Western hognose, about a year, had her since June. Twice this week I picked her up and she went into a whole performance: hissing, flattening her neck out, then writhing and twitching and rolling onto her back with her mouth open. The second time there was a smell.
I have read that this is the famous act. But I cannot tell the act from a seizure by looking at it, and that is the bit I am stuck on. How do people actually distinguish them?
Since it is only been happening this week, the useful question is what changed. Have you used anything near the enclosure: a mite treatment, a flea product on a pet in the same room, aerosols, a cleaning spray, an air freshener. And check your bedding, because aromatic shavings are a common cause of neurological signs in reptiles and cedar in particular is widely advised against.
Also measure both ends with a probe. Temperatures a long way out in either direction will do this too.
Mine has done the full death scene at a passing cat. They are theatrical to a degree that stops being funny after the third time.
If it does turn out to be the other thing, do two things before you ring anyone. Film it, because you will not be able to describe writhing versus tremors in a way that means anything over the phone and the vet will ask. And strip anything out that could be a toxin: change aromatic bedding, stop any treatment you started, open a window.
I overdosed a mite spray in 2022 and the twitching was the first sign. The vet's first question was whether I had video, and I did not.
@took_a_video · 4w ago · 3 replies
You have the distinguishing feature already and did not notice you had it: both times it happened when you picked her up. The display needs a trigger. Something startles her, she performs, and if you leave her alone she gets over it in a few minutes and goes back to being a snake.
The neurological version does not wait to be provoked. It happens while she is resting, with nothing done to her, and it keeps coming back. So the question is not what the movement looks like, it is what was happening in the thirty seconds before it started.
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@rolled_over_twice · 4w ago
What would I actually be looking for if it were the bad version? Twitching is all I have to go on.
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@took_a_video · 4w ago
Tremors rather than writhing, head wobbling, stargazing where the head goes up and stays there, corkscrewing, and trouble righting herself. That last one matters with a hognose: the act ends with her flipping back over because to her mind dead snakes lie belly up. A snake that cannot right itself is not acting.
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