From time to time you may experience problems with your snails. Very little is known about what these illnesses are, what causes them, and even less is known about treatments. Unfortunately it seems more time is spent on increasingly more ingenious ways to kill them.
Because of this, the following information is a mix of whatever research is possible and available, theory and hypothesis, logical thinking and the result of various discussions with a large group of snail owners. It is with the help of the community at large, that these problems can at least be documented. Where possible I have tried to link to example incidents.
Hopefully, we can find some effective solutions to the majority of these problems but for now I'm afraid you'll have to be content with various suggestions and discussion.
Swollen Mouth
Fig. 1 Courtesy of Anjie Burdett
Fig. 2Courtesy of Anjie Burdett
This is a problem experienced occasionally and could well be related to Gut Extrusion as the early symptoms.
There is little you can do unfortunately. Try and make the snail comfortable. Personally, if it happened to me, I'd try and bathe the swollen area with tepid water. I'd also provide drinking water. Snails exhibiting these problems are likely to die, so I'd try Aloe vera or something similar in application to try and soothe the condition.
So far it seems to be neither something that spreads to other snails, or something external. However, it is worth noting that snails seem to require soil flora and fauna to digest things. Changes in this micro-culture could cause digestion problems. For more reasoning on this and other possible causes see Gut Extrusion.
Further Reading
To search the forum for threads definitely relevant to this problem click here.
To search the forum for threads that may be relevant click here.