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Possible scratched cornea - or at least some eye scratch or irritation


Anda
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Ecstatic about the 80F weather we had yesterday, as soon as I came home from work, I loaded Ouzo in the truck and headed to the Cherry Creek dog park, where for almost 2 hours he ran and swam and ran some more. When I loaded him in the back of the Chevy and was ready to towel dry him, he suddenly started to scratch the left side of his face to the truck's interior walls, then seriously leaning into the towel as I was rubbing his head with it. I didn't know what was hurting - his eye, his ear or his snout - thinking that he might have been bitten by something and already imagining him swelling up again and turning into a SharPei. 15 minutes later, as we arrived home, he didn't seem to have any allergic reaction, but noticed that he was blinking fast with his left eye and rubbing his face against the carpet. I looked in his eye (he's been known to have things stuck to his eye ball without noticing or missing a beat until I had to remove the object - usually piece of grass or leaf) and saw a small abrasion, almost like a partial finger print (I swear I didn't stuck my finger in his eye that hard :rolleyes:). I tried to clean up his eye with a wet cotton ball, and hoped for the best. Later as he was still blinking, I put a drop of Visine antihistaminic, thinking it might alleviate his discomfort - wrong, it obviously stung him like hell, so I cleaned it up with another wet cotton ball. Chris tried other drops at night, but by morning he was still blinking, plus he had some yellow discharge like he never had before.

 

This morning we put some ophthalmologic ointment that I had from Romania from my mom (kanamicyn sulphate - couldn't find too much info online or an US equivalent) and a few drops of Naphcon A which Chris had used himself. Not sure if this helped, but I repeated the treatment this afternoon.

 

I called the vet and scheduled an appt. for tomorrow at 11.30 - I know they will prescribe something similar - an antibiotic - drops/or ointment, but I want to make sure there's nothing stuck there that I cannot see. Other than blinking he is the same - ran like a horse outside just an hour ago and he even seemed to keep his eye wider open while he was having fun.

 

I did a couple of searches on the Health section and all I found was to take the dog to the vet as soon as possible.

 

Pictures taken with my Blackberry - excuse the quality

 

Immediately after applying the ointment -it made him look much worse than before I put it on - awww, it makes my heart sink to see him like this

 

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After a good run - eye boo boo? what eye boo boo?!

 

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And one as he's blinking in discomfort under my desk as I type this - it was hard to get one like this, for some reason he decided he needed to be photogenic and look good in any picture, and was looking normal in most of them :D

 

3511803460_ac16277281.jpg

 

Any chance this will go away by tomorrow before we see the vet? :D Any experience or advise on how to make him more confortable till he goes to the vet?

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I second Journey. Blaze did the same thing to his eye a few months ago -it looked just like the pictures you posted of Ouzo's eye. It was a piece of grass on his eye, but if it had stayed their any longer, it would have eaten the Cornea away in a matter of hours/days.

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Hmm, I thought I posted something. The cyber gods ate it.

 

My personal experience is that they're very painful. Coroneal scratches/abrasions have a very small chance of healing by themselves. My vet prescribes a steroid drop and an antibiotic drop, for the dogs, of course. Apparently the cornea doesn't heal as quickly in older dogs. He also likes to do a follow up stain and uv light exam, to make sure it's all healed.

 

My squirrely girlies are pretty easy when it comes to drops in their eyes, so it wasn't a particularly difficult treatment. I hope Ouzo's booboo gets better fast.

 

Ruth

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Maybe a foxtail? Definitely a vetworthy situation, "preferably a veterinary opthamologist" (so they say).

 

Do a google search for [dog eye foxtail] and you'll get lots of info (all of which will tell you to keep the dog from scratching the eye and get thee to a vet pronto).

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He is doing a lot better this morning - it seems all the "doctoring" we did yielded results. Other than the very first afternoon, he had not been scratching his eye, he's just blinking, and thios morning the irritation seems to have faded. Light appears to bother him, since when it's darker he keeps his eye totally open. I will ask the vet to flush his eye, I haven't done that, and maybe she'll find and remove what is bothering him.

 

Laura, thanks for the reccomendation, if it doesn't get fixed today, it will probably have to wait until Monday, but I trully hope that won't be the case, since I cannot imagine having something stuck there for that long. Ouch.

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After reading someone's comments on my Flickr site about seeds that could be stuck under the eye lids and Alaska's mention of foxtails, I examined his eye lids again, lifted both upper and lower lids to look for any hiding seeds, and guess what - I found a tiny itty bitty something yellow that looked like a short hair (but yellow - my dog doesn't have any yellow hair) stuck in the rim of his upper eye lid. I checked his other eye to see if he has other "hairs" like that, but no, that's not an area where hair grows. I tried to grab it with my finger nails, and couldn't. So I woke up Chris, I held the dog, covering his eyeball with his lower lid, and my husband was able to extract that yellow "stick" with some tweezers. And it came out painlessly, proof it wasn't a hair.

 

He is still irritated, and we put another drop of Naphcon in his eye, but we're praying that was it.

 

We'lll still go to the vet to make sure that was it and that nothing else remains stuck inside, but I would feel so much better knowing that we removed the cause of the pain!

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So I woke up Chris, I held the dog, covering his eyeball with his lower lid, and my husband was able to extract that yellow "stick" with some tweezers. And it came out painlessly, proof it wasn't a hair.

 

He is still irritated, and we put another drop of Naphcon in his eye, but we're praying that was it.

 

Ooh, poor guy. That was nasty. Hopefully, now you have managed to remove the cause, he'll feel much better.

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We went to the vet today, she confirmed there weren't any other foreign bodies in his eye - he had stopped blinking as of 8 AM - yay! - and did a stain test and turned my dog into Disco Ouzo by applying black light to his eye - and revealed what I had seen before - a round stain that signified the scratched area of his cornea. She gave us 2 ointments - one with atropine - 2Xday for 2 days, and an antibiotic - 4Xday for 7 days, and we're supposed to bring him back for a checkup on Monday. I just now came home and my poor Ouzo looks like an alien - the atropine made his pupil dialate so much and change color that he looks identical to those flash-green-eyed pictures, but only on his left eye :rolleyes: She said the atropine is suppose to prevent his pupil from twiching in bright light - so now he looks temporarly very surprised :D

 

$120 lighter, but so much happier and calmer that my dog will be ok. But no dog park for him this weekend, no swimming, no dust (ha... this is Colorado, there's dust everywhere :D). So glad this is over now!

 

Lesson learned - always look VERY VERY carefully for foreign bodies embeded in the eye and eye lids. If I'd had found that stupid thingymagigy from the first night, he wouldn't have had to suffer like this for almost two days!

 

P.S. I asked the vet about reduced vision while he's under atropine and she said she never heard of that... duhhh... that's why they don't let you drive right after they dialated your eyes at the ophtalmologist. She said she never had an eye exam

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P.S. I asked the vet about reduced vision while he's under atropine and she said she never heard of that... duhhh... that's why they don't let you drive right after they dialated your eyes at the ophtalmologist. She said she never had an eye exam
:rolleyes: I can just imagine Ouzo with a sower look on his face, one dialted eye and a cartoon bubble over his said saying "What do you mean I can't drive!"

 

I am glad to hear he is doing better.

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Poor Ouzo, just catching up on this ,I am so glad he is getting better.As for the dilated pupil, I had to put drops in my mums eye after surgery and wiped my eye and must have had a bit of eyedrop still on my finger, pupil was as big as it could be and it was a very weird experience- everything was blurry and hazy so he might like to refrain from driving( especially heavy machinery) Ha Ha

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