Retained Shed Indentication and Treatment

[d_virginiana]

It's good to know retained eye-caps aren't usually a huge problem. That's mainly what I worry about with my oldest one, since it's pretty much impossible to tell.

[ConcinusMan]

They can be. They can be very serious. They can cause blindness/loss of the eye/life threatening infection if the eye.

[d_virginiana]

They can be. They can be very serious. They can cause blindness/loss of the eye/life threatening infection if the eye.

Would they normally cause problems that bad between one shed and the next, or is that more if it builds up over several sheds like the cobra that was mentioned?
Any suggestions on how I could tell with a blind snake? His eyes, especially his left one, are very clouded by what appear to be cataracts, and are almost always 'murky' and dark looking. I try to find the eyecaps on every shed, but sometimes they're mangled too badly to tell. I always worry that something bad is going to happen if I miss one.

[ConcinusMan]

Once or twice retained shouldn't be a problem. It's only a problem if the snake (and the eye of course) continues to grow and the skin continuously fails to come off. It would be like putting a collar on a puppy, and failing to adjust it for a year.

[d_virginiana]

Sounds like something that would be a lot worse on a young snake.

[Artic Exotics]

They can be. They can be very serious. They can cause blindness/loss of the eye/life threatening infection if the eye.

I second this. You do not want to have to deal with this... 100_0900.jpg

This Amazon tree boa had extensive retained caps which lead to an infection and total blockage of the lacrimal duct. Without an open pathway into the infection antibiotic therapy failed. Surgical drainage of the eye was the only viable option as shown here. After initial improvement this poor creature lost the eye and sadly due to complications of losing the eye eventually passed.

Diagnosis and treatment for retained caps is easy enough for home herpers to do when caught early but that certainly doesn't mean it should be taken lightly.

[guidofatherof5]

I looked in on this Iowa albino (T-) maleT.radix - Plains Garter today and gave him a nice big night crawler. Not wanting to see a fight breakout I put him in a tub to finish his meal. Once in the tub I noticed some wrinkles in his skin which was a clear indication of a retained shed. There were no other indicators that he had a retained shed.
After 30 minutes in a warm shed box I did a manual shed on him. The shed came off with little trouble.

[guidofatherof5]

I looked in on this Iowa albino (T-) maleT.radix - Plains Garter today and gave him a nice big night crawler. Not wanting to see a fight breakout I put him in a tub to finish his meal. Once in the tub I noticed some wrinkles in his skin which was a clear indication of a retained shed. There were no other indicators that he had a retained shed.
After 30 minutes in a warm shed box I did a manual shed on him. The shed came off with little trouble.

Please feel free to ad any photo to this thread that might assist other keepers in identifying retained sheds.

[d_virginiana]

I'll try and get a picture up of Harley's skin while it still looks like it does (hard to capture on the camera). It looks almost exactly like that, despite the vet confirming that there is no trace of retained shed left on the body, except that it's the actual scales being bent it two, not one scale being too stiff and pushing the others out of place as it looks like in this picture. Before the shed was removed two months ago, it looked more like this.

Might be useful in helping people see some differences between retained shed and damaged skin from other causes. It's such a slight difference, but if I'd realized it a month ago I could've gotten the parasite treatment started before it got this bad instead of just thinking it was a complication from the retained shed.

[guidofatherof5]

I found that Speckle had some retained belly scales so I placed her in a nice warm shed box.
I posted this photo as an example of a working shed box. As you can see the water was warm so humidity formed on the sides.
Warm water really helps to soften up the old shed.