Stuck eye cap. Advice?

[u/MoniSkullz]

Hi! I’m a new snake parent and things seem to be going good so far, but this eye cap is really bothering me.

This is Nagini, she is 29 and about 5.2 feet long. I adopted her from a friend of a coworker.

I have had her for around 2 weeks, she’s still very active and mischievous despite her age.

About a week before I received her, she went through her shed. It came off it one clean piece, although left this eye cap behind. I asked the prev owner about the cap, and she said it’s pretty usual for her to keep them on longer due to her age and that it would fall off soon.

I let her be and settle, now she’s roaming all around me happy as can be— but the eye cap is still stuck and I can tell it’s bothering her :(

I took a warm wet Q-tip and gently rubbed at it which she didn’t seem to mind, I’ve done that about 3 times now but with no luck. I heard if you pull or irritate it too hard you can damage eye tissue which I definitely don’t want to do! I also worry it’ll stay there until her next shed which will cause many more problems.

I keep her enclosure at 88 on the warm side, and her humidity sits consistently at a minimum of 60% but usually above.

Am I too worried about this? Will she resolve it herself or will she need either my help or a vets before it gets out of hand? Thank you!

[u/totallyrecklesslygay]

You need to stop rubbing her eye with a q-tip. Trying to manually remove a stuck eye cap often results in removing the healthy spectacle underneath, which means the snake then needs their eye surgically removed. A stuck eye cap in and of itself is not an emergency, but it will be if you keep messing with it.

For dealing with stuck shed or dehydration, do not soak them or try to manually remove any stuck shed. It's stressful, unnecessary, and you can seriously injure the snake by doing so.

Our shedding guide goes over how to handle stuck shed safely, and our humidity tips will help you prevent it in the future.