cloudy eye

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jules9671

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Hi, my horse has developed a cloudy covering over one of his eyes, there is no discharge, and he does not seem to be closing it anymore than his other one, after doing some googling i have found out that i should fone the vet right away as it will be an infection and could lead to something worse, anyone has a similar experience?
 
Hi Jules. Yes - you need to get the vet out immediately and be prepared to ask for a referral to a specialist eye clinic. A cloudy cornea is a sign of some sort of trauma to the eye. At one end of the spectrum it could be that your ned has just pranged his eye on a twig and it will resolve in a few days, maybe with antibiotic cream to help it along. More about creams etc in the eye in a mo. At the other end of the spectrum it could be uveitis (not all horses are photophobic with uveitis) or a fungal/viral infection of the cornea or some other catastrophic event. My horse came to me with gungy eyes from the previous owners being too lazy to address it. Overnight (literally) his eye clouded over and he was whizzed off to a specialist clinic within 6 DAYS or the local vets said he would have lost the eye in another 24 hours. We never, ever found out what had triggered it - could have been trauma, could have been the chronic conjunctivitis, could have been anything - but it had flipped over into an autoimmune disease that was now involving the structures inside the eye as well. He had low grade uveitis (inflammation within the eyeball) and it was a clinical emergancy. To cut a very long story short, we battled for 6 months to save the eye but in the end it was just too much for him and he had to have it removed. Saying that, he is as happy as Larry and still the safest hack on the yard and he was SOOOO pleased to be home 5 days after the eye was removed that I let him have a little trot about in the school and he loose jumped himself over 2 jumps, twice. It's not the end of the world if the worse comes to the worst. Creams and ointments in the eye: take HUGE care putting anything in a horse's eye. The beginning of the end for my boy was the first time he came home from the hospital and the vets were cautiously optimistic they could save the eye. But he needed 3 different creams in the eye twice a day and the yard staff managed to stab him in the eye with the sharp end of the tube. Because we were trying to STOP his body's reaction to infection (coz with an auto-immune disease, there isn't any outside infection) when there was a REAL infection, he was in big trouble. The cornea doesn't have a blood supply so healing is very slow and often very difficult. The best way to put creams in a horse's eye is to bathe the eye and the surrounding skin, wash your hands well and apply the cream to your finger tip. Then squish your finger tip into the eye. If the horse jerks or moves suddenly (as he will at some point) then your finger won't hurt his eye. The sharp, pointy end of the tube can. PM me if you want any more info and got everything crossed that this is just a minor scratch x
 
thanks for all that, i will keep you up to date with what the vet says, if it does come to the worst then i have known horses with one eye and i know its not the end of the world,just hope its easily cleared with creams..
 
vets just been, and it is uveitis, i will have 3 different creams to put on which i will pick up later today,don't know if my ned will let me... he said worst case is removal of eye, but that it can be treated with creams and i know it will come back so we will just have to wait and see how we get on.
 
I hope it works out he doesn't need anything more than creams and can recover from this...I feel for you as my foal has just lost her eye. It's amazing how common it is and like you said it's not the end of the world.
 
hi, how long was it from getting uveitis to losing the eye? this time last year he was recovering from colic surgery and to think that he might have to go through losing an eye also i feel so sorry for him.
 
Jules - I battled for 6 months to try to save Sunny's eye. He let me know when he'd had enough. The surgery is only about an hour and though he will need a general anaesthetic it's not huge surgery like for colic. He will be a million times more comfortable without the eye. The only thing then - and it's a constant low grade worry for me - is that Sunny now has NO SPARE EYES. If, god forbid, anything happened to the other eye he would have to be pts. I only say this as uveitis can sometimes appear in both eyes. Talk to your vets about it. You need to be talking to the most experienced horse eye experts you can find. xxx
 
Box_of_Frogs, thanks for the tip above, i've never thought of it, and my vets never suggested it, but of course it's safer to have the cream on a clean blunt squidgy finger than in a hard pointy tube. genius.
one of my youngsters has a permanently slightly weepy eye, i am going to get the vet again about it and insist it is sorted this time, they didn't seem too fussed about it last time. gggrrrr. thankyou. hope your lad's eye stays fine forever.
 
I am a person with uveitis...so really do wish you well with your horsey.
It is painful when it is active...so careful handling of the eye is required.
I would always recommend an eye specialist for any problem with the eyes...uveitis is not widely known in the human world or horse world...so all the expertise you can find is worthwhile.
 
Wishing you well with the uveitis. Star has just been declared clear of a sarcoma which was growing across the surface of her eye and I had a lot of creams and drops to apply as well. Definately agree - the end of your finger is far better than the end of the the tube.
 
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