feed when on meds, so you have to get creative.. Sometimes a little raw meat with some raw egg on it will temp them enough to start feeding again..

Until you find out what type of infection the lizzy had, i would stick with the meds.. Abses can case alot of different problems.. When i do the drain I will normally clean the area for 3-4 days with Novasan soultion once a day and put Neosporin without pain meds on twice a day. Also I switch the bedding to paper towel or newspaper.. with no climbs available..

Sorry for the spelling, its late..
Hope that helps..
Steve

Thanks, that sounds like a much better idea than what i was doing. He gave me a feeding syringe and I am to give .08 on the graduated scale. I don't know what the scale measures though. Twice a day. I did switch to paper towels which I think is adding to his stress. Anyway, thanks for the idea.
-----
International Snakes Meetup
International Herpetology Meetup

I too have had abscess problem occur, but with my Bosc Monitor. I work at a vet office, so I have access to services easily. Anyways, we lanced the three that popped up. One on the lower spinal region, one on the left front leg(top), and one on its jaw. White cores were produced from each with little to no blood. One of the techs administered enrofloxacin, and I clean the wounds daily with Nolvasan, housing the monitor on butcher paper, isolated from its cage mates until the wounds heal, and there are no more signs of infection. This monitor has been housed EXACTLY the way my other four Boscs are and has been the ONLY one to have problems. I havent noticed aggression among them, and have seen no signs of bite marks.
I am entirely baffled as to why this just started happening, and none of the vet staff has any idea either. Also FYI, it has not stopped eating, or shown any signs of weight loss.
The reason why Ive had the housed together is to conduct a long term study on group behaviour of hatchling raised together. However this has been the second problem to arise in the 5 months of conducting the experiment with the hatchlings. The first concerned the "runt" of the clutch that eventually had to be permently removed because she was not keeping weight on very well. I thought that perhaps the arger lizards were stressing her too much to feel comfortable eating. Now shes doing fine. Perhaps I will have to abandon my project and conclude that it is best for these animals to be kept seprately, unless in the case of breeding pairs.

-Michelle

Medicate- the skink will likely start eating when you are done with the meds.
Unless your vet has given you good reason to not trust him/her, follow their advice as best you can! That's why you took your pet there correct? Client non-compliance with medications is a BIG problem with recurrent infections and abscesses. People stop giving the meds because it is too hard or the animal seems better- neither is a good reason.
An abscess in a reptile is a pocket of hard pus. Your vet has cleaned out the visible infection. Your follow up care at home will hopefully take care of the remaining microscopic infection at the site, and hopefully all of the small abscesses that may be INSIDE your animal. When you have a big abscess on the outside, there are often micro (small) abscesses on the inside in the liver or other organs ect that got there via the blood stream.
Many reptiles will not eat when being given systemic (oral or injectable) antibiotics- perhaps due to the stress of administration or maybe they feel queasy. They usually start eating a few days after the meds are discontinued. Not a big deal in snakes, who can do fine and not eat for 2-4 weeks. In these little guys, it is a good idea to weigh them DAILY, and if there is consistent weight loss, then start handfeeding/forcefeeding (talk to your vet about this).
Long story short, please follow your vet's directions- if you are having problems getting the meds in- I am sure they will happily do a demo for you again, or even give them for you if you can get there when they need to be given.
Good luck, Jess b

Hello Jess,

Although I do agree with what you wrote. Just wanted to touch on a couple of things.. One most vets do not have proper training with reptiles. The vets that seem to have a good reptile education are ones that have attended Cornel U.. Some Dr's Vets and MD's have a bad habit of treating everything with antibotics, and can cause more harm then good. For instince. Younger snakes, under 8 months have a good chance of dying with anitbotics like Baytril. So yeah trust your vet, but also have a reason to trust them. Do your own homework..

And you mentioned your Monitors.. Monitors are pigs when it comes to eating. I have had some as pets, but mostly ones that came through the rescue. The two that were not eating were caused by a serious case of mouth rot.. Little lizzys like skinks can go off feed very easy. The stress of having their mouth pryed open stresses them out very easy and they go through a base shut down and feed off the fat in the tail base.. Its almost involentary, like an Iggy discharging its tail. If it gets to a point, their body takes over, its not a thought process involved..

And last thing I wanted to touch on, is that not all snakes can go 2-4 weeks safley without eating. Take the common garter snake, except during brumation, they need to eat daily. Going 4 days could kill a healthy garter. They have a fast metabolisim and need to replenish soon. Also a thin snake could also suffer without food. But when it comes to boids, if they are healthy and upto weight, they can skip a month of none feeding if it happens, just not too often. Casuse health problems later on..

Good info though..

Steve

good points- I also think antibiotics are often over used. If this is truly an abscess, I do think they are warranted though. Treat it aggressively the first time, and hopefully it will not come back in the same spot or nearby- and try to get any internal infection at the same time. In the best of worlds, a culture and sensitivity of the abscess bacteria to pick the right antibiotic, and bloodwork to look at whether the body is responding to infection appropriately.
If the original poster for this thread is still reading- seriously, you should weigh your little skink daily, and if it is losing weight consistently- talk to your vet about assisted/force feeding or recheck after 10 days and see how long they deem antibiotic treatment to be essential after seeing your progress.
jess b

Hey Jess,

I agree with you.. Weighing is a great idea.. Get a digital scale from walmart, one that does grams and keep a daily record. Also keep a record of when the skink goes to the bathroom. Antibotics are known to stop bowel movements

The problem with abscess's is figuring out the cause. Some are nothing but harmless deposits, where some can be infections like you said. The most common problem with most vets is they do not dig deep enough to find what caused the problem and to figure exactly what strain of bactirial infection is the problem and treat it with the correct medication. I keep hearing over and over that the vet put the reptile of Baytril. for so many different problems and most never required Baytril. I currently have ditched away with Baytril completly with any snake I treat. I now use Tylan 50 or Tylan 200. I have gotten so much better results with Tylan with no side effects. I think alot of vets almost look at reptiles as a lower worth then say a cat or a dog. They seem to use a basic treatment that can work to treat every situation.. Not saying all vets, just alot of them..

I should also say it can be risky injecting a small lizzard inter-muscular if you do not know what you are doing. Its so easy to punchture a lung, organ, etc.. But if your gonna own these wonderful creatures. Do your homework. Read, read and read some more. Fine a solid vet and understand what they are doing, and don't be afraid to ask questions. I have a very good reptile vet within an hour, but since I get alot more time recouping reptiles and treating them, then this vet does. She will call me with certain cases and ask my opinion..

So Jess you work with a vet or just an info junkie..

Steve

that would be yes to both of those last questions