Long time, no post! Cooper is now 8.5 years old! He's doing well with his allergies (off a lot of meds,eating more foods to supplement his hypoallergenic diet, has clear skin and coat). He's also enjoying his role as big brother again. Our second son was born in January… I never expected a dog (especially a Basenji) to be so in love with babies, but he is so great with ours.
This winter/spring we noticed him pawing at one eye but didn't think much of it... After all, we had a new baby, and I'd broken my wrist and had surgery on it, so vacuuming wasn't a priority. He seemed to respond to extra antihistamine and a good housecleaning. When the eye got cloudy, we immediately got him to our vet, who stained the eye and found an injury of some sort (we suspect a self inflicted scratch from allergy irritation). Two rounds of topical antibiotics later, we thought it was under control. Because Cooper is so good at learning new behaviors, I kept him in a cone for a bit to make sure we broke the habit of scratching at it.
I've been checking the eye for redness and cloudiness regularly, and it didn't seem abnormal until Sunday night. The cloudiness was back with a vengeance and there was a red circle near the outer edge of the iris. Our vet stained it again and we're trying one last round of topical and oral antibiotics before venturing to see a specialist (that's going to be a 1-2 hour drive each way). The vet is checking in with us every 2 days by phone, and we will be going back in Monday for another stain check.
I'm not optimistic that this is going to clear up without seeing an ophthalmologist, and I'm not looking forward to dragging the kids along for a day long trip, but we do need to get this taken care of. What should I expect at a consult with a veterinary ophthalmologist? I've read about both inpatient and outpatient treatments... I'm nervous about having to leave him so far away if he has to stay!
Yikes!
One of ours had a corneal ulcer late last year. She has had cancer and various treatments the last few years and they are not sure if it was an immune response due to the oral chemo she had recently had or not. Anyway, she went from hmm, there is something weird with her eye to wow she might lose the eye in about 8 hours.
We ended up taking her to an emergency vet at like 12:15 AM who immediately referred us to the Vet School that is in our area. They checked her out, doing much of the same stuff you already have had done and kept her to run further tests and then put drops in her eye all night. We ended up having to give her drops every 2 hours once we got her home 30 hours later. But, she ended up healing fine and is still doing well.
I am not sure exactly what they will do in a normal consult as ours was at 1 in the morning and they had to get the people out of bed to look at her.
Hopefully the early diagnosis and treatment and general health keeps things better for him.
I would not wait and instead get her to an ophthalmologist…. for treatment.
LeeL, I read your story when I searched before posting! That does sound like an awful night! The original problem gradually snuck up on us, and we live in a pretty rural area with sparse vet coverage. My vet 35 minutes away is the nearest one I would trust, and it's going to be a trek to get to a specialist. It makes me long for my college days when my apartment was a block from the vet school!
Thankfully he's keeping the eye open more today. And I'm so glad I taught him early how to take medication.
I would go to the specialist because multiple rounds of antibiotics may
Not be necessary and in the end harmful if our dogs eye opacities are the cause of a condition and not infection.
I have an ophthalmologist for Oakley as he was diagnosed with corneal dystrophy at just over (or under??) a year old. It started off as a cloudy spot on his eye and every once in a a while he would get what I called "stye eye", it would get red, swell and cause him to squint..long story short- his eye doctor did stain tests and pressure tests with squirts of air…and while the consult/first visit was expensive it was worth it to ease my worries. Luckily his dystrophy "shouldn't" cause vision loss and the doctor has him on lacri lube (in the eye section of a pharmacy)..to lubricate his eye and keep stye incidents from occurring. He will always have that opacity in his eye and the doctor even cautioned he could get it in the other. In researching I found fats can exacerbate it and he is on a low protein diet (also recommended by his behaviorist at Tufts for behavioral benefit)... He is now 3.5 and I haven't seen growth in the opacity or an appearance of cloudiness in the other.
I have zero experience with this condition in dogs, but more than I wanted with it in horses. My "go to" treatment is tea bags, and they have yet to let me down. I bathe the eye with a (used) tea bag soaked in warm water, put on a fly mask, repeat daily, and so far I have 100% success rate with healing and no damage to the eye. Friends who have gone the antibiotic route have not been so fortunate. Anecdotal evidence is far from proof, but for horses at least I swear by tea bags.
Eyes go bad fast… you do not want a rupture. Please get the dog to the specialist as soon as you possibly can.
