OPMV....know much about it?

[JungleRob]

Excuse me Brett. I still have the male at home thanks. If you recall, that was sold to me as a female and only later found out it was a male. What good is two males? I kept your male for the required EPA 6 months and then sold it to you.

I keep all my animals on newspaper, you'll find alot of keepers do Brett. You're out of line mate.

 

[JungleRob]

OPMV will kill an animal quicker then 9 months . Jim

You have an amazing jungle male Brett. It is 100% healthy I guarantee that. If you're not happy with him I'll gladly take him off your hands for what you paid for him. Post pics and see what other members think.

I think you've flown off the handle a bit here and I see why, but I still stand by saying I have not done wrong by you.

Give me a call if you want a talk, you have my numbers/email/address etc.

Cheers,

Rob

 

[Sdaji]

Heh, funny posts, rockman. Actually, none of what I posted was directed at you, or anyone personally. You seem to have missed the parts of my post which said that sometimes vets do some good and in some cases going to a vet is going to be the best option for certain people. I didn't say every single vet is bad, I said most of them are. Most (yes, including most of those who specialise in reptiles) frequently give out absurd information, which is destructive. I don't know why you're accusing me of suggesting people should come to me, I have no interest at all in taking on the role of a vet and didn't make any big claims about my own skill/knowledge/etc. As I expected and predicted, I got flack for my post, so be it. This is yet another situation where people want to believe what they've been told and get emotional about anyone suggesting their trusted sources may be unreliable. I'll point it out again, sometimes some vets do some good, don't try to say I've claimed otherwise.

Some specialist reptile vets will be of use for some problems, a (very) few will even be good enough to either help you or admit that they can't. If you have a simple, common problem, such as a respiratory infection etc, any vet will be able to give you antibiotics and send you on your way. Virtually none are able to deal with something like OPMV or IBD, virtually none even understand how to diagnose it, in fact, it's virtually impossible to diagnose some of these diseases which vets will claim to be the cause of death. In many cases, we get vets giving out absurd information such as "Your snake died of Salmonella", based on the fact that Salmonella was found on the dead snake. (Salmonella is found on virtually any healthy snake, it's normal and supposed to be there).

TrueBlue: I wouldn't say none, but there are very few. I know that many of the so called best ones are pathetic.

 

[rockman]

Sdaji , i must be one of the luckiest guys around , i found a vet that is good , does not frequently give out absurb information , she is able to deal with something like OPMV , she even knows how to diagnose it , she's not pathetic and she uses a lab to get results , post portem , and sometimes she does not charge me for her work due to the fact i'm working with her on the OPMV ( providing imformation where i can ) . She also work in with one of the leading vets in Australia , who is doing a study on OPMV & IBD . She also works as a full-time wildlife carer and a genuine interest in animals especially reptiles .

This is yet another situation where people want to believe what they've been told and get emotional about anyone suggesting their trusted sources may be unreliable.

And yes i do believe the lab that she uses . Would you like me to pass her name onto you so you expand your knowledge a little bit more than what it is now ? , that way when you next open your mouth , some good might come of it !

 

[Sdaji]

Why are you so upset, rockman? Strange that you're making such strong attacks. I didn't single you or your vet out and didn't say that there are no good vets. I didn't actually make a reference to you at all in my initial post. You seem to think I was making some huge claim about myself, I didn't make any boasts, I just said that I know a lot of people with a great deal more knowledge than herp vets. Considering I've spent the last few years in biology labs and animal houses, and most of the people I associate with are employed in these places, it's hardly surprising I have these contacts. You took offence when I said that many vets take advantage of naive people, as though I was attacking people who are naive. Of course we all have to start out somewhere! There's nothing wrong with being naive, if we weren't naive we'd never need the help of anyone else. To some extent we're all naive, even in our own areas. I was saying that it's bad that many vets take advantage of this (of course you're naive if you're going to a vet, being naive simply means there's stuff you don't know... if you knew everything you wouldn't have to ask anyone for help). By definition, if you're seeking help from a vet (or anyone else) you're naive; it's not something bad and I've never made that indication. You're doing just what I predicted and giving me a testimonial of your experience with a good vet. Heh.

