Just to clarify, I bought the heating pad today, and he was submerged in water before i even put it in the tank.

Is it warmer in the house than it has been?

if anything it has been colder in the house, my family keeps the house in the 60s and its been rainy out so it shouldnt be hotter than usual. I decided to put the heating pad on a small corner of the tank and he is laying on it now, thats why I dont think its a temperature issue. 

If you think there's a chance it could be mites, I'd switch to white paper towels to keep a better eye on it.

Do you have the heat pad hooked up to a thermostat?

Is he by chance nearing a shed cycle?

if you think Mites come from care fresh then never ever use it again ..  I agree with Sonja,,  paper towels  and keep an eye out for mites  and  get yourself a can of prevent -a-mite  to be safe   and you put the heat pad in the tank ?? or under it ??  and is it on some kind of controle ??

My mexican black will occasionally soak for a while after a meal. I call it her "dinner and a hot tub " routine, she usually just uses it as a toilet after a few dunkings...keeping an eye out for mites is a good precaution though. And of course a device to control the heat pad never hurts, especially for colubrids.

After meals my snakes will take a bath sometimes.  Once my smallest snake had a feeding that was too large.  She ate it fine (so I thought), had a soak, the next day I found her in her hide and the rat disgarded to the side of her enclosure.  Since then she's been eating fine.  Smaller meals of course.

I didn't think reptile mites could feed on a rodent host...isn't their skin too thick? If anything, would the rat have had fleas, which won't feed on a snake?

They are different, but there are rat mites, too.

As far as I know, kind of similar to you said, Chris, the rat mites don't hurt snakes.

I definitely agree with Sonja about switching to paper towels. I personally use paper towels or newspaper. Works great, cleans up easily, and god forbid I get mites, I'll see them.

all mysnakes  go to the water bowl they stay in it for days as for mites when i clean all my cages i spay them down with mite spary then i look at my snakes and check them i have 30 plus snakes so it takes a while but use some thing white i agree with the sonja

Is this your only reptile? I don't think you could have picked up mites out of the blue unless you 1.) got the bedding at a pet store that has herps and the mites infested it which seems unlikely since there is was no food source in there or 2.) have been to a reptile show and maybe picked them up that way. As has been said, switch to paper towels and keep an eye on it. Please keep us updated.

Thank you for all your help. After trying the paper towels I have come to the conclusion that I was just being overprotective and worrying too much about my baby. No signs of mites and he has been hanging out back to normal today. Thank you for all the helpful advice!