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I think I may have to put my beautiful blizzard corn down. Her Eimeria coccidia is not responding to treatment, and now the coccidia have infected her bile duct, causing a small, mid-body lump full of blue/green fluid.

We're trying more Trimethoprim sulfadiazine, this time IM. We've tried the oral version, and it didn't do any good.

This is really upsetting. My other corns are clean, but she is not. I'm guessing she either got the coccidia from a live mouse I fed her, or she's had it all along. I know I sold my second blizzard some time ago, and I wish I could get in contact with that person to find out if perhaps that blizzard, which was a sibling to mine, has the coccidia.

I'm not sure what else to do right now. Her stomach wall is sloughing pus, large chunks of pus. The lump was drained of fluid, but the fluid will probably come back.

Any help would be appreciated.
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Lower Ground Reptiles

www.lowergroundreptiles.net

It sounds like your snake is in good hands at with the vet. Not much more you can do. May ask if a second opinion is warranted or a trip to a specialist.

>>I think I may have to put my beautiful blizzard corn down. Her Eimeria coccidia is not responding to treatment, and now the coccidia have infected her bile duct, causing a small, mid-body lump full of blue/green fluid.
>>
>>We're trying more Trimethoprim sulfadiazine, this time IM. We've tried the oral version, and it didn't do any good.
>>
>>This is really upsetting. My other corns are clean, but she is not. I'm guessing she either got the coccidia from a live mouse I fed her, or she's had it all along. I know I sold my second blizzard some time ago, and I wish I could get in contact with that person to find out if perhaps that blizzard, which was a sibling to mine, has the coccidia.
>>
>>I'm not sure what else to do right now. Her stomach wall is sloughing pus, large chunks of pus. The lump was drained of fluid, but the fluid will probably come back.
>>
>>Any help would be appreciated.
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>>Lower Ground Reptiles
>>
>>
>>www.lowergroundreptiles.net

It sounds like this case was pretty far advanced by the time treatment was started. Coccidians are difficult to eliminate anyway. I normally use Sulfadimethoxine (Albon) oral for Coccidians, and when caught fairly early it may take 7 or 8 treatments to eliminate them.

I assume she's stopped feeding by now making obtaining a fecal sample difficult. Are you doing cloacal lavages or anything to check to see if the count/field is reducing?
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We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children. Ralph Waldo Emerson

>>It sounds like this case was pretty far advanced by the time treatment was started. Coccidians are difficult to eliminate anyway. I normally use Sulfadimethoxine (Albon) oral for Coccidians, and when caught fairly early it may take 7 or 8 treatments to eliminate them.
>>
>>I assume she's stopped feeding by now making obtaining a fecal sample difficult. Are you doing cloacal lavages or anything to check to see if the count/field is reducing?
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>>We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children. Ralph Waldo Emerson

That's the weird part. This snake has been healthy for the past year I've had her. No signs of illness. She eats fine and never had a regurge. I found out about the coccidia when I had a fecal done on her after a customer reported their corn having worms to make sure she didn't have worms-no worms, just coccidia. She still passes feces fine, and the count reduced, but then suddenly went back up again. She was treated for 7 days with .3cc of Albon, then she began spitting up pus from her gastrointestinal tract. So she was put on .1cc Amikacin for another week. The pus stopped coming up. Shortly after stopping the amikacin, I had another fecal done, and the coccidia had been reduced, but not eliminated. That was 4 days ago. She was put on sulfa again, unfortunately it was in pill form, so I had to mix it myself. 3 days into the treatment, I noticed the hard, greenish tinted lump in her midsection-it had not been there before. The vet aspirated the blue green fluid, which was filled with wall to wall eimeria. I haven't tried to feed her since the vet visit yesterday.

-cat
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Lower Ground Reptiles

www.lowergroundreptiles.net