I see I'm being misquoted. I request that the moderators delete the post in which I'm wrongly accused of saying (in red) "Don't bother taking it to a vet", among other things. I did not say such a thing and am not happy about having words put in my mouth like that. If you're in a situation where you can't deal with a problem and have no better alternative, by all means, go straight to a vet. I've never said otherwise.

As for your question, no, I haven't had any 'hands on' experience with OPMV and neither have most of the Australians who think/claim they have. I have seen a couple of collections with supposed cases of OPMV, some of which may have been genuine. Hoser has been mentioned, I was actually at Ray Hoser's house at the time just after he lost the first snake he assumed to be due to OPMV and the next day the second died. At the time I was in frequent contact with him and closely followed the happenings, but I can't claim any 'hands on' experience because there is no way in hell I'd touch any snakes suspected of carrying a serious disease and if mine were in doubt, I'd euthenase them unless I could have them kept in a seperate building from any other animals. Hoser was calling me frantically at first because he was unsure of where this disease had come from and he'd obtained a pair of death adders from the same clutch I had at that time (it turned out that the breeder of those adders was certainly not the cause). I've been in frequent contact with a few people during their supposed cases of OPMV, most of them clearly were not OPMV, some just might have been, none were 100% confirmed, despite some claims made by vets involved.

Since you seem to have trouble understanding this, rockman, I'll point it out as the last (as well as pretty well the first) thing in this post....

I know nothing about you or your vet, none of my criticism of vets is directed at yours. You don't need to take it personally.

 

[olivehydra]

I see I'm being misquoted. I request that the moderators delete the post in which I'm wrongly accused of saying (in red) "Don't bother taking it to a vet", among other things. I did not say such a thing and am not happy about having words put in my mouth like that. If you're in a situation where you can't deal with a problem and have no better alternative, by all means, go straight to a vet. I've never said otherwise.

.

Done sir.

 

[Morelia_Hunter]

I would like to see you euthenase your beloved water pythons if you had a suspision they were ill. On just a suspision!! Clearly you dont know what you are talking about mate. About ten years ago when I was still living in SA i was given a little Burmese Python, this snake ended up having IBD. Its the worst thing as I had a massive collection of adult pythons. Where exactly do you start euthenasing? Especially when some of the snakes can actually be resistant to it?

 

[Sdaji]

I would like to see you euthenase your beloved water pythons if you had a suspision they were ill. On just a suspision!! Clearly you dont know what you are talking about mate. About ten years ago when I was still living in SA i was given a little Burmese Python, this snake ended up having IBD. Its the worst thing as I had a massive collection of adult pythons. Where exactly do you start euthenasing? Especially when some of the snakes can actually be resistant to it?

You're saying that because I'd be more cautious than some I don't know what I'm talking about? Right :roll: Some would be more cautious than I.

What happened with your IBD infected python?

 

[Morelia_Hunter]

I nuked it.

 

[Sdaji]

Oh, you euthenased it, did you? But I'd be crazy if I did the same?

 

[AntaresiaLady]

I've read this entire thread through, and am no more enlightened than when I started. If OPMV is a virus (as some people have eluded to) then shouldn't it be stoppable? Perhaps not curable in animals that have it, but able to be stopped from being spread?

Other people have spoken about 'causing' the virus somehow...heating or something...how does that happen?

And telling people to go google it isn't very helpful. Perhaps more information on OPMV and less paranoia would do people like myself good instead of confusing us.

If I think my snake has mites- I'm going to ask people in the know here about it- why should I be ashamed or frightened? Mites, worms and other parasites are so easily caught that it seems ridiculous for people to be shunning other people because of them. Bought a 2nd hand enclosure? Could contain mites or worms....held someone elses animals and not washed up as well as you should have? Did the snake touch your shirt? Been out bushwalking?

