In my last post, I mentioned that Leo's eye has been having some issues - for almost a week now, it's been squinty and runny. The vet looked at it on Wednesday, determined there were no ulcers, prescribed ointment, and told me to let her know if it got any worse.
I wasn't able to make it out to the barn over the weekend, but he was still getting his ointment. Upon my arrival out there today, the first thing I did was pull him out of the pasture to check his eye...And it was worse. (Note - if eyeballs freak you out, maybe stop reading now)
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| This is how it looked Friday. |
Thankfully, the vet was already out this morning to do a lameness exam and joint injections on other horses. She looked at it and decided to start with sedation so that she could do a more thorough examination - Leo hates her (unfortunately, because she's a pretty awesome lady) - and last week he was a nightmare to get to stand still.
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| Drunk bb |
Once the happy drugs kicked in, the eye was re-stained. And unfortunately, he has a pretty sizable ulcer going on. ): As is the case with ulcers, certain meds heal them and certain meds make them worse - the ointment that I'd been using on him for several days was firmly of the "make them worse" variety.
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| Green means ulcer |
He also had a blocked tear duct, which we had noticed the last week but had been hoping would clear up with at-home treatment, so while he was sedated the vet took the opportunity to flush it out. It was pretty interesting to watch her shoot saline up his nostril and see it come out of his eye. Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures of my horse "crying."
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| It's almost perfectly round |
So, we have two new ointments - one is 3x daily, and the other is every other day to keep his pupil dilated. Because of the dilation and his inability to keep a fly mask on for more than 30 seconds, homeboy is going to spend his days back in a stall - although he will still get turnout at night. I ~can~ ride him, but the vet warned that rides while he's squinty will likely result in a recreation of last Friday, because he's a
baby who can't handle pain sensitive. So we may do some ground work tomorrow, and hopefully by Wednesday with the medications he'll be feeling well enough to go in a lesson!
Fingers crossed that the new meds do the trick!
ReplyDelete🤞🤞🤞
DeleteUghhh eye stuff effing sucks. If you need a hood with an eyeball protector lmk, I have one from Ruby's attempt to get a bionic eye last winter!
ReplyDeleteI am already not a fan. We have one that just had eye surgery to remove a tumor as well, and he has to wear one of those hoods! He's head shy and cannot have his ears touched (like his bridle goes on in 4 pieces, can't go over the head), and they forgot to put in a cath so we have to apply his eye meds by hand. -_- So at least Leo isn't that bad? What happened with Ruby?
DeleteStarted with an ulcer, thought we got it cleared up, then we thought it flared back up but turned into keratitis (basically her eye thought her cornea was a foreign body and tried to destroy it), and then while we were treating the keratitis, the OTHER eye developed an ulcer. And the meds for each eye were totally opposite so super important not to mix them up. She had to see the opthalmologist at MU like 3x -- took like 3 full months to heal the keratitis. I don't want to talk about how much I spend on it...haha.
DeleteHoly shit!!!!
DeleteYeah and the immunosuppressants she was on for the keratitis made 3 spots where she lost hair on her face/ears come back white 😑 I was so annoyed haha. On the plus side Ruby was super chill about eye meds despite the fact she was getting 3 meds per eye like 3x a day for a while. And I didn't ride her like at all because in the winter our arena is kind of dusty and I didn't want to irritate the eye. So yes, I still have a lot of eye paraphernalia!
DeleteNoooooo! I hope he heals up fast for you :(
ReplyDeleteMe too!
DeleteBoooo not the best news for sure :( I hope it heals up quickly.
ReplyDeleteThank you, me too!!
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