Monday, December 10, 2007

A Horse's Eye


A horse's eye, if ill, can decline very quickly. Where other things may be logically dealt with and maybe even blown off for awhile, an eye is one of those things you don't mess with. The horse is so dependant on their sight as a prey animal. We all know this anyway. Of course in this household there is never a dull moment. Kola's left eye, inner eyelid flared up a few days ago and she was teary. I inspected her eye closely and the eye itself looked ok, just the inner lid looked a bit reddened and swollen to me. I cleaned it out and decided that I would watch it over the weekend as I did have to do three 12 hour night shifts on the trot. I did check it daily and noticed that while it wasn't worse, it wasn't better. From the advice of my friend Jess, I swiped a few saline "endos" from work and when I got home this morning rinsed Kola's eye thoroughly and called the vet for an afternoon appointment. My two favorites from our local clinic came out and Kola cooperated. They determined no infection, which I had thought there was no infection from the beginning, hopefully just an irritation. So as very well informed equine vets, we started her on steroid eye drops twice a day and low dose banamine twice a day. I'll watch her closely for ulceration and we will re-evaluate in 7 to 10 days. I'm hoping that she is part of the "nine out of ten times" it will resolve. It concerns me more because Kola's left eye, although she is not an Appy, she has an Appy type eye. That white ring sclera that you see in true Appys and POAs. So in other words a white skinned eye which means a higher susceptibility for a squamous cell carcinoma. That means if it doesn't resolve, a scraping for biopsy and a surgical removal of that inner lid if positive. I can't tell you how concerning this to me. She has been just an angel throughout the whole thing. My husband is not thrilled at the prospect of further vet bills, nor am I as we are trying to put the youngest child through college and given the recent and on going economy. Squamous cell carcinomas are simply treated by complete removal with wide margins to impede further growth.

6 comments:

Callie said...

Well, I'm pretty confident that this will not be a carcinoma as this morning when I went out to feed and give Kola her medicine, her eye had markedly improved just overnight after her first dose. This is good news!

Rising Rainbow said...

Good news, I expected as much. I just went through this with Reflection, only he had both eyelids badly swollen. He looked liked he'd been in a boxing ring. I flushed them out and treated with ointment and they responded within 24 hours. I'm always relieved with anything about their eyes.

I didn't know that "human eye" was prone to carcinoma. That is interesting.

Callie said...

I'm sorry Mikael, I didn't mean the human eye, human skin. The horses eye, I guess, which I guess I knew, but I knew more about pink or white pigmented horses and their skin. I'm not sure I really knew about the horse's eye until this experience.

BarnGoddess said...

yipee! I am relieved to read your comment.

I hope she recovers fast!

My almost 29 yo AQHA gelding has cataracts. He can still see but not like he used to.

Anonymous said...

The composition on that photograph is lovely.
Glad there's good news.

Callie said...

Thanks Sarah and BG, she's even getting used to it and behaving better about the whole thing as she now knows there will no food or treat until medicine is accepted.