Eyes: Any experience of...

[scheffings]

Has anyone experienced a fungal eye ulcer in their horse, or other animal?

My TB gelding has been suffereing from this for about 3 weeks. He is being very brave and is letting me treat his eye regularly, but I am not seeing much improvment in the ulcer.

I wondered what treatment others have been advised to use for fungal eye infections? How long they used this for? Whether treatment was successful or not?

Thanks in advance for any info

 

[oscarwild]

My previous horse had a eye ulcer but his was caused by a trauma to the eye.
Firstly what are you treating the eye with?

I have pics of my horses eye in the post images of horse conditions sticky if your interested in having a look at it.

My horse wouldnt let us take blood so he was treated with antibiotic drops and serum for a week but as it got worse we had to fight to get blood and use the plasma with the drops. He had drops in his eyes every 2 hrs as they were worried that he would lose the eye. He was kept on boxrest for 4 months and it took months to heal. In the end the healing was so slow that we put a contact lense in the eye. But it made things worse and the eye abcessed putting the pus in the eye and the lense had to be reomved. We then used the serum to flush the eye and then plasma and drops were added. It abcessed a few more times (turns out it was healing but sealing inflammation behind it and it abscessed to draw the inflammation out) It did in the end heal but he ended up being blind behind in the eye.

Feel free to pm any questions you may have. Will try and help if i can.

 

[Box_Of_Frogs]

Eye problems are a b!tch to heal because of course there's no blood supply to the cornea. You might need to ask for a speedy referral to a specialist centre because there's all sorts of things they can do to try to resolve the problem. Some chronic eye problems are linked to the Herpes virus. One option is to scrape the top layer off the cornea, hopefully taking any nasties with it. Another option is to use the inner membrane from under the top eyelid as a sort of self bandage. They fold it down over the cornea and it brings a blood supply and the eye can often recover. My horse developed an autoimmune disease called superficial keratitis in one eye, almost certainly because of a chronic conjunctivitis that his previous owners did nothing to resolve. Long story, but a 6-month battle to save the eye failed and he had to have it removed. That was 7 years ago and he resumed his normal ridiong activities just a couple of weeks after the surgery. Let me know if I can help more x

 

[scheffings]

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

As it is a fungal infection we are currently treating it with Caneston (yes the thrush cream!). Also using EDTA (was using serum prior to this but apparently this can be mildly irrating so vet has swoped to EDTA), also using atropine to manage the secondary uvitus that has developed. He is tolarating all these treatments well but the ulcer doesn't seem to be getting any smaller. I wonder if it might just be taking its time as I know that fungal infections are known for their slowness.

"Box-of-Frogs" what was it like for your horse recovereing from having its eye out? Also how old was your horse when this happened? My boy is 24, he is a relaxed chap but I worry about how he would adapt.

Thanks again for sharing.

 

[oscarwild]

Yeah we had the EDTA for a while with our one too for a while. They take along time to heal and are harder to heal due to the lack of blood supply in the eye. It took around 3 months for the blood supply to get to my horses ulcer to start healing but once that happened it was healing better. That was the reason they used the contact lense. But unfortunetly it didint work. The lense was used to give the eye a covering and as it was dark was to allow the healing process to work. Sometimes they can stitch the eye lid down to give the same effect as the lense.

 

[ILuvCowparsely]

My mare has recurrent eye ulcers they happen every month if i dont act quick her uveiitis starts too.

She head shakes when it is starting i then put in the Atropine in to dilate the pupil and also use the cloromycetin. This is the first time i treated it solo , apart from vet checking her few days later i have done it on my own.. so it easier in future. Most prob trauma relate . If you are prepare to treat him yourself in the onset you will be fine.

but get the vet to confirm as this is fungal related there is some info here

http://equinecare-and-control.weebly.com/u.html

 

[scheffings]

They take along time to heal and are harder to heal due to the lack of blood supply in the eye. It took around 3 months for the blood supply to get to my horses ulcer to start healing but once that happened it was healing better. QUOTE]

It could be a long process then.

Is there any way of telling if the blood supply has got to the ulcer?

 

[oscarwild]

You can see the blood supply when it starts.
Took pics of the eye everyday so we could monitor progress without the vet coming out. These are after the contact lense came out but as the blood supply was on its way to the ulcer so you can see what I had.

After lense came out

As the blood supply started it journey

Few days later

Week later

Few more days

5 days later

Week later

hope that helps.

 

[Box_Of_Frogs]

OP, after we lost the battle and Sunny had to have his eye removed he positively bounced out of the recovery stable and back to his own stable because the constant pain of the ulcer had at last gone! He was only in hospital for about 5 days because he healed so well. The packing came out after 3 days which was brilliant. He was 19 when the surgery was done. He came home and was on box rest for just a few days. After about a week from the surgery, we let him into the outdoor school to stretch his legs. There had been a jumping lesson in the arena before this so the jumps were still up. Well, never mind stretch his legs, he took off like a bat out of hell, kicking and bucking and farting and thundering about in pure delight at feeling well again and out of pain. He loose schooled himself over the jumps TWICE! A few weeks after this he was back leading hacks safely again and generally being exactly as he was before. In the intervening time he has won a 1st, 3rd and 6th in dressage. In the early days, I had to be sort of his "spare" eye and think where to put his feed bowl and so on. At first the horse will think that if he can't see anything that side, then there's nothing there so I trained people to talk to him when they approached and rest a hand on him if they're working with or round him. He soon learnt for himself how to interpret the world this new way and he remains the safest and wisest horse on the yard, with full "free range" privileges. Let me know if it comes to it and you need more information x

 

[scheffings]

Thank you both so much for your informative replies.

The pictures have given me some hope as I have noticed a red tinge coming from the edge of the eye towards the edge of the ulcer the last few days. Fingers crossed that this is the blood supply and that the ulcer and cloudiness may now start to improve a little.

Similarly hearing how your horse adapted Box of Frogs has reassured me that if he does have to have his eye out he will hopefully adapt well. My lad is 24 but it sounds like your veteran recovered well from the operation.

 

[Elf On A Shelf]

My lad wasn't far off of an ulcer but we managed to catch it in time. He had Atropine and the Plasma and also had a coloured contact lens fitted - more because they didn't have the right size clear one in and it would take 2 weeks to order. To stop too much light getting to the eye he was kept in a dark stable. When working (racehorse so couldn't not work) He wore either a UV Filter fly mask or a set of Eye Guards with the dodgy eye completely blacked out with duct tape.

It took about 3 months but it was all worth it as his eye came back to normal and he is fine now. The only advantage to riding him half blind was that he couldn't spook at anything as he didn't know what he was jumping into Then the silly begger did a tendon ... Bloomin tb's!

The other one with a dodgey eye we have is on the verge of having it removed as it just isn't settling down or healing. You would be surprised at how happy they are and not really notice they have an eye missing as it has been painful for so long and they were loosing the use of it anyway. I doubt it's too hard a transition to make.