Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Okay, so I picked up 4 boas this past Sunday. I looked in the bag to inspect them visually (mainly I was checking them for respiratory diseases). They all appeared to be in good health. They are all around 5-6 feet in length. I took each one out a gave them a bath before I put them into their boaphile cages. I felt some bumps on the peruvian female. My guess is that it is some scar tissue. The bumps are 3 inches apart and it appears to be caved in, inbetween the 2 bumps. These bumps are just below the mid section of the snake. I do plan on taking her in for X-rays to our local herp vet, but was wondering if anyone could offer me some insight if this can be fixed or not and issues that I may encounter. I fed her last night and she had no problem eating. Her movements in the bath tub weren't that bad, she did seem to favor one side.
I contacted the seller and he thought that maybe something happened on my transport back home (it was a 3 hour trip as we met half way). The bumps feel like scar tissue, which may tell me that it happened along time ago???, so I don't think it could have happened on my trip. Let me know if I need to provide any further detail. Thanks

These kind of injuries (if still fresh, as I'd guess since the snake is favouring that side) generally heal on there own. I would still get the vet check and the X-ray to make sure it isn't something that need to be tended to. Pain management might be a good idea; depending on the vet, you might have to ask for it as it's common to overlook this in reptile patients. Let us know if the vet finds anything interesting.

Ian

I took her in today, and without a pathology done, it appears to be osteomyelitis. He said that she has good weight. She doesn't appear to be experiencing any pain. He doesn't think there is a cure out there (a new Dr, but has 2 others that have some experience that work there). I did a search and found this, wonder what you think.
"advanced cases injectable enrofloxacin (5-10 mg/kg SID for 10 days) or amikacin (2.5 mg/kg every other day for 5 treatments) should be used. An antibiotic effective against anaerobic bacteria such as clindamycin (5.0 mg/kg q. 24 hours) should also be included in the treatment regimen. Increasing the environmental temperature along with medical treatment will greatly increase the chances of recovery from this disease. It is not unreasonable to bring the cage temperature to 90-95 degrees F when a snake is ill. Some workers recommend injectable vitamin C (10-20 mg/kg SID, IM) as an aid to facilitate healing in cases of mouth rot."

It is true that osteomylitis is commonly infection related, while it's more rare the case in mammalian patients. This might have been overlooked by the doc's. It is definately worth a try to give antibiotics IMO, (remember, I"m not the doc though. This isn't your every day infection though. I strongly recommend a blood culture or other sampling technique to try and pinpoint what drug to use. Depending on the overall health status of the boa, there may be other supportive therapy that is appropriate as well.

Ian

I just reread what I wrote and it's clear that I need to go to bed. Any questions, and I'll gladly reword this jargon tomorrow.

Ian