Corneal Ulcers

[oofadoofa]

My very clever TB managed to scratch his eye a few months ago whilst eating from the hedge and got an ulcer on his cornea. The vet came out, told me to leave him in during the day for a week or so, in fact I left him in for longer than this in the end, and then when I did put him out put a dark fly mask on him. He also gave me antibiotic ointment to put in his eye.

The vet came out about a month later to look at another horse and looked over the door at him as I said I was concerned that the eye still looked milky and was still a little runny sometimes. He just said they take a while to heal and that was that. Just wondered what other people's experiences are with these, as the horse seems to be able to see fine, but the eye is still a bit milky in one corner and it is running, but only a small amount.

 

[Box_Of_Frogs]

I'd watch that very, very carefully oofadoofa. Milky patches = damaged cornea. Are you absolutely certain that the original ulcer was caused by a scratch from the hedge? Sometimes ulcers start for different, obscure reasons (all sorts of things under suspicion, such as herpes virus) and these then develop into more difficult problems.

Here's hoping it's just a simple scratch and it will heal without problems. Corneal damage does take ages to heal as the cornea does not have a blood supply so keep at it. But be very, very careful how you apply the antibiotic cream as one jerk from your ned as you hold the pointy end of the tube 1 millimetre away from his eye and you can do a huge amount of damage in a split second.

Keep a very close watch on it and if it doesn't seem to be very slowly improving I'd ask to be referred immediately to a specialist clinic. Eye's are so fragile and so precious you can't take chances. Sunny (see pic) lost his eye after bog standard conjunctivitis turned into superficial keratitis (ulcerated and milky cornea) and he then got stabbed in his bad eye by the yard staff as they applied the ointment. End of story really - he never recovered from that and the eye deteriorated badly and he had to have his eye removed.

Fingers crossed for your ned - do let us know how he gets on xxx

 

[oofadoofa]

Sorry to hear about your boy losing his eye. It's such a shame for something like that to happen from the treatment isn't it.

We got on fine with the antibiotics and they finished a long time ago. When the vet first came out he put the flourescent dye in his eye and saw the scratch as I thought it may have been an infection or something, but he assured me he'd probably done it in the hedge.

I was just wondering whether it is usual that the milky patch would take a long time to go away, if at all.

 

[ticobay831]

My boy got a thorn in his eye poking around in the hedge, he was very lucky not to loose it.
He was in for about 8 weks and had three different eye drops and creams that had to be put in three times a day.
He then went out in a gaurdian mask as one of the drops dilated his pupil and the sun would have blinded him.
He wore it for about three months and hes fine now, not had a problem with it ever since, touches wood

Ivf your boys only scrached it hopefully it will be ok, just keep an eye on it , sorry i cant rermember what drops and creams he had it was a couple of years ago.
Strongly reccomend the gaurdian mask

Debs x