Anyone had a T survive clearing of impaction?

[goonius]

I’m not a new keeper, just not on here much anymore. I have a T alibopilosus Nicaraguan, a beautiful healthy girl probably at least 10 years old. Got her from Craigslist, a local guy who didn’t know how to care for her about 4-5 years ago. We felt sorry for her, and decided to rescue but I quite love her. She’s one of my favorites.

Anyway, she’s molted once in my care, and spends most of her time deep underground in her tunnels. We were excited to see her out and about last night until she turned around and you could see the white crust around her spinnerets and a whitish plug in her anus.

It’s been a few months since she has taken food. I assume she drinks — we moisten her deep burrow, and she always has a full water dish.

Once we saw the issue, we caught her and put her in a smaller container and this morning immobilized her with wet paper towels and moistened and cleaned her anus. Man, that stuff is tenacious.10 minutes or so of moistening/cleaning (until she started trying to back up) yielded some improvement, but the white plug is still there. We’ll have to go in for a second round perhaps this evening.

Every scenario I read about with impaction, the tarantula ends up dead. I see where Tom Moran managed to clear a blockage and the tarantula expelled a large amount of feces — and still died anyway. Tarantula cave has a great video on trying to clear impaction from a Poeci — she also died eventually. I suspect we have caught this early-ish since she is showing no signs of being slowed down by it, but is that really worth anything? Who knows.

I wonder if we are just torturing this poor girl and her fate is already sealed. Just curious if anyone has had spider survive after clearing impaction?

I’ll include a (poor quality) picture since I know people will probably ask. This is from before the first cleaning, when we first spotted the issue.

I’m not looking for generic advice, but anecdotes from personal experiences, particularly successes, are very welcome.

 

[A guy]

My thought is, once the blockage has already shown outside the tarantula's body, it's already too late and the damage has been done internally.

 

[IntermittentSygnal]

Pulling for yours to be a first success story.

 

[goonius]

Appreciate your thoughts. You are probably right and this is what I’ve been struggling with today. My mind keeps looking for that sliver of hope.

 

[viper69]

Good luck!

 

[Moakmeister]

I would euthanize her. I had a scorpion sling who had impaction and she was like that for almost a year, hideously bloated and with a prolapsed anus. I kept hoping it would improve, but it never did. I eventually realized that not putting an end to her suffering was purely selfish because, unlike more intelligent animals like dogs or humans, scorpions and tarantulas don't enjoy being alive. They have no emotions and don't understand anything. So I finally euthanized her.

This impaction isn't gonna get better and keeping her alive would be wrong. The only guaranteed painless death is unfortunately to put her in a plastic bag and smash her. However, if you put them in the fridge for a while to put them to sleep and then move them to the freezer, it will kill them without them feeling ice crystals forming in their blood. At least in theory - it makes sense to me.

 

[goonius]

I would euthanize her. I had a scorpion sling who had impaction and she was like that for almost a year, hideously bloated and with a prolapsed anus. I kept hoping it would improve, but it never did. I eventually realized that not putting an end to her suffering was purely selfish because, unlike more intelligent animals like dogs or humans, scorpions and tarantulas don't enjoy being alive. They have no emotions and don't understand anything. So I finally euthanized her.

This impaction isn't gonna get better and keeping her alive would be wrong. The only guaranteed painless death is unfortunately to put her in a plastic bag and smash her. However, if you put them in the fridge for a while to put them to sleep and then move them to the freezer, it will kill them without them feeling ice crystals forming in their blood. At least in theory - it makes sense to me.

You are literally contradicting yourself here: If they have no emotions, don't understand, and do not enjoy life, then what indication is there of capacity to suffer? Thus, drop the value judgement.

 

[Moakmeister]

You are literally contradicting yourself here: If they have no emotions, don't understand, and do not enjoy life, then what indication is there of capacity to suffer? Thus, drop the value judgement.

Not experiencing fun or enjoyment isn't the same thing as an inability to feel pain from a massive buildup of rotting feces inside them.

 

[goonius]

Responding to stimuli is not the same thing as experiencing pain, which in turn is not the same thing as suffering. I'll refer to an old but valuable comment on the topic of tarantulas feeling pain. https://arachnoboards.com/threads/molting-painful.44129/post-845786 I am open to reliable counter sources based on evidence and the scientific method, but I am not interested in armchair scholarship which relies on anthropomorphizing the way in which a radically different species processes and interprets injury and pain.

I'm not sure any of us has absolute wisdom or knowledge to decide at what point the life of another being no longer has value, at least not with unyielding confidence that our assessment is based on anything more than inherent human bias. I think it's fine to be uncertain of where to draw arbitrary lines on the topic, but to draw them with unapologetic confidence and no supportive data is dishonest and problematic. This also goes for the level of suffering or pain experienced by a (potentially incomplete) crushing death versus, say, a slow and extended displacement of oxygen by CO2, and successive freezing to ensure complete cessation of life functions.

My tarantula is mobile and behaving as she always does. If she is experiencing pain, discomfort or distress, there is nothing apparent in her actions that would suggest this. We are trying methods others have claimed work to soften the plug of feces. The goal is to clear the blockage through as gentle a means as possible. If our efforts don't work, her outcome will be death. Nothing lost, nothing gained.

 

[Sauga Bound]

I'm really sorry that you and your curly girl are going through this. Impaction is one of those conditions that has a very low rate of survival, but it's worth trying to save her before euthanizing her.

Try and get a pair of very fine tweezers to see if you can remove the plug. If that doesn't work, maybe a little vaseline on the end of Q-tip might help dissolve it or make it easier for it to pass. Of course, no one wants their animal to suffer needlessly and only the people who care for them can know when their efforts are not working and only prolonging that suffering.

I really hope you beat the odds, but as you point out, the information available online suggests a grim prognosis. However, I would do what you can and trust yourself to decide that you've done enough. We're all hoping your girl makes a full recovery.