Not personally, but a friend of mine had something identical with his grey rat snake. I helped him hold the animal while he made a small incision and squeezed out some cauceous (sp) looking matter. Swabbed and spritzed it with some virosan and it was never an issue after that.

I'd likely do the same. whether abscess or tumor, it needs to come out.  the primary danger is infection afterward. if it's her tooth, possible the infection may spread to her jaw, although whatever it is, it looks to have a pretty tight capsule.

It is indeed very localized and looks ready to pop right now. I don't think it's going to take much. Just be sure to swab it with clorox.

*chlorhexidine*  yeah clorox would be bad

my friend had a snake with a mouth abscess (skelegirl on here). for a few months afterwards, there was periodic scooping out of the hollow. I think there was subsequent flushing with chlorhex and packing with silvadene, or some similar regimen, to prevent return.

if it IS an abscess and it's been there a long time, the capsule (built up of layers of epidermis to protect surrounding tissues from spread of infection) won't collapse immediately upon getting rid of the pus.

What you've said was my plan as well... however I do not have chlorhexidine or virosan on hand. I checked with my local pet store and searched online at petco and petsmart and the search did not show they carried such. Maybe at a drug store?? Are there other options for flushing the area with? Would a weak betadine solution... or one of Listerine be beneficial? Just thinking of what I have on hand... what to use tonight and this weekend to prevent infection until I could get the other - which sounds like one of those is something I should have on hand. I wouldn't intentionally be looking for her to swallow any, but you never know what might happen. Another set of hands would be awesome, too!

or Hydrogen peroxide?

peroxide is BAD near any mucuos membranes -

I'd use listerine (only the CHILDREN'S to be sure there's no alcohol) and antibiotic cream (not ointment) if you don't have silvadene around. weak betadine is probably OK?? but as it's in her mouth you're a bit more restricted. 

be careful she doesn't aspirate any, too!

I'd use listerine (only the CHILDREN'S to be sure there's no alcohol)

I was just fixing to say the same thing.

oh, George, I do adore you :)

chicks dig me

and a few dudes also

I don't see why the diluted betadine would be a problem if you have some already on hand.

Very good... peroxide only came to mind because that's what the doctor had my son swish around in his mouth for a few days after a neighbor's dog bit him and there was a laceration inside the mouth that they wouldn't stitch due to it being a bite.

I've been googling and I can find the 2 available to order online, but locally I'm coming up empty. No betadine solution? or what about a saline?

I believe I have some silvadene cream... Aimee, you saying to "pack" that in the area and it's okay within the mouth?  

What about any feeding issues... skip a couple weeks?

Aaah...You 2 slipped some responses in there while I was attending to a little one... 

Aimee what about diluting regular listerene?

Sonja how the hell do you have a house full of kids and a building full of snakes and no medical disinfectant anywhere?

Some pharmacies carry chlorhexidine - as a sort of pre-wash for surgical sites.  My mom was instructed to use it prior to her lumpectomy earlier this year.  It was labeled as some sort of scrub or wash (I wish I could remember what they called it), but upon picking it up and seeing the familiar blue liquid, and reading the label - that's all it was.  We picked it up at the pharmacy in the hospital, but that was just because we just happened to be there already.  I'm sure other pharmacies carry it too.

I've used diluted Betadine for mouth injuries before, and that worked fine. 

Poor little thing.  That looks uncomfortable.  If anyone can help it out though, you can!

Because I use a diluted bleach solution...

No what else is shocking... No antibacterial soap here either...

antibacterial soap is an agent of satan.

hmmm...I contacted my pal to verify the regimen. however, I've treated mouthrot on gecko rescues per a vet's advice with silvadene, so I don't think it would hurt.

George, listerine's cheap. if you dilute adult listerine, you're also diluting disinfectant properties.

Sonja and Creepy - you can get chlorhex OTC, sold as Nolvasan. not sure if you can find it at drugstores, but Amazon and 1800PetMeds carry it.

 antibacterial soap is an agent of satan. I agree.

listerine's cheap. if you dilute adult listerine, you're also diluting disinfectant properties I understand that but would it hurt for her to use it until she gets what is needed? That was my point.

I have no idea, which is why I wouldn't use it.  I know the other stuff is safe.  calculated risk, eh? I wouldn't recommend a course of action that might hurt Sonja's baby unless I'm sure :(

whatever that is, it didn't happen overnight. even if it takes a day or even two to assemble the stuff and get another pair of hands, I doubt there would be long-term effect.

