Please help me decide, operation or not

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hairymolly

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Horsey came in from field on wednesday night with a very sore eye, me in my wisdom on tuesday thought its very windy she can have a night without her fly mask as the wind will keep them or so I thought anyway.

Her eye was so bad got emergency vet out who did lots of poking and proding and it turns out she has a blocked tear duct, gave me cream to treat swelling and infection and said he would be back on friday to unblock tear duct.

He came out today but couldnt unblock the fluid was just running into her sinuses meaning that it was blocked at the top near her eye. So I now have two options:

Option a: Leave it and carefully manage ie always wear fly mask, clean daily, treat infections as they occur. But vet says as she gets older it will prob get worse and she will develop resistance to treatment and may need artificial tears drops up to four times a day.

Option B: Go to vet to get general and get operation to unblock near her eye (cant be done standing) and risk putting her under. There is a chance that the op wont be successful and there is also a chance that she might need the same thing in a few years time again but there is also a chance that it will fix the problem. She is young and fit put I suppose there is always a risk.

AHHHHHHHHH why is life so complicated?
crazy.gif
 
Same here... I've (reluctantly) had to put my guy through 3 GA's in the past year for ops, and they've gone fine, it's a scary thing to think about, but personally speaking, I think I would far prefer the operation and get it over and done with (even though you have a potential of having it done again in a few years) to a lifetime of 'messing' around with her eye not to mention the risk of infections etc (and I know I'm so clumsy I wouldn't like to be doing anything to an animals eye on a regular basis...)
 
I am currently thinking that the op might be the best option but it kind of freaks me out a bit. It was just a bit of a shock it went from have some cream and ill be back to do a simple procedure to your horse needs a GA.
 
I totally understand that... I went from just having him sedated to clean his sheath out to him having a partial sex change :-) NOT the easiest choice I've had to make! Seriously though, I don't know how you stand with your vets etc, but I had no qualms with mine, they have their own 'hospital' etc and I knew I was doing the best thing for him. You know yourself and your horse best, make the decision you feel is best for her and you xx
 
I'd gp for the op, though as you know already, it might not be successful. At least you will have tried. Eyes are so very very precious. If you do have the op done, get the vet's nurse to show you how to safely put cream/drops in a horse's eye x
 
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