Mites and the like are likely to occur in new reptile owners collections, as usually they are naive about what to look for. I myself, am naive to what to look for- and after hearing all the things I have about WA dealers, I'm hesitant to believe anything any of them say!

I'm going to go google OPMV as it seems to be the only way I'll find anything useful out about it, as I certainly didn't get it from this thread.

And Sdaji, I had no trouble understanding your posts.

 

[Sdaji]

Yes, OPMV is a virus. Yes, you can stop it by making sure no animals ever come into contact with it.

Because of the concerns you pointed out, and others, I wouldn't buy a second hand enclosure and am very careful if I have anything to do with reptiles outside my collection, or even people who own reptiles. Mites should never be a problem in a collection. If you're careful you'll probably never get them. Mites are easy to spot and if you quarantine all new arrivals, it will never get into your collection. I treat my new animals for mites, even though they don't have them. If you touch reptiles in someone else's collection, you should wash your clothes and have a shower before touching your own or anyone else's collection.

Glad you had no trouble understanding my post

( ? )

 

[AntaresiaLady]

Thanks for that bit of clarification Sdaji!

I have a 2nd hand enclosure (bought from a dealer), so my concerns are obvious. From now on though, we will be buying an enclosure new, or make it ourselves. Much less worry.

I worry tonnes anyway- its just my nature! I'm always stressing about something going wrong!
What are some symptoms of OPMV?

 

[Sdaji]

If you're going to use a second hand enclosure, you really do want to disinfect it. There are many methods you can use, but I'd give the enclosure a thorough wash with 10% bleach, allow it to dry completely, repeat a few times and do the same with ethanol a couple of times. Getting something new is always preferable, but disinfecting it should be fine.

If you do some googling on OPMV you'll see that the experts don't always agree on the symptoms. You'll see that there really isn't all that much known about it and most of what you see is supposition. A lot of what you'll read is incorrect, you can see this, if nothing else, by virtue of a lot of the different sources giving facts which are mutually exclusive.

 

[AntaresiaLady]

So I shouldn't take one persons word as gospel, and I should trust my instincts.

Fair enough.

And I disinfected the enclosure quite a lot! I wanted to be sure.

 

[olivehydra]

Vets talk crap, in almost all cases (including the well respected ones, I won't name names, but most of the highly recommended ones don't know much more than your average frozen pink mice), they have no idea what they're talking about. They have to say something as an excuse for charging you a heap of money, so they'll come up with something. I know of countless cases of absurd diagnoses made by vets and I know many people who know a heck of a lot more than any vet. I suppose if you don't have knowledgable contacts and you have a sick animal, you're in a lot of trouble and might be desperate enough to go to a vet, but in most cases you'd be better off doing nothing at all. I'll probably get a heap of people giving testimonials about how a vet helped them etc etc and yes, at times a vet might help, but for every time they help there are times they've hurt and many, many times they've done nothing more than charge money for wasting peoples' time.

Giving a false diagnosis, especially when they're telling people they have highly destructive diseases, is horribly irresponsible. This is not a case of erring on the side of caution, it causes problems. If snakes are diagnosed with OPMV/IBD etc etc, which actually don't have these diseases, people notice that their other snakes aren't dying and start thinking that these diseases actually aren't a big problem. They describe their experiences to others and others think they know how to deal with the situation, but if they do happen to get a genuine case of a disease, they'll not deal with it appropriately. Giving out serious misdagnoses also makes people apathetic. If we all hear about these diseases floating about everywhere, but nothing much ever comes of it, we think it's common but not a real problem, thus, we take the situation less seriously. This is all another case of misinformation being spread, causing damage to our hobby. It's sad that in this case the so called professionals are being paid to do it by naive keepers.

I would have to say that in part I would agree. I feel that I now have a very good vet on hand, but have had some amusing consultations in the past. I visiited one vet who advertised himself as being an "exotic" specialist for birds and reptiles :? His test for IBD and OPMV was to observe the snake climbing on a perch. Anything less than surefootedness was then diagnosed as either being "probably" IBD or OPMV? I would imagine this could be somewhat disturbing for some??

