Reptile & Amphibian Forums

N/P

The obvious answer is no, your hots are safe.

However

There are many questions in regard's to IBD and snakes;
For starters, the cause of IBD is unknown. A retrovirus is a candidate but has not been proven.

Inclusion bodies resembling (but not identical) those of IBD disease in boids have been found in colubrids, namely corn snakes which died of IBD like symptoms, and also in eyelash vipers. While empirical evidence suggests that there is no connection it still can be hypothosized that this is the boid IBD pathogen displaying in other species.

Secondly, boid IBD is both under diagnosed, and overdiagnosed. I say under diagnosed because in some snakes, boa constrictors for example, the disease can be undetected for years. I say overdiagnosed because often a jump to IBD is made without the conclusive electron microscopic evidence. Therefore, it is quite possible that this disease manifests in other species either pathogenically or in a carrier state and has yet to be detected.

Well, that was a fun ramble, coincidently I'm currently doing a research paper on IBD and am using kingsnake.com to procrastinate. The best thing to do is follow what should be standard quarantine procedures, stay clean, and don't mix any animals together. As for specifically boid to hot direct transfer, I would say the risk is minimal but unclear.

Hope this helps...

stupid question but I'm not sure what it is, thanks for any replies
Wayne

Call it " Inclusive Body Disease "/ Intrusive Body Disease " / make it both at one time with Boa and or Boid instead of Body, but it is pretty near fatal and whether it mimics another disease or other diseases mimics it, I don't know other than having personally seeing the disease in Boas and having venomous and a few colubrids come down with something looking very similar to IBD. While pathogens and some other things were diagnosed, with the same star gazing, same head twirling, etc. , they all had the same appearance of IBD as IBD has been explained. Note of my experience of IBD or look alike of effected species :

North American Crotalus, specifically in Atrox, Adamanteus, Lepidus, and maybe molossus
Pituophis > Pines and large bulls
a half dozen species of boas that i kept or knew someone else kept.

I have a snake that has been holding part of its body in a kink for about a month know she can move below the kink but doesnt like to and sometimes that end of her body is laying on its back however her head seems find shes alert and reactive no head twirling or staring up, i'm thinking she somehow broke a vertebrate, please let me know what you think

Please see below for more info on IBD, but this most definatly is not a concern with your snakes condition. Truthfully I find it appalling that you left this for a month without seeking treatment, but that is the course that you should go now. If you need help finding a hot herp vet call around to local vet clinics and see who they refer these cases too. Also use www.arav.com, herpvetconnect, and local herp society's recommendations.

For your interest, IBD stands for Inclusion Body Disease. Sometimes you will see BIBD which denotes Boid Inclusion Body Disease. The name of this condition reflects microscopic changes in epithelial cells around the body. The neurological symptoms are often associated with the encephalitis caused by these changes.
As I said before, IBD is often over diagnosed and the above poster's scenerio is quite unlikely (in the fact that such spread has not been documented before) and is more likely contributed to another unknown factor. Without being judgemental on this person other things can cause widespread neurological symptoms among a collection. For example the use of no-pest strips and no ventilation.

The snakes a big retic and i happen to know quite a bit about snake medicine, i'm also an EMT so i see a lot of spinal injuries. If the snake is comfortable which she is i certainly am not going to risk rebreaking a healing bone and theres no way to move her without doing so, its getting better i just wondered if it was possibly something else, think before you jump to conclusions, let me put it this way if you where in a wreck they would put a c collar on you and strap you to a spine board so you couldnt move thats the first rule of spinal injuries and seeing as the snakes condition isnt worsening i'm not going to comprimise her spine and possibly paralyse her.

Snake medicine or EMT or whatever, your not a doctor or a vet. I think I may know lots too but know when to seek out a proffesional. So we may agree to disagree, whatever,...

As far as treatment goes have you consulted a vet with your problem? A great vet may do a house call, and some do have mobile X-ray machines, ultrasounds, blood samples can be taken at home ect. Another possibility for travel is to have a large rubbermaid tub put into the enclosure as a hide box, then when found inside, you can close it up and take to the vet. A little innovation may be necessary, but once in the clinic, analgesics and anesthetics can be used for safety reasons, a proper examination, and X-ray.

Hope this helps

A quote from a great herp guy here on these forums;

"It's what you learn after you know it all that matters"

and if you read my post, some have the quasi looking effects of IBD no matter. This is still in relation to other species other than boids. My concise example is a ghost Trans Pecos Rat Snake that was diagnosed with IBD. Also a Lepidus from Mexico that gave a persons whole collection the neurological disorder. Now on my opinion and observation of WHAT you said was maybe the reason for cross contamination or the snake receiving the problems, long term captives came down with it, proper ventilation has been no problem same as proper temperature and humidity or not, while some animals may not of been quarantined properly I will admit. It seems that the biggest factor of my observations and been on the receiving end whether IBD or not is stress factor and particular out of hibernation/estivation and or upon breeding season. I'm relating all of this of my 40 plus years of keeping and breeding. I'm not saying that I know everything but this is my experience. It has been over 10 years since i have personally seen the disease no matter what it is/was. The boids that got it continued to live but they were such a mess...while the rat snake and the hots were treated but to no good and I have forgotten what exactly was used in treatment but want to say some medication starting with the letter T that can be found now in generic from. It was injected and numerous follow ups was in order at the price of $400 on the rat snake.

It is interesting that Inclusion Body disease was diagnosed on your rat snake. Was electron microscopy used in the diagnoses? While the actual disease description is for boids, there has been a few cases where colubrids and vipers (eyelash) have shown similar symptoms and upon necropsy and histology displayed inclusion bodies similar to those in boids. THere are differences (membrane bound electron dense material), but it is still uncertain if this is because it is a different virus, or because it is in a different host. There are definately more questions than answers. You are right though, a neuro disorder is a neuro disorder, and the symptoms are generally caused by encephalitis (inflammation of brain and blood:brain barrier) which is a result of cells damaged by the disease.

All very interesting

yes to all of your above but with the only vet available and other resources of times gone by, i would most likely agree that some diagnoses of old might of been wrong and including some self diagnoses. The venomous collection cross contamination was done by that little old snake tongs where as to the water bowls were handled by the same tongs from cage to cage. The only other specie of snake that has had a severe look alike syndrome of IBD that i had forgot is the gray-banded king that has decimated many lone snake in a collection or collections of past. Very common signs of the onslaught or actual infection is the star gazing and if not before the eventually twisting and looping of body and or head. My understanding is that there is more of a pathogen ( if it is what causes ) of vector in species of some snakes for infection including boas and some southwest desert species. The last i heard was if it was more present ( the thought is there ) in wild collected species oppose to captive bred. In my observations it seems to be true of past even if the signs were years off in that particular snake hence the infection of the boas, the rat snake, numbers of alterna and the venomous.