Corneal ulcer

This morning I was going to ride my horse but plans changed.  She met me at the gate to her paddock, head down-almost as if to say "My eye hurts".  Her left eye was swollen shut and tearing.  Hmmmm...no ride today. It was just getting light outside so we went into the barn to see better.  But the only thing I could see was the outside of her eye.  She would let me touch it but wouldn't let me open it.  The outside seemed to be ok, everything in one piece.  So it must be something inside.  Her conjuctiva was red and swollen-angry looking.  But I was unable to see her eyeball.  It wouldn't have helped anyway because I lack the proper tools to look into an eye.  The only thing I was hoping not to find was a foreign object in her eye and I was unable to get that far.  So the only thing to do was to call the vet.  I did wait until they opened and got a 1pm appointment.  We had some time till the vet opened so she got a good grooming.  After that the only thing to do was put a fly mask on her and put her back into her pasture.  She was acting normal otherwise.  I was thinking that she scratched it somehow trying to get to the grass on the other side of the fence.

Before the vet came

Before the vet came 

Dr S came from where I work.  She was great with Zoe and Zoe let her examine her eye without any sedation.  The outside was fine, the conjunctiva was irritated and Zoe didn't mind the opthamlascope.  Dr S stained her eye and we could see a corneal ulcer-a poke in her eye.  A bit worse than a scratch but at least she didn't poke into the globe of the eye.  Dr S showed me the ulcer.  I learned what a corneal ulcer looks like after the eye has been stained.  A scratch will show up as a line, an ulcer like Zoe's will show up as a dot, a puncture into the globe would show up as a donut shape.  Dr S said that she should heal up just fine.  She also checked inside the upper and lower eye lids for any foreign objects.  This was interesting.  Dr S put a glob of sterile lube on her finger and literally stuck her finger into the eye socket and felt around-and Zoe let her do it-she did raise her head a bit but didn't pull away.  Then she rinsed out the eye with sterile saline.  Zoe seemed to mind this the most, raising her head to try and get away, but didn't pull back.  Zoe hates it when I give her a bath and sprinkle her face with the hose.  This probably felt like that.  Triple antibiotic eye ointment in the eye twice a day for a week, 750 lb dose of banamine once a day for 3 days, a fly mask on and we should be fine.   She said eyes heal quickly and showed me a neat trick for getting the ointment into Zoe's eye.  We aren't sure how she did this.  There are no wires/nails poking out on her fencing or in and around her feeder.  It could have been just a poke from some hay too.  Dr S said I could ride her as long as she was comfortable and could see.  So we will see what she looks like on Sunday-I might be able to ride her.  A while back Zoe tore her bottom eye lid on the head of a nail sticking out of the barn wall-it was a very small tear and I remember how fast that healed up.  So without any complications this should heal up quickly too.

After the vet came

After the vet came