 

[rockman]

I wasn't saying all vets are good , we have all a dodgy one , but not all vets are idiots either . Look at the amount of vets that have been mentioned on this site , are they all crap ? Some of the well known members have given them the ok . Does that make them naive ?

 

[olivehydra]

I wasn't saying all vets are good , we have all a dodgy one , but not all vets are idiots either . Look at the amount of vets that have been mentioned on this site , are they all crap ? Some of the well known members have given them the ok . Does that make them naive ?

Nup, I think my vet is the bees knees. Very knowledgable and keeps herps himself. I would be only to happy to recommend him to anyone in the Sydney area.

 

[zulu]

olivehydra said :

His test for IBD and OPMV was to observe the snake climbing on a perch. Anything less than surefootedness was then diagnosed as either being "probably" IBD or OPMV? I would imagine this could be somewhat disturbing for some??

Well i havent gone through the branch routine but yeh if things show neurological symptoms or move irregular they suspect IBD or OPMV.A friend had quite a die off and would get post mortem after post mortem costing a fortune and results were inconclusive and he went to a prominent penrith herp vet and he looked and said OPMV.The real cause that vets disnt pick up on was that the snakes were kept in a garage and even with fans on constantly they get too hot in summer and it gradually wears them down effecting the immune system.Yeh things that die first from constant overheating is diamonds and jungles etc and even the ones like bhps and womas etc cant cop it for too long without something packing it in,as i think sadji said they have salmonella all the time but it onley effects them when the immune system packs up.A prominent herper that used to oversee the reptiles at featherdale once told me that overheatingon a constant basis was one of the biggest problems with herps and most think it is under heating.I use trueblues methods of keeping now and have no problem,many of these overheated snakes ime talking about actually bred including BHPs cause that activity was when the months was cooler.Ide gather that rockman would use trueblues methods but i dont know for sure,i wouldnt argue with the vets if they said he had OPMV in twelth cases,he seems to have overcome the infection and thats great news,losing that many snakes is a heartbreaker.

 

[Wrasse]

Well i havent gone through the branch routine but yeh if things show neurological symptoms or move irregular they suspect IBD or OPMV.A friend had quite a die off and would get post mortem after post mortem costing a fortune and results were inconclusive and he went to a prominent penrith herp vet and he looked and said OPMV.The real cause that vets disnt pick up on was that the snakes were kept in a garage and even with fans on constantly they get too hot in summer and it gradually wears them down effecting the immune system.Yeh things that die first from constant overheating is diamonds and jungles etc and even the ones like bhps and womas etc cant cop it for too long without something packing it in,as i think sadji said they have salmonella all the time but it onley effects them when the immune system packs up.

This is what I have been saying.

People/Vets scream OPMV without going into the other causes of RI or Neurological symptoms. While OPMV is the catchcry, Vets have a good excuse not to look any further. This is not out of laziness, just lack of knowledge.

Antaresia Lady, no-one will give you a straight answer about OPMV, because, as Sdaji pointed out, no-one has one.

In a quick nutshell, without getting deep into variiants: As I understand it, there appears to be two forms to OPMV.

-One is the RI symptom form, which, it is thought/understood, if they can get past it, they can recover from.
-One being neurological, where head control, stargazing, bodily control/motor control, is uncontrolled. This form has pretty much shown itself to be untreatable.

Both forms, eventually, (the RI form if not treated successfully) may result in pneumonia and do result in lesions of the brain which of course, kills. It is these lesions that are looked for in a Post Mortem Electron Microscopy. (Super magnifed microscope).

Of course, if the lesions are not found in an EM, it doesn't rule OPMV out but it doesn't prove it either. Back to square one, do you have OPMV in your collection or don't you? It is this elusiveness that makes it so easy for people/vets to fall back on OPMV as an excuse.

OPMV stands for - Ophidian Paromyxovirus