OK, Sonja, here's the response (Dr JD's her vet, of course). the abscess was along his lower jaw, farther back than yours:

"Yes! It wasn't so much lanced as incised. Dr. J-D made a ~1/2" incision and squeezed out an ungodly amount of goo. I was given some really strong lidocaine cream to apply to the area prior to daily treatment. Then I flushed it with diluted betadine using one of those curved dental syringes. Then I was supposed to squeeze out any goo, but was never able to do so. After flushing, I used a syringe with a short piece of microbore IV tubing attached to the end to fill the wound with silver sulfadiazine (I got the tubing from work, and cut it to the length I needed). This went on for months. About 1/2 way through treatment I took him back to J-D, and she was able to squeeze out goo where I failed (I think I was too worried about hurting him to do it properly). He also received a round of antibiotic injections during the first part of treatment. Needless to say, he wasn't too fond of me during all of this."

Nolvasan is good stuff, any drug store should have it.

If you haven't seen an abscess opened before, & I am assuming you aren't squeamish, there are lots of youtube videos on that subject.

There are also many videos on worms in people's skin. Think i'm off to youtube "cottage cheese" now

Tractor Supply carries nolvasan as well. Silvadine would be my second choice.

My retic had a similar situation going on recently, but on the upper middle of her lip. Nodule of hard pus that I removed, but she continue to rub and it got a lot worse, scabbing her entire nose and her lips were swollen. She also had the tips of her bottom jaw(s) rubbed raw. I later found she did indeed have a tooth dislodged in her gum which is most likely why she had been rubbing. Got that and the gunk out, treated it with F10 daily and she is as good as new. Almost looks like nothing happened and I was sure she was going to be disfigured!

You can get chlorahexidine from the vet too-- I got the vet's ear cleaning solution once because I thought it would be similar to what we use at work and was very disappointed to find out it was a bottle of diluted chlorahexidine, labeled nicely for ears and cost about $20... -_-  
I see no issue with using dilute betadine though; both are surgical scrubs/preps and good at cleaning out.

The Chlorahexidine they sell at drug stores commonly is called "Hibiclens".  It's meant for a hand cleanser/disinfectant/surgical scrub.  I've never used on a herp before, or as a mouth rinse.  It has some type of fragrance in it, along with a good dose of alcohol.  I'd stick with the nolvasan or virosan if at all possible.  I have rinsed wounds in mouths with diluted beatadine in the past with good results.

I've never seen nolvasan or virosan available at any drug stores, I've always had to order it online. I always keep some around just in case. 

Well, this ended up being "easier" than I was thinking it might be. 

When I went out and looked at her last evening, everything still looked like the night before, but there was some debris from the eco-earth on her face, along the lip line, so in preparation, I decided to put her in a tote with room temp. water in it to soak and swim for awhile to wash that away. She soaked for a little over an hour. I gathered things, disinfected everything I might use with alcohol, and got my supplies all ready. Took her out of the soaking bin and I had to laugh...  her lip was less swollen looking, and the area of "infection" had burst open while soaking. I still went ahead and tubed her and took a closer look. You can kind of see one it in a couple of the pics I took, but at any rate, she was very well behaved and I just needed to use a tweezer to remove one little bit larger tooth, along with a couple other smaller fragments. It bled minimally and I placed her head over a tub and used a syringe to flush the area a few times with diluted betadine. I placed her on paper towels and I assume it's a matter of watching for infection now. I plan on continuing to swab some diluted betadine onto the area in the coming days.

Following are pics from last night... and I even included a picture of her in the tube for Emilly to see.  Normally these are great for working with the other end, but in this instance, I basically just her head come out of the top while the rest of the body remained in the tube so I didn't have to worry about a tail wrapping around my hand or getting in the way. It worked nicely.

Kind of looks like she's smiling in some of the pics, doesn't it!?

Soaking...

As she looked when I took her out of the water... (looking sheepish)... lip area less swollen... 

In the tube:

How it looked prior to me doing anything:

After using a tweezer to explore a bit - you can now see that small hint of white in the lower area - that was the larger tooth:

After flushing the area:

this has nothing to do with an answer to your question.... so I appologize in advanced

I just wanted to point out that this is a perfect example of how a question should be asked 

it provided great basic info as well as multiple pictures 

Kudos I think we can learn from this..

+1 Steadfast. I wish everybody would follow this example.

I feel like this question should be used as an example 

whenever anyone asks a question the first "answer" to the question is what type of substrate what the temp whats the humidity blah blah 

YAY!  Snake is all better!  This is wonderful.  Thanks for the tube picture, Sonja!  Very cool indeed =D

Thanks all! 

I felt the need to add the follow-up, too, because so often when someone asks a question, we don't here what ended up happening with the animal, and I can only imagine others are like me and do truly want to know how things played out in a given situation.

Another update from tonight... the previous 2 days I have pulled out with a tweezers very tiny goldish colored flecks / fragments...  and then flushed the area with a couple syringes of water and then swabbed with diluted betadine.

Tonight I removed some spongy feeling tissue...

Curious of people's thoughts... I assume it's part of the healing process? 

Before pic:

Close-up

Next to a regular sized tweezer for size reference.

My retic had some of that going on with her mouth injury as well, some of it came off but I left the rest in fear of causing more damage, looks like your girl is going to be better in no time :)

Thanks, Abby!