Contact Lenses for horses with eye ulcers

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Jo C

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No I haven't gone mad - has anyone any experience of these for eye ulcers please? My vet is now suggesting this as an option to help with the healing process. I am slightly reluctant to go down this route mainly due to cost as I am not insured but will if necessary. However I'd never even heard of this before my vet mentioned it.
 
I could be wrong JoC but I think this is very new ground. Has your vet discussed stitching the membrane from beneath the eyelid across the cornea for a while to help it heal? This op brings a blood supply - and hence white blood cells - direct to the ulcer, as the cornea has no blood supply of its own. I think it's called a something graft. We discussed it with my horse Sunny when we were battling with the autoimmune disease that eventually cost him his eye. No guarantees anywhere though. I'd ask your vet how new this option is, what the success rate is, what management problems having a contact lens in might bring and what the rates are for re-infection linked to the contact lens (and how this would impact on the existing ulcer problem).
 
Thank you Box of Frogs, yes we have discussed stitching but as it is both eyes it would leave him blind, we also agreed that knowing him as we do he would probably rub them more and do more damage. The contact lens appear to be becoming more common and there is a specialist at Cambridge who would fit them. However I really don't want to go down this route as wearing contact lenses myself I know what a hassle the management can be. You have raised some very good questions and I will definately be discussing these with my vet before (if) it happens. Thank you - I will keep you updated and am keeping my fingers crossed that we don't have to explore this option.
 
OMG Jo C. Didn't realise ned had ulcers in both eyes. What a nightmare for you. It was bad enough going through 6 months of hell with Sunny and his one eye, never mind 2. Is it a disease process or a field injury? When we finally admitted defeat and Sunny had to have his eye removed because of the severe and unrelenting pain linked to the ulceration of the cornea and the slow destruction of the eyeball from within, I discussed a prosthetic eye with the specialist vets. They said forget it because they cause nothing but trouble and infection after infection. They said glass eyes for horses are really for the owners. The horse doesn't care what he looks like, just that he's out of pain. It was knowing that glass eyes can cause endless infection and management problems that made me think that contact lenses might be prone to the same problems. One thing a human optician wouldn't advise, I'm certain, is to keep wearing your contacts if you have ulcers in your eye. I imagine contacts for a horse would require endless drops and creams and just putting drops in can further damage the eye if the horse jerks at the wrong moment. Also, I bet that depending on the horse, he would get monumentally fed up with it all after a while and you would start having a battle to get the drops in. They get round this in the short term by stitching a narrow tube to the corner of the eye and down the mane so owners squeeze the drops in at the wither end of the tube...it goes up the tube and directly into the eye without the horse associating the owner with it happening (you probably know this!) But I can't see that this would work long term and it might even mean stabling the horse permanently? Do the horse contacts come in and out and need washing etc like human ones or do they stay in permanently? I suppose though, that if I'd explored every other possibility and had run out of options I'd look into this too. Please let us know how ned does - got everything crossed xxx
 
Thank you. It started off as 2 nasty bouts of conjunctivitis, one of which cleared up pretty immediately with treatment then remanifested as another form of conjunctivitis a week or so later, unfortunately by the time the vet came (the same day) he had rubbed both eyes so bady he had given himself ulcers. He was obviously in a lot of pain and the pupils had constricted so was given atropine. The atropine is taking an absolute age to wear off but the ulcers are healing albeit very very slowly. The problem we have now is that is he is so bored as he is shut in his stable in the dark, that he has started to rub them out of boredom/habit. The idea is that if we fit the contact lenses (and this is a big if for me) he can go out and about as usual. Apparently they are fitted and then stay in constantly throughout the healing time and are then removed once the healing is complete. My worries are a) they could cause more problems than they solve although apparently they have had very good results. I am worried about infection/dirt/him rubbing them and causing yet more problems b) management of them with solutions etc etc and c) cost as I am not insured.
I have now ordered a pair of blinkers for him so he can't physically rub the eyes and am going to turn him out in them with a fly mask over the top to 1) stop the flies and 2) prevent as much light as I can getting into his eyes. I hope (and so does my vet really) that being turned out will help break the rubbing habit/boredom factor and allow the healing to really kick off. Not a conventional way I know but this isn't a conventional horse sadly. He has been locked in his darkened stable for the last 3 nearly 4 weeks so must be going out of his mind. His pupils are now starting to constrict again and at least it isn't that sunny at the moment. I will keep you informed but I am going to try my hardest to avoid the contact lenses if at all possible. The whole thing has been a nightmare.
It has been really helpful to hear your experiences, thankyou.
 
Hi haven't read all the posts in detail but my horse had a bad ulcer in one eye earlier in year and had contact lens fitted. Two vets did it at the yard under a mild sedative, (horse not them) no particular problem in putting it in. It stayed in for about a fortnight I think. I didn't have to do anything to manage it but that said he did end up going as an in patient to the hospital because they ended up having to put a catheter in so that he could have antibiotics every two hours. He recovered fine.
 
Thanks Benjamin27 thats great to know, glad he is ok now
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I may be in touch again shortly
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Do you know what the rough cost is please?
 
Hi Jo C. I cannot recall the cost, but I think the whole treatment ended up around £2,000 but he was in the vets for a fortnight and saw an eye specialist as well whilst he was there plus lots of drugs and visits before he went into hospital. I don't think the actual lens itself was too horrendous. Perhaps your vets could give you an estimate. Fortunately the insurance covered most of it. I was very worried at the time as another horse of mine lost an eye (nothing to do with an ulcer but an age related problem) and I really didn't want the same to happen to this one.
 
Jo - hang on - there is a speciality mask you can buy from America which is like a Snuggi face hood with 2 bulbous parts that protrude and cover both eyes. They have special covers that prevent light getting in to the same level as standing in the darkened stable. The horse wearing one looks like a fly's head has been grafted onto his body but if it could give your ned time on turnout, it could save him. Vets recommend them for eye probs like your ned's and for uveitis. Sunny's eye problem started off as conjunctivitis. His previous owners didn't bother to clear it up over many years and three weeks after I bought him(ex riding school) one eye flipped from conjunctivitis into an autoimmune disease. The application by the yard staff of 3 different creams 3 times a day ended up with one of them stabbing him in the eye with the sharp plastic end of the tube. Almost overnight, we lost all the slow, slow ground we had made and about 8 weeks later the eye had to be removed.

Can't remember the name of the face mask but someone on the Forum will know if you post in NL as well as vets xxx
 
I so feel for you Jo, as you know I am treating mine for an eye ulcer at the moment and it is a long hard road to travel. I don't have anything to offer in terms of treatment options because i'm new to this but just wanted to wish you both well. X
 
Thank you everybody for your help, I truely believe if I can get him back out he will not only be happier but will stop rubbing them also. I am hoping the blinkers turn up today.
By the way - thank you Gibson's in Newmarket - excellent friendly service!
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I will keep you informed I have the vet coming out again next week for yet another check up and I hope (with everything crossed) that the news will be happier then and all my questions will be immaterial. Well I have to look on the bright side otherwise I am giving up!
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Yeah, here it is www.guardianmask.com
Our horse wore it when she was suffering from equine recurring uveitis. We spent £3,000 in vet bills and 3 months of applying ointments, applying drugs through a tube attached to her mane - a lavage i think it was called. Sadly we lost the battle for her eye, but she now behaves as though she still has 2 good eyes. She has adapted wonderfully to her new situation and even jumps and canters as before, her quality of life is great.
She now wears a Rambo UV fly mask, just to keep flies out of her 'good' eye and to protect it from strong sunlight over 4.
There is hope, whatever the outcome.
 
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