weeping eye

[margaretb]

Poppy's left eye is running and is obviously causing her discomfort. The white of her eye is pink so I suspect conjunctivitis? It is a little difficult to see exactly what is going on. Any suggestions as to what I could possibly do to relieve the discomfort before the vet comes in the morning?

 

[xxRachelxx]

A horse I used to ride had weepy eyes and I used to use cold tea to calm them down. Seemed to work for him! Soak a cotton pad in cold tea and wipe it over eye

 

[Box_Of_Frogs]

You're right to get the vet out as eyes are so very precious and injury/disease can be a very expensive bugger to cure. But I'd take great care about what you put into the horse's eye until the vet comes. You and your horse share almost identical mammalian eyes. So you need to ask yourself, if you had a sore, red, weepy eye, would you put cold tea on it? I wouldn't! Just wipe carefully with plain water, boiled and cooled to make sure it's sterile. Always use a downward swipe and throw the gauze/cotton wool away after each swipe or two since the area around the eye will be a million miles away from sterile. Take care if you use cotton wool as it can separate into tiny, tiny strands that you can't see and they can cause more irritation in the eye. Assuming the vet gives drops or cream to go into the eye, be very very careful how you apply it. Without exception, these drops etc come in little tubes or bottles with savagely sharp pointy plastic ends. One jerk from an anxious horse when the pointy end is half a millimetre away from his cornea can turn a minor problem into a medical emergency. With creams, apply the cream to the end of a clean finger and squish your finger into the eye. With drops, pull the bottom eyelid out into a little pouch and hold the bottle PARALLEL (not 90 degrees) to the eye and dribble the solution into the pouch. You may need help as this can sometimes be a 2-man job. Good luck x

 

[RolyPolyPony]

A horse I used to ride had weepy eyes and I used to use cold tea to calm them down. Seemed to work for him! Soak a cotton pad in cold tea and wipe it over eye

I too have used cold tea on my boys weepy eye before.

 

[margaretb]

Thank you - I have wiped around the corner of the eye with the cooled boiled water and have applied cream from the vets - hmm! Horse not impressed! It does look a little less red this morning and she's certainly ok in herself!

 

[Dancing Queen]

read the leaflet given with the eye ointment given out, the vet advised me to keep using it for a prolonged period of time, i researched and found that prolonged use caused irreversible damage to the eye. I stopped it and swapped to an ointment used for human eyes, containing the similar ingredients and it cleared up in a couple of days.