Was the enlarged heart since she was a hatchling?
Yes, she was born with it enlarged.
Do they progressively get worse?
It's just me, nor the breeder never noticed until now.
It can happen at any time.I had a 7yo mac that developed an enlarged heart directly after a first feed coming out of winter cooling.Have also heard of it happening with another couple of pythons of different species under the same circumstance as the mac.
If she was born with it I would take it to the vet to see if it's life threatening
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I have seen about fifteen pythons with an enlarged heart over the last ten years. It is a congenital form of cardiomyopathy I suspect and I hope to write a paper on the subject if I can get enough data and organise a respected anatomist to do the post mortems. Almost all the snakes I have seen were either Carpets or Diamond Pythons. All subjects encountered health problems at some stage - either poor growth, diminished appetite and lethargy all the way to anaemia , sudden death or renal failure. The problem is congenital and varies in severity. A firm swelling located about 1/3 of the way down the body is almost always an enlarged heart. Some cases displayed an obvious pulse over the swelling and detectable heart sounds with a stethoscope. Needle aspirates of blood are conclusive. No treatment is possible. Given the three chambered anatomy of the snake heart , the exact nature of the abnormality would be very interesting to investigate. Maybe someone has already done the research but information is hard to find.
and will appear at virtually any age and cause a variety of symptoms
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