Eye trouble

[Serenbean & Justine]

My new horse (arrived middle of July) has an awful eye infection! Being unfamiliar with her arab eyes she may have had it before I realised. Got the vet out, dye in both eyes, both infected.
Drops(maxidrol) given for a week with some improvement. Second bottle of different drops and danilon. One eye was much better, the other is swelling and it keeps going up and down.
Vet was out Monday evening so I asked for another look. More dye in eye, worse eye has small ulcer on it the vet rubbed at it with a cotton bud. I was then given a solution to clean eye twice a day, 2 danilon a day and ointment.
So I kept her in Tuesday day, ointment 3 times, out in field from dark till dawn. In Wednesday day and again ointment 3 times. Out for the night.

I got her in at 7 this morning, eye swollen again I cleaned the small bit of gunk off, put the solution in and then the ointment. Eye weeped clear.

What do you think?

Justine x

[happysnail]

Sounds like it's worth seeing an eye specialist. Mayfly's sister had a prolapsed third eyelid and a small surgery to correct it last winter. The eye specialist was fantastic and worked in very close partnership with our vet. With eyes it's worth airing on the side of caution and taking prompt action.

[Lisa in Plymouth]

Hi

When they put the dye in did the vet then look in her eye to try to determine which layer it had gone down to?

My boy had a corneal ulcer last year. Initially the eye looked ok but he had a clear trail of tears down his face (like he had been crying out of one eye) I thought it was a reaction to flies then the next day it was swollen, vet gave me danilon and Orbenin antibiotic eye ointment (3 times a day) a week later no swelling but eye still weeping and I could now see 3 tiny cloudy spots on the surface of the eyeball. They looked bumpy too. Vet came out again and gave Fuciderm antibiotic gel. Slight improvement so continued for further week. Still not back to normal and vet was concerned about the ulcer getting down to a layer (can't remember name) which would be much more difficult to treat. He recommended debriding the ulcer, some sort of painkiller was given to numb his eye and stop blinking whilst vet gently rubbed his eyeball with cotton bud to remove the damaged tissue. Then he took blood from my boy and took it back to the practice. It was then 'spun' to extract plasma and put into another solution and given back to me to administer as an eye drop 3 times a day for two weeks. The reasoning behind it being that something in the horses blood would fight the infected cells. This worked. These drops had to be kept in a fridge so I was having to take them up to the yard in a cool bag so that they didn't get hot and go off whilst I was doing my chores!
I was lucky that my horse (17hh) was excellent to have the eye drops because the ones kept in the fridge were very cold and I was having to adminster them with a small vet syringe rather than an eye drop container. Not all horses require this but my lad was on a very high dose of steroids so his immune system was already comprimised and unable to fight the infection on it's own.

He did have another corneal ulcer 6 months later and my vet gave a relatively new eye ointment called Remend which is specifically for damaged corneas. This also worked. He was wearing a fly mask 24/7 during these episodes to keep flies off.

My vet says he's never seen as many eye problems as he has since last summer. Apparently conjunctivitis has been rife too.

Is your girl insured? I be tempted to keep on at your vet before the problem becomes worse.

Hope she gets better soon

[mollichop]

Sounds awful SJB, have no experience but if it were me I would like to be talking to an eye specialist.
Hope you get her sorted and she's better soon xx

[portiabuzz]

So sorry she's still not better.. Agree about the specialist bit. Different species but my old cat saw an eye specialist when the vet was doing similar things and he saved her eye, did the vet recommend one?

[Serenbean & Justine]

Thank you ladies x

So lucky for me the vet was around yesterday evening,
(Jasmine had managed to headbutt a friend earlier in the afternoon while trying to put the ointment in poor friend has badly busted lip.)

The vet helped get a good dose in each eye though it wasn't easy. Eye still very swollen and very sore. As the vet would be back in the morning she offered her help again. We decided to re dye and have another look. The good news is blood vessels are making their way to the ulcer and so it is healing. It will take a couple of weeks at least and because its so sore I will have to give sedilin each time because she has really had enough after two weeks

I have a picture of the eye, will photobucket it later

[portiabuzz]

That sounds more positive xx hope she's ok soon JT xx

Sent from my SM-G800F using proboards

[jamesb]

Fingers crossed for a swift and happy outcome, JT.

[mollichop]

Sounds more encouraging JT good news, hope sh's better very soon xx

[portiabuzz]

Me too xx

Sent from my SM-G800F using proboards

[Serenbean & Justine]

[Serenbean & Justine]

Vet had a look yesterday morning and the blood vessels have reached the ulcer, that's good! it looked more like a single ring yesterday where as the pic above looks like too.

Vet again on Friday to check the ulcer is not thickening

[portiabuzz]

Hope she continues to get better

Sent from my SM-G800F using proboards

[specialized]

That's quite a big ulcer. The plasma treatment is very effective as there is so little blood supply to the eye the plasma aids healing greatly so it may help further with yours, they usually treat every couple of hours to stop the ulcer developing so much. A useful trick for putting drops in the eye is to load them into a syringe and squirt them into the eye - you can do it from below so don't need to get a bottle above the eyeball.

[☼ WIZARD ☼]

cant offer any advice but hope she makes a swift recovery. It does get more difficult each time when you have to keep giving treatments for anything. Get well soon Jasmine.