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  Discussion on Tears and Squinting Eye, Second Bout
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New Member:
melanieb

Posted on Tuesday, Dec 2, 2008 - 9:33 pm:

Six months ago my horse came in with a swollen, tearing eye. After a few days, the vet saw him and dispensed silver sulfadiazine. It didn't seem to help much so I added atropine, colloidal silver DrOps, monostat and continued with the silver sulfadiazine. The vet never diagnosed ERU. The diagnosis was a scratch to the eye with the possible cause of tearing being allergies. After about 6 weeks of diligent doctoring I flushed the eye as usual with colloidal silver, but this time a piece of hay/grass flushed out. The next day or so the eye cleared/dried up completely.

Now, six months later, after a very windy day, the other eye is streaming tears down the face and squinting. This was two days ago and I have begun the same treatment. My question: is it likely this is recurrant uvitis? The horse is five yrs old. Thank you.
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008 - 8:44 am:

Welcome Melanie,
Two episodes of lacrimation and pain 6 months apart in different eyes does not suggest RU to me, particularly since the first episode was diagnosed as traumatic keratitis. Melanie if there is any cloudiness to the cornea we recommend the eye be evaluated by a veterinarian and I am not familiar with the use of colloidal silver as a eye treatment and suggest caution with this use as you should be cautious with non-labeled use of any medication particularly around the eye.
DrO
New Member:
melanieb

Posted on Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008 - 9:09 am:

Thank you DrO. The eye is not cloudy. The original eye became slightly cloudy after a few weeks of tearing and squinting but cleared. The new flare up has a lot of tears and squinting but giving him atropine last night helped with the pain and he is in a stall now. I also gave 1 gram of bute last night. Thank you again.
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Thursday, Dec 4, 2008 - 9:05 am:

The temporary cloudiness you experienced before is likely to have been do to the use of non-opthalmic solutions creating edema in the cornea than to the disease process itself. Prolonged use may result in permanent cloudiness.
DrO
Member:
pattyb

Posted on Thursday, Dec 4, 2008 - 10:51 am:

I hope it's ok for me to add my dos centavos here?

Long before my Arab/Saddlebred cross was diagnosed with Cushing's, I had a heck of a time with her eyes tearing, sometimes swelling. Each time, the bacitracin eye ointment 3X daily did the trick. Never used anything in the eye with a steroid in it because of the possibility there was also a scratch. What baffled me was that I would go thru this not only during fly season, but in the dead of winter as well. When she was seen for her thyroid issues, I asked the doc what I was missing. In the winter of 96, I learned all about allergies in Virginia and using a fly mask year round prevented re-occurrances. She was also very susceptible to airborne dust and dirt so the only time she didn't have to wear one was when there were no allergens and the wind wasn't blowing.

I myself could write a book on scratched corneas in people, been there/done it so many times that I keep a tube of people bacitracin for just that purpose. All I need is a piece of dust in my eye and a day or two later..... excessive tearing. I would guess there are horses more prone to scratches?
New Member:
melanieb

Posted on Monday, Dec 15, 2008 - 11:32 pm:

Thank you everyone. Regarding the 1st post on this thread, I have an update. A week ago today vet examined my horse's eye, as tears remained running down face without much noticeable squinting. The eye was stained; there was no scratch/ulcer, etc. The eyelid was nerve blocked to see if debris was in the eye; nothing was there. The tear duct was blocked. After two attempts, the tear duct unblocked with a small amount of whitish goop. The vet said he would have thought the un-blockage would have been bigger but still some stuff came out. He gave me antibiotic/steroid ointment, as he thought the wind/dust had gotten the tear duct swollen/inflamed. I've put the ointment in 3x a day and the eye is still tearing. Also, I've had him in a stall or stall/run the whole time out of the wind. There is some slight squinting but not red/swollen or real painful looking. Does it sound normal for a tear duct irritation to take this long to clear up? The wind has been terrible here but my horse is in the barn. I'm still hoping it's a tear duct issue and not RU since I did run into a similar problem with the other eye 6 months ago.
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Tuesday, Dec 16, 2008 - 10:32 am:

If a blocked tear duct was the whole issue I would have expected it to be better the next day. It should be noted that just the act of treating the eye with an ointment can cause some horses a low grade discomfort so that should be considered in the face of lack of evidence of other disease.
DrO
New Member:
melanieb

Posted on Tuesday, Dec 16, 2008 - 2:02 pm:

Thank you DrO for the reply. From your experience does this seem like RU?
Member:
lilo

Posted on Tuesday, Dec 16, 2008 - 5:12 pm:

Melanie - my gelding had to have his tear duct unblocked in the spring. The vet gave me some ointment for the eye, but I was totally unsuccessful in getting it into his eye.

His eye kept tearing for about 2 more weeks and finally cleared up. This is the second time he had to have a tear duct unblocked since I have owned him.

Lilo
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Wednesday, Dec 17, 2008 - 9:09 am:

Melanie, I answer your question in my first post to this discussion.
DrO
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