There's a squishy bump on my snake!

[Blackavar15]

One of my babies has a squishy bump on it's side about 1/3 down it's body. I fed them on Friday and observed nothing wrong with any of the little guys (I handle every one of them before and after feeding). The bump is pretty small (about the size of a BB) and is soft and malleable to the touch. I'm pretty worried, since this has popped up so fast. I'm wondering if it could be a parasite transmitted through a feeder fish? I've heard that it can happen when feeding live fish. The guy is still pretty small and I'm not sure how he would handle a vet visit and treatment. Has anyone ever run across this before? What was it and what did you do for treatment?

[Invisible Snake]

A few ppl on here have successfully removed subcutaneous parasites from their garters. Can you post pictures of the area?

[guidofatherof5]

Agreed, we need a photo.

[Blackavar15]

98999900
Here's a photo of the bump up close and it's location on the left hand garter snake in the second picture

[BLUESIRTALIS]

It looks like subcutaneous worms to me! Which is a parasite sometimes spread through feeding fish!

[guidofatherof5]

The placement is right for a worm. A Vet. can easily remove it or?
A small incision is all that is needed. The worm usually pops out once the incision is made. Clean instruments and hands and some betadine is all that is needed.
Best of luck.

[Blackavar15]

Wow, so I guess I'm freezing my feeder fish from now on before feeding my babies! That's pretty nasty :P
I'm pretty good at doctoring my reptiles, so I will try and extract this fiend tonight. I'll let you guys know how it goes!

[Blackavar15]

9901
That was really gross.
After some delicate work I was able to extricate the worm. It's so huge! It was all curled up to the size of a BB. The baby bit me like crazy, which was kind of cute since he's so small. He's in quarantine right now and under close observation! Thanks you guys :D

[gibble888]

From eating live fish? Friggen nasty!!

[gibble888]

Good job!

[guidofatherof5]

You did good.

[chris-uk]

From eating live fish? Friggen nasty!!

Yep. Another reason why frozen food is better than live.

[Selkielass]

Good job!
he should heal very quickly. The couple lumps I've drained were infection/ foreign materials, but once the offending matter was removed, the nicks healed up in a matter of days.

ive got a year old puget with a similar lump, but I've been putting off surgery as his weight is low and his attitude worse.... But I can't fatten him up when all he will eat are live guppies. Argh.

[ConcinusMan]

They'll "only eat live guppies" because you keep letting them have them. You give in. Believe me, they'll eat just about anything when they're hungry enough and their "favorite" is no longer being offered! When they know they'll get their preferred food sooner or later, they'll just refuse to eat anything else!

Where there's one worm there's others. They are probably burrowing through your snakes as we speak. One adult just happened to make it to the surface is all. There's more, you can count on it. Besides the change of diet, a course of antibiotics AND antiparasitic drugs are in order or else the next one could end up in a lung, or burrowing right through a vital organ. You can bet there's more. Most worms like this don't begin to burrow out through tissue until they are mature. There's probably ones still in there maturing as we speak.

I've had people flat refuse my advice to deworm "because I don't see any symptoms". Well, after the worm matures and starts devastating organs and tissue on it's way out, it's often too late. This could be the first of multiple worms or there may already be mature ones burrowed into organs and tissue without any outward signs as of yet. One thing's for sure, it only takes one of these to devastate their immune system causing secondary infections, and/or kill them by getting into the lung or by internal bleeding/organ damage. Simply removing this one worm and changing the diet does very little to help if there's more of them and it's a pretty safe bet there is.