puffy, weepy eye?

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Jesstickle

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on my 2 year old. Yesterday it was a bit weepy but today it is a bit swollen too. I have put a cold a compress on it for a bit and put her fly hat on to keep the flys out but I'm a bit worried about her. (because she is my baby!)

What is the likely cause? At what point do I call the vet? The eyeball itself is fine. I would describe it most like she has conjunctivitis. Do horses get this?

Sorry for the vague post.
 
Could just be caused by the flies. My boy had runny eyes today aswell. Yes horses can get conjunctivitis. I would just bathe it for a couple of days and it should clear up on its own, if it doesn't then get the vet to have a look and they will probably give you some eye drops.
 
Ta,

even though I know that someone has to tell me to make me feel ok. I'm not like it with the other one but she's such a sweety and I worry about her.

She turns the usually sane, rational me into a quivering wreck!
 
If you're worried, use cold teabags and get some optrex eye drops or something. If it doesn't go down in a day or two then I'd give your vet a ring. If it gets worse, call straight away but I expect it's just flies.
 
Why not buy some Optrex Eye ointment. Don 't let the pharmacist know it's for an animal otherwise they won't sell it. Works a treat and the ointment is better than drops as it stays on the eyelid easier. I tell our pharmacist that my OH has terrible problems with conjunctivitis:D
 
Our boy has just had this. Started off a bit sticky and just got worse, ended up swollen. Have been bathing it and had some eye drops from the vet at two days later it has cleared up.
 
hmm. optrex you say. I'll have to go and lie to a pharmacist. I do get conjunctivitis all the time so I guess it won't be hard to fake it!

Isn't it funny the lengths we'll go to to procure stuff for the beasties. I've never quite been able to go back for benzyl benzoate once I knew what it was for mind you!
 
Take great great care with anything to do with eyes. Your horse could have scratched his cornea or he could STILL have a foreign body stuck in it. Eyes are very difficult to heal because (obviously) the cornea doesn't have a blood supply. Whatever you put in or near your horse's eye must be sterile and must be approved for the purpose or you could make a bad situation a whole lot worse. Cold tea will, at best, soothe a tired eye. It will NOT cure an eye if there is an infection in it. No across the counter product will unless it contains antibiotics. I urge you to get the vet out. My horse, bought from a riding school, came to me with BOTH eyes so gungy you wouldn't believe it. They said they wiped them occasionally with cold tea. I think they wiped them occasionally with absolutely nothing but that's another story. This very basic and easy-to-cure but untreated conjunctivitis then flipped over into a dreadful auto immune disease called superficial keratitis. After a 6-month battle to save the eye, it had to be removed. Please please please get the vet to look properly into the internal structure of your horse's eye and to put a special dye in that shows up damage to the cornea. Puffy weeping eyes need urgent veterinary attention. Hopefully, it will be just conjunctivitis but there's a whole host of other things that are expensive, drawn out, miserable and could end up in your horse losing insurance cover for 1 or both eyes or even losing the eye.
 
My horse has had the exact same thing since about friday last week, (he was better by tuesday). All we did was carefully wash around the eye and his lower lid with saline solution and this seemed to work. This time of year all sorts of things are flying around in the wind so it isn't hard for something to get stuck, we think he may have got some sort of seed in there. Just keep 'washing' the eye, and it should come better, if it gets any worse though (severly) best to call out the vet just in case!
 
I use this treatment, recommended by my vet (as I couldn't get near my 17.2hh horse's eye with ointment tube without risking poking her in the eye as I'm only 5"1' and she wasn't cooperating!)- get some dried white camomile flowers (local health shop), add hot water to make a tisane. When it's cooled, use cotton wool to bathe the eye with it. I have used this twice on two different horses and by the next day the eye was 95% better, did it once more for luck and problem solved. The dried flowers keep for ages, unlike ointment which can have expiry date by the next time you need it.
Obviously call a vet if you are worried or it's really bad or doesn't improve fairly quickly. The first time I had called the vet at once,as the eye was swollen and shut, that's where I got the treatment idea;the second time it was Sunday evening and a friend's horse so I tried the tisane and it cleared it up overnight. We would have called the vet on Monday if it hadn't cleared up, obviously.
 
My mare had a puffy eye on and off for a couple of days, but it wasn't overly weepy. She is in a fly mask all of the time at the moment as the flies are pretty bad. Got the vet to have a look, and she had conjunctivitis in both eyes, as well as an ulcer on the surface of one eye where she had tried scratching it on something and grazed the eyeball.

Wouldn't take any risks with eyes myself and would get the vet to have a look.
 
Probably just flies

I got my boy in 2 days ago and he has a fly fringe on, it had parted to expose his eye, it was huge and weepy so I bathed with T bags and the next morning it was fine, he is in over night
 
jesstickle said:
on my 2 year old. Yesterday it was a bit weepy but today it is a bit swollen too. I have put a cold a compress on it for a bit and put her fly hat on to keep the flys out but I'm a bit worried about her. (because she is my baby!)

What is the likely cause? At what point do I call the vet? The eyeball itself is fine. I would describe it most like she has conjunctivitis. Do horses get this?

Sorry for the vague post.
Click to expand...


I am replying but haven't read all your replies so risk repeating what someone else has said.

My pony gets this in the summer often - it's kind of like hayfever eyes that I get! Anyway vet gave me some drops (comes as an ointment too) called Maxitrol. Only cost £5.75. Put a few drops in each eye and within 10 minutes the puffiness and watering will be gone. Best to use a fly mask too.
 
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