Potential shed issue

[guidofatherof5]

Not sure what substrate your using but maybe paper towels would be good until she recovers.

[d_virginiana]

I'm using newspaper. I can switch to paper towels for awhile though. I was going to change out her bedding tomorrow anyway.

I have noticed that as of yesterday she had started actively burrowing up under it to hide like normal instead of just crawling under her hide or water dish.

[d_virginiana]

Okay, so Harley vomited more water today. I'm starting to really worry about that since she's normally very calm, and isn't acting as stressed as you'd expect a snake to act when they're about to regurge something. Like, she'll be just sitting on my hand, tongue-flicking, and all of a sudden water is coming out of her mouth... I realize that stress is almost definitely part of the problem here since this seems to mainly happen when she's held, but I'm starting to wonder if there's some underlying problem as well. For instance, whether she's just drinking all this excess water because her skin being soft is causing her to dehydrate more quickly, or if there's a more worrying reason for it.

I'm not handling her more than about 30 seconds in a day, and I wouldn't even be doing that, except I feel like I should try and keep tabs on how she's moving and how her skin is hardening up. Especially since the scales at the vent area were also affected and wrinkled by whatever made the rest of her scales so soft. Nothing is puffy or infected looking, and things seem to still be moving through correctly, but that's something I'm going to be watching like crazy.

I have access to a reptile specialty vet, but it's something that would be expensive enough that I'd like to avoid it if at all possible...

[d_virginiana]

Today's update: She's still drinking crazy amounts of water, but seems to feel better than she has. She hasn't regurgitated any today either. Constantly tongue flicking and she was never in the same place twice when I looked in on her today.

[chris-uk]

She sounds like she's improving.

[d_virginiana]

Okay, new problem today.

I got a couple of the belly scales that I had missed previously off because they were flaking on their own, and the skin underneath was a pink color and extremely soft. There's no significant swelling in the area as of now, and she doesn't act like it's painful. This weird pink color was only where the skin had been covered by the scales and hadn't spread beyond where they were at all (I didn't know anything was weird till I removed them) so I'm hoping this isn't infected yet.
Just to be safe, I coated that small area in betadine just in case there were any nicks or tears in the soft skin I couldn't see. I have a midterm tomorrow, so no pics tonight probably, but I'll try and get pics up by tomorrow.

Other than that, she seemed to move more normally after I got those few scales off, and is acting just as happy and alert as she was yesterday if not more. Also the scales on her back and sides are feeling almost normal.

[guidofatherof5]

I'm confused. It sounds like you removed the scale rather then the shed on the scale. Pink underneath would be actual skin. Am I reading something wrong?

[d_virginiana]

Yeah, sorry. The shed was finally flaking off on those last few, and then underneath was that strange pink color. There was one where the shed had only been left on about half a scale, and the left side that I had removed earlier was orange, and the right side that had had the shed on it was pink underneath. Best way I can describe it is you know how your skin looks if you leave a bandaid on too long, and water gets under it?
They flaked right off though like all the others did.

[d_virginiana]

Do you think this could be because the shed on those scales was partially loosened while I was getting the shed off the surrounding areas, and somehow water/oil got trapped between the shed and the skin, causing that to happen? Because the other areas I didn't get (most of her face, a small portion of the neck, and a fair amount of the tail) don't all look like that.

I'll try and get pictures up tomorrow. When I checked back in on her tonight, the pink coloration was starting to look a little more normal. Like the area was 'drying out'. I also want to put up a picture of the vent area. Where the scales are still sort of soft, the scale right over the vent is bent, leaving a little bit exposed that probably shouldn't be. Barely enough to notice, but still. Right now all I'm doing is checking daily to make sure no debris is caught in/around it, but I kind of want to put it up to see what you guys think.

[chris-uk]

I didn't see anything like you've described when I had difficult sheds with my FTT checkered girl last year, but I didn't use anything other than water, a scalpel blade and tweasers. It could conceivably be down to the oil. Best bet is to pop a few photos up.