Thanks to all enquiring after Samael's health. I'm now over half way through the course of antibiotics, and I thought we were through the woods until last night when he went back to gaping and wheezing, and again had a thread of white mucus in his mouth.
As snakes don't have a cough reflex (which I only just found out when researching this), I think the quite violent wheezing and contorting are the only way he has of ejecting mucus from his lungs and airway.
I went back in with a soft pipette and baby toothbrush, and cleared his mouth of what I could, and he seemed better, but still breathing with some effort, so I decided it was worth trying the steaming idea. As has been pointed out to me, breathing warm steamy air is not a cure for an RI, but may temporarily relieve some of the symptoms.
I boiled water (no additives, just water) and put it into 2 Pyrex beakers (from a coffee press) and stood these in a small tub, inside a larger tub with him in it, with a towel over the top to prevent steam escaping from the airholes. I left him in that warm steamy atmosphere for 30 minutes under very close observation to ensure he did not come into contact with the hot water.
He stopped wheezing and gaping in the tub, and seems OK this morning (although I do understand I'm probably just projecting my own wishes onto him...), so I think it at least didn't do any harm and might have made him more comfortable in the short term. I'm going to continue doing this on a daily basis for a while, at least until I have finished the antibiotic injections.
He has now had three sessions of this wheezing and mucus projection, one at the start of all this, one a month later, which prompted me to start the antibiotics, and then this one, in the third week of antibiotics. Between these episodes he's seemed fine.
Can anyone with experience of RIs tell me if this seems normal? Do they often relapse after seeming OK, or it is usually all done once the symptoms stop the first time?