About two and a half weeks ago Becca got a couple of teeth pulled. When we first when in for her annual exam a couple of days before I had noticed her one eye had some sticky discharge coming from it. I got to the vet and pointed it out to him and then we looked at her teeth. Sure enough her two teeth farthest back were infected and needed to come out. He explained that the eye discharge was due to the back teeth being infected. We got her on anitbiotics right away and then took her in for her teeth cleaning 3 days later. She finished her first round of antibiotics and the eye gunk seemed to be getting better. A couple days after her first round of antibiotics was done I noticed the eye gunk again, called the vets office and got another round of antibiotics. Well she is almost done her second round of antibiotics and the eye gunk is still there! I am confused as to what it could be and am looking at taking her in again for another follow-up.
Has anyone ever come across this before? I assumed it was from her infected teeth. It is coming from the lower lid about the middle of the socket. It looks just like a normal eye goobie but a little thicker and white/clear color. Advice would be appreciated.
I would take her to see a animal eye dr … If it doesnt clear up soon.
sounds like allergies to me. if it turns green it could be a sign of something worse. is it in one or both eyes?
I don't think its allergies. Its only in the one eye, she is not rubbing or pawing at it, so its not icthy or anything. I can take her back to our regular vet, if I have to take her to a doggie opthamologist it's an 8 hour drive. It's not green, just clear/white.
Maybe they should treat her eye for conjunctivitis, it seems silly to rule out an eye infection at this point rather than the dr assuming the eye is a secondary response to the teeth.
Sandies eye discharge was white clear and quite thick … inspect the eye itsself and see if the white's are red ... thats inflamation and needs attention. Im a lil preturbed at my reg vet for not sending me to the eye specialist on Sandies first round of eye problems ...
The white part is not red. If it was an infection I would think that it would have been cleared up by now as she has had a 20 day dose of antibiotics with a couple days off in between. I don't see any lesions or anything either on her eye. It looks really good today so I will watch it for a couple of days and see if it becomes gunky again. If it does it will be another call to the vet's office before xmas!
Teeth can cause the ducts to act funny, but at this point, after 2 rounds, I'd see a specialist.
Ok, so we took Becca back to the vet today and now he figures it is a blocked tear duct. She has some eye medication and then some pills, taken twice daily. What else can I do or try?
Is there some reason they can't flush the duct out?
M@eeeefarm:
Is there some reason they can't flush the duct out?
I honestly don't know? I sent hubby to the appointment as I was working yesterday and he wasn't, so I missed what he actually said. From what hubby said it probably happened because of her teeth. But he thought it was an infection rather than blocked. Right now she is on Baytril twice daily and then Tobradex ointment twice daily also. Apparently if this doesn't work then he will try to unblock it using a blunt needle? So far I haven't seen any more goop but it has only been 1 day. Fingers crossed this works.
With horses they flush it out. And apparently with dogs as well. Found this info on another forum:
"I had tear ducts flushed on one of mine, no anesthesia, and no problems. She is trained to lay still anyway so that was a plus. They wrapped her in a towel, one tech held her still on the table, another tech held her head still, and the vet did the flushing. From start to finish was 10 minutes. Then 10 days of eye drops. A year later no tear staining."
Of course, without knowing what the vet is seeing it is impossible to know what alternatives are available or if there is a reason flushing is contraindicated. Sounds like an infection is still suspected, given the medication she is on…....and the breed in question on that forum is, I think, known for that sort of problem. Still, Is your vet an Ophthalmologist? Perhaps a referral might be in order if you can't get this sorted?
My vet is not an opthamologist. If this treatment does not work then she will have to go back and get it flushed and then I will discuss with him the option of going to see an opthamologist. Closest canine opthamology clinic that I know of is 8 hours away from here and is the place where I take my dogs to get their eyes CERF'd. If it does come down to that then I will take her down there, but at the moment it really isn't bothering her other than the fact that she has this goop in her eyes. I will keep everyone posted on how this is going and do a little research into canine tear duct flushing.
Good luck! From past experiences with Oaks eyes its such a sore spot for me, I hope for a speedy turn around!
Back to the vet again today, now sitting at home with my baby in my lap as she is dozy from the anesthetic. Went in for a tear duct flushing and week ago I was looking in her mouth and found another broken tooth, so another extraction as well. Poor dog. Vet tech said that they could not find the tear ducts in either eyes! They took tissue samples and are sending them out to the lab.
My question is: Is this due to her teeth and being infected and blocking off the tear ducts? I honestly know nothing about why a tear duct would collapse or grow over, or whatever they do. Tissue biopsies will be back sometime next week or early the week after that. They are hoping that they will show that there was some sort of inflammation or infection that closed them off? She does not have tear staining, she just gets clear goop sometimes in the corner of her eyes. Last time when we went to the vet's office they did a swab and a tear test and the results on both of them came back normal.
Why can a tear test (the one where they put the paper in the eye and measure for a certain amount of time) come back normal (the swab was done to see if there was any type of bacteria) and yet she have blocked tear ducts? I must be missing something.
Information would be appreciated!
I have no input on the eye stuff, but after 2 rounds of antibiotics you might want to consider probiotics, to help get her intestines back to strength (the antibiotics kill ALL germs, not only the bad ones).
I would definitely have her see an opthalmologist. My dogs have eye problems and they go to one.
Jennifer
Test results came back normal. No tissue swelling and whatever else they were looking for, so now it's down to the specialist at the end of May. Both dogs are going down so Tucker can be Cerf'd when we are there also. Being that it is so far away we will be making a small holiday out of it. Too bad I couldn't schedule it around a dog show!!
Ok, so we went down to see the specialist in Calgary last weekend. Both dogs are good! Tucker went for a Cerf and all is normal and Becca went because of the eye gunk she was having for a while. Apparently the vet thinks it may just be an allergy affecting only one eye. He couldn't find anything wrong and could clearly see both tear ducts. He did a dye test and both tear ducts are draining properly. On another note I just got their fanconi test results back today and both dogs are clear/normal for fanconi! So double yay for them!
Nice to hear some good news on the forum for someone, such a shame sometimes even the simple things take time to sort out, glad your eye problems are solved to the point of being a possible allergy to something rather then being something more serious, in saying that allergies are a pain in the butt. Yay for Becca and Tucker.
jolanda and Kaiser
