Problem with eye

[gg68]

Does anyone remember reading a post about horse's eye clouding over and it was mentioned that its immune system fighting itself. Sorry to be so vague but I think it must have been 3 - 4 months ago. Thank you

 

[Box_Of_Frogs]

That's me hun. I bought my horse Sunny from a riding school. He had suffered with conjunctivitis for years and they hadn't bothered to clear it up. I'd owned Sunny for THREE WEEKS (and had had my local vet out to look at both his mucky eyes) when his left eye suddenly clouded over, a sort of milky whiteness on the cornea. Local vets tried to get to the bottom of it but after a week of it getting worse, he was rushed to Dursley for specialist help. The conjunctivitis had flipped over into an auto-immune disease called superficial keratitis. This is when the horse's own body thinks the cornea is "foreign" tissue and starts to attack it. It was a nightmare but he came home stabilised and we would have just about saved the eye except that the yard staff managed to stab him in the eye with the end of the ointment tube and didn't tell me. Back to Dursley again and there was a humungus great zig zag scratch right across the cornea. We battled on for a few more months but in the end Sunny was in so much unrelenting pain that he had to go back a third time and have the eye removed. He's as fit as a fiddle now and is the safest horse on my yard. He hacks out and wins dressage competitions and it's only when you peer closely at him that you realise he's only got one eye! Love him to bits.

Can I ask - have you got a horse suffering something similar? Can I help in any way?

 

[gg68]

Thank you Box of Frogs for your reply. I have a friend who has a youngster who has a similar problem, I will pass on the reference to her and it will be up to her if she contacts, but thank you for your extensive reply and your offer of help and good luck with your Sunny.