Uveitis question

CarolineJ

CarolineJ

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A seller has been exceptionally honest with me and let me know before I've even gone to see the pony that she had uveitis four years ago. It was spotted quickly, treated, there were three flare ups over the next 12 months but no further recurrences in the past 3 years. The mare's eyesight is still fine and there are no cloudy spots in the affected eye and no sign of it developing in the other eye either.

I've got no experience of uveitis - worth going to try her, given that she appears to be everything I'm looking for and hasn't had a flare up in 3 years, or am I just setting myself up for a whole world of vet bills?
 
Please don't go there it's a horrible condition and something I never ever want to go though again I ended with the horse PTS and huge bills .
Find another horse.
 
my horse has uveitis, ive had her for 6 years and in the past 5 shes had a handful of flare ups each year and it has only been diagnosed recently as uveitis when earlier this year she had lots of flare ups in quite a short period. my vet has worked really well with me on it and we can control it long term with steroid drops which work very effectivly for her, theres also an operation she could have to have a small disc put into her eye to release a drug slowly to prevent flare ups but my insurance have put an exclusion on her eye so wont cover her to have the op so we have decided against it for now. it really does not effect her lifestyle that much, if she has a flare up shes in some dicomfort till we get the drops in but they only take about 20mins to settle it down. I would not swap her for the world and if id known about it before i got her i dont think it would put me off her, shes a superstar it would be a shame to have missed out on her for something that we hardly notice. i know there can be cases alot different to ours but just thought i would let u know my experience of it .
 
Thanks both of you - this is the problem I'm having, 50% of what I read says 'dont touch with someone else's bargepole' and 50% says 'it's a manageable condition, don't let it put you off'! I've emailed my vet for some advice, pony is out of our area so no conflict of interest. So few come up for sale within a reasonable travelling distance (by which I mean a 100 mile radius, I live in a very remote part of the UK) that I'm reluctant to write off one that seems to tick every box apart from this one question mark.
 
My horse had flare ups every 6 weeks for 4 years, I would never buy another horse knowing it had the condition. Every attack damages the eye, and they can develop cateracts as a secondary condition. And the ponies eyes will be excluded on insurance too.
 
Honestly you are thinking of doing exactly what I did . My friends horse had an attack as a young horse and it never reoccurred so I was lulled into a false sense of the seriousness of the situation .
The horse I had could not be turned in bright sunlight if there any wind it triggered an attack he suffered terrible discomfort he had no life I lived a condition of continuous stress it was in short awful for both of us it cost a fortune the vet in the end said no more treatment and wanted to remove the eye but as there was every chance the other eye could be affected I decided to put on end to it for both of us and PTS , I have to admit the relief was enormous .
Please don't risk this unless you discuss with your vet the worse case senarios and you go in to it with deep pockets and your eyes wide open .
 
We had a pony that had the condition for 20 years, yes she did have flare ups but we got her a special fly mask that cut out 95% uv rays and this helped to keep them at bay, I can't remember the name of it but it came from america,( pm if you want to know more) but I will add that it is a very painful condition and I think we were very lucky that our little pony
 
Guardian Mask? I've been reading about them this afternoon.

It's probably worth mentioning that since the last flare up 3 years ago the pony has been living out 24/7 in Scottish Highlands weather, hacking out and schooling with no special measures taken and has been fine - but I understand that stress can be a trigger for it and I'm thinking that a change of ownership and moving home would probably come pretty high on the list of things horses find stressful...
 
Yes thats the one, they are quite odd looking with big disc shaped eye covers but it was brilliant, our little pony moved house several times and all 3 of my daughters competed and did pc with her so stress was not a trigger for her lol! I would get advise from your vet and take it from there
 
from the little reading i did recently- there are 3 types of uveitus, depends on initial cause as to how serious it can be. Also, whether the eye has scar tissue as a result which can help there be fewer further flare ups - some horses aren't really affected - some are :S
 
There seems to be a mix of experiences on here. I had my horse nearly 8 months with no sign of any eye problems, then suddenly one day he eye eas cloudy and he couldnt open it in the sun. The vet said uveitis but wasnt sure whether it was the recurring type. He was on steroids etc for a month which cleared it up. The treatment finished 2 months ago and I will be honest and say he is out in the sun/rain/wind and his eye (touch wood) has been fine. So im hoping it doesnt come back and that he bumped his eye or something which caused it. I will say though that I only have 12 months from onset of condition for insurance on the eye so anything after that is no longer covered and the bill came to around 600 quid!
 
Thanks for all the info everyone - I've slept on it and decided that after 2 dogs and a horse with uninsurable conditions, taking on another animal with a potentially recurring uninsurable condition wouldn't be a wise move on my bank account's part, however perfect she might be in all other ways. It's a real shame :(
 
I think that is a wise decision CarolineJ - way too many other things that can happen without taking on a horse that has had such a serious problem. You are right, the stress of moving could be a trigger to set it away again.

We have one with the condition and eventually opted for the implant, as we didn't want the other eye to be affected via an auto-immune response, which is possible. He is now blind in one eye, but fortunately seems stable. Before that, he went for months after the initial couple of attacks without a flare up, then had one out of the blue, with a total of around 5 attacks in 9 months.

The masks work, but are expensive (circa £75) and wear out relatively quickly. If they rub (any) mask and move it, then they can do more damage than good, so you are constantly checking them turned out (our boy rolls very hectically, hence him moving the edge of his mask, generally right over the afflicted eye!) If they have a flare up and you treat it properly (in my experience, many vets don't seem to know how to optimise treatment - we had an eye specialist which helped), then you are looking at levage a 3 -4 times a day, which is time consuming and stressful, not to mention keeping him in for who knows how long.

I think it cost us just under the insurance limit of 5k in the end to treat from the first instance, to post-op (operation obviously expensive). I wouldn't touch with the proverbial, no matter how nice the horse. I think we were unlucky that his condition was quite severe, but as I say, I think sometimes the condition is misdiaganosed or the severity isn't acknowledged. Incidently, we just bought our boy and he got it about a week later!
 
When I bought my horse I was told he had Uvetits in the past, it was caused through trauma and Ive never had an episode since (Runs around and touches all the wood I can find!!) Uveitis through a bang or knock is just one of those things. Personally If she has had the condition and Its been recurring I wouldn’t touch it! If she has already had 3 episodes then likely hood is, it will return and after every episode will leave more and more damage to the eye.
 
His eye would be part closed and runny. The vet misdiagnosed it for years as conjunctivitis. But thanks to google I did lots of reading and treated it as Uvetitis and when he was finally diagnosed the vet said my prompt treatment when he had a flare up saved his sight. It was a constant battle every 6-8 weeks. Sadly he's no longer with me, died of something unrelated.
 
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