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Discussion on Tricky eye problem
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Member:
Heidim
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Posted on Friday, Oct 14, 2005 - 10:34 am:
Two years ago, we purchased a mare who had lost half of her lower eyelid on one eye. Her eye teared very little and the missing eyelid was hard to notice, so we left it alone. Last winter, she developed a bad eye infection in that eye, her first eye infection ever since we bought her. (I believe the infection resulted from feeding hay in an overhead rack, making it easy for the chaff to get into her eye. Our donkey developed an eye infection at the same time, so we are going to ground feeders this winter.) Ointment cleared up the infection but now the remaining half of her lower eyelid is mildly and yet noticeably puffy and looks like it will stay that way. When the flies got bad this summer, the remaining eyelid grew quite puffy and started to turn into her eye, which seemed to irritate things further. Removing her to a friend's pasture where the flies weren't so bad fixed the inflammation and the turning in, but until then it seemed she was a sitting duck for another eye infection. Bear in mind that the eyelid is a little puffy always but only turns in when irritated. My question: can surgery help here, or is it too complicated? My vet did look at this mare and suggested fixing the eyelid so it no longer turned in but, again, he only saw it inflamed and, as I mentioned earlier, it doesn't turn in when it isn't inflamed. He has never done such surgery before and recommended I take her to the vet college in Iowa, but that's more than we can afford. Another option is just to live with the puffiness, stick a fly mask on her in summer (assuming it, too, won't irritate the eye), and hope for the best. As I mentioned, she's only had one eye infection in two years but that was before the puffiness set in.
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