Ball python muscle spasms

Question
Dear Donna,

I have a 3.5 year old ball python, Noodles. He is 3'9" long with shiny skin and strong musles. He sleeps in a 45 gallon terrarium with temperature at 80 during the day with a heat lamp and at 75 during the night. During the night we let him out to slither around and have snake adventures, but he can only stay in our bedroom. One time he did move to the bathroom, but I could only tell because he knocked over the hand soap, we found him in his usual place with our sweaters in the closet in the morning.

He only eats live rats, or sometimes gerbils from pet supermarket, or sometimes petsmart.

A few months ago he freaked us out because he was arching his back in a strange way. He is eating regularly, not being fussy at all, except he won't eat thawed rats. In the last week, he has started the back arching behavior again, and now he has added twitching to the list of symptoms. For examples he tries to climb the wall but loses control of his musles, flops and falls down. He tries to climb walls a lot, and this is not the way he usually does it.

We took him to the vet, he did a blood test to see his blood glucose, liver function, kidney function and calcium and it was all normal. The calcium was a not measured clearly, but the vetsid it seems tone between 13 and 15 something and that it was okay. He also hematocrit done and that was normal. His CBC went out to a different lab, and the vet called us to say that his white blood cells are high, which indicates an infection. We are broke, and can't spend any more money on the Xrays that the vet suggested, so we wanted a second opinion.

He is still arching his back, and this morning he did something different too, he was just lying around in his terrarium and his whole body did this spasm, which looked like what humans do when it's really cold and there is this involuntary chill.

Is he in pain? And what do you think about all this? What could be going on? And what would your advice be on how to proceed, should we do the Xrays (this would be next month because there is no way we can possibly afford it now)? Should we try an antibiotic anyway?

What type of infectious could be making him spasm like this? And how likely is it to be a tumor (which is what the Xray will tell us)? What if the X ray doesn't show a tumor, does that tell us which antibiotic to give?

Apologies for the bombardment with questions, we are very worried about him, and just want a second opinion.

Thank you.

He doesn't fall on his back so we are hoping it is not IBD.

Answer
Well, the first issue that comes to mind is that ball pythons require an environment that is always 80F, with a 90F basking area, and a drop to 75 at night is neither necessary nor healthy for them.  The cooler temperatures could lead to an increased susceptibility to infection.  Additionally, unless your room is also 80F, it is also too cold for him, and spending lengthy periods of time in this environment will reduce digestion and immune system function.

Humidity should be at least 60%. (If your snake does not have whole, complete sheds, then humidity is too low, as bad sheds are a symptom of dehydration).

I am not a veterinarian, so I cannot give you a second opinion (and if I were, I wouldn't be able to do so over the internet).  My suggestion would be to first correct your husbandry--it is particularly important that the snake not be exposed to temperatures under 80F while he has an infection.  The infection needs to be identified in order to prescribe the correct antibiotic, and this can only be done by taking a sample from the infected area.  (For a respiratory, infection, for example, a swab would be taken from the glottis/airway).  X-rays may sure tumors, cysts, or image the lungs to see if they are congested, but will tell nothing about what the infection is.  

As for the seizures or muscle spasms, those could be caused by an infection, and many other things.