Eye infection - any thoughts?

[tigger01]

My mare's had an eye infection on and off for the last few months. Vet's been twice and given her eye drops, then cream but the infection's still there. Gunky yellow stuff like conjunctivitis in humans, so am bathing it with salt water. She doesnt seem in any discomfort and not sure what to do next as vet will prob only give yet more eye drops. It's definitely worse when it's very windy (so worse at present than I've seen for a while) and the pink membrane is slightly inflammed.

Poor pony - not sure what to do next?

 

[katylee]

my youngster got conjunctivitis not long after i got her. first vet must have come out about 3 times, different creams, sedated horse to look in the eye, finally i rang the vets went mental told them it was costing a fortune(which it was by now) demanded a better vet. new vet came out injection in the neck different eye drop and it was 100% better the next day and never came back.

 

[Box_Of_Frogs]

Hi Tigger01. I've just given a similar reply to an earlier query related to weepy eyes coz, sadly, I've got an awful lot of experience on this. You might need to watch your ned's gungy eyes VERY carefully. Could be nothing, and clear up quite fast but it could be something more worrying. It probably IS conjunctivitis and - on its own - that should be quite easy to clear up. I would also have expected your vet to test whether ned's tear ducts are open by putting flouroscene in the eye. This is the bright green dye that is normally used to show up eye ulcers but in this instance, it's useful as it washes off the eye and down the tear duct so should show as a bright green trickle out of the left or right nostril (depending on which eye) in just a minute or 2. No green dye, or barely a trickle, or a trickle that takes 20 minutes or more to appear could mean a blocked tear duct. Blocked tear ducts can be surgically flushed but they won't guarantee that it won't happen again ... depends what caused it in the first place. Blocked tear ducts can be responsible for conjunctivitis that won't clear up and conjunctivitis that won't clear up can flip over into something much more nasty called superficial keratitis, which is an autoimmune disease and is VERY hard and VERY expensive to clear. My ned had all this going on and, despite a 6 month battle, £4,000 and 3 trips to a specialist eye hospital, the eye eventually had to be removed. He had conjunctivitis in BOTH eyes and the remaining eye is still highly iffy and all the skin around it is damaged and it weeps goo especially in high winds. My vets have given me a greasy antibiotic ointment which he is allowed to have squished into his eye on the end of a clean finger for THREE days, no more, when the remaining eye gets bad. Greasy ointments are eye friendly and don't sting. The end of your finger is safest as the pointy end of the eye cream tube can accidentally scratch your ned's eyeball and that could be BIG trouble when he has an existing infection as the iris has no blood supply so struggles with infections. I guess if it was me, I'd get the vet out to have a look, test the tear duct and talk over the findings with you. You need aggressive treatment here! Good luck! x

 

[emma_lg]

It seems a long time for it to be not really improving...I would have a word with your vet...maybe see about an eye specialist just to check on its progression.
From personal experience...eyes are delicate, tricky and painful when something goes wrong.