corneal scratch

[pinkdaisy]

I just got my yorkie Dasiy on 12/26/2005. I took her a bath on Sunday night and after her bath I noticed her rubbing herself on the carpet. I then noticed her laft eye was shut, so I figured shampoo had gotten into her eye. I took her to the vet and she is on Antibiotic eye drops. She has a big scratch on her left eye. Has anyone ever had something like this happen to their yorkie? If so, hpw long is the healing process?

[SoCalyorkiLvr]

Yes, I had one who had a scratch which healed to perfectly normal within a week.

I had another who had a corneal ulcer I think was the result of a vaccine and this happened at three months and she is niw eight months and still has a little blue dot in the center of her eye. She seems to see okay though.

I hope your baby recovers quickly and fully.

[BamaFan121s]

The eye heals very fast. What type antibiotic drop is she on? Zymar? Vigamox? (The type will determine how severe the scratch is.) The eye can become scratched very easily--by a hair, dust, etc. I doubt it was anything you did relating to her bath.
If it is a scratch and not a corneal ulcer as SoCal mentioned, she should have a fairly quick...just a few days...recovery. Also, in (most) cases of an ulcer, you will be able to see it with with the naked eye. (SoCal, could you see the one your baby had?) Also, a small scratch will be less likely to cause permanent scarring, which I would guess is the 'dot' SoCal mentioned...BTW...most of the time they do show up blue, which seldom greatly affects the vision...it is when they are white scars that there is noticible damage.
SoCal-I do have some questions for you about your episode w/ the ulcer, if you don't mind. I mentioned before I was a Opth tech previously...I am just curious to the differences/similarities between people and dogs? Did you treat it with drops? What was the recovery time (I may have missed it.) Did your vet mentioned what would need to be done if it had not healed?

[b_veselka]

Wow I cannot believe that this post has shown up- I too am dealing with a similar situation that began- or became apparent around Christmas Eve. I noticed that Toby's eye was matted shut, so I used a warm wet cotton ball to wipe away the mat. When i finally got the eye opened it was blue- not just in a small spot, the whole eye was blue! i freaked out and just knew that he was blind. I took him to the vet and was told that he had a major ulcer but that his eye sight might be able to be saved. She told me that the ulcer could rupture causing the contents to spill out and then he would most likely loose the eye all together (not just the sight- actually have to have the eye ball removed!!). So she put him on the antibiotic drops (Gentamicin). I notice a change probably on the second day of treatment and now the eye looks more brown than blue. I can still see a faint tint of blue left but it looks almost 95% better. I am so happy. I am still quite shocked that his eye got into this condition so quickly though. The vet said it was probably there for at least 9-10 days- but his eye literally turned blue within like a 1-2 days. I felt so bad. I learned never to take the eyes for granted- yes they can heal fast, but apparently they can fail quickly as well. I am including a couple of photos that I took yesterday so that you can see the eye. Keep in mind that the whole eye was a very definite cloudy blue. It was in the left eye. The vet told me that these ulcers can start from injury to the eye or from something as simple as getting shampoo in the eye! I always use baby shampoo on the head and he had a very deep corneal pit so I am thinking maybe injury? He never acted strange or as if he were in pain until the eye was blue. i can still see the pit on his cornea but i can tell that it is in the process of healing- you can actually see the tissue that has grown over the pit. He and I are very lucky. I still feel horrible though.

[BamaFan121s]

b veselka--yes, a deep pit would sound more like an injury. That is a strong antibiotic too...I am curious, did by chance did you vet take any cultures of the ulcer? I would assume not since it does sound like it was from injury, but I am just curious.
Yes, if it ruptured, more than likely your pooch would lose his actualy eyeBALL. Not the case in humans obviously, but you will be far fetched to find a vet that will do that surgery on a dog! (Even though I know one here in Huntsville who has done them...he had the surg done on himself and therfore is particularly facinated by eye probs w/ pets!)

[Patti]

My first Yorkie Karma who was a big guy 16+ lbs tried to get under our chain link fence when I lived at home many years ago and he had a corneal ulcer. The vet thought he may need to go to a specialist who at that time was down state Illinois but he treated him and he was fine after a couple of weeks.

[Yorkieluv]

Geez! I didn't realize how quickly an eye problem could get really bad! I hope your babies have a speedy recovery from this, pinkdaisy and b_veselka... How scary!

[SoCalyorkiLvr]

Originally Posted by BamaFan121s

SoCal-I do have some questions for you about your episode w/ the ulcer, if you don't mind. I mentioned before I was a Opth tech previously...I am just curious to the differences/similarities between people and dogs? Did you treat it with drops? What was the recovery time (I may have missed it.) Did your vet mentioned what would need to be done if it had not healed?

I took her to emergency at a veterinary specialty hospital at 3 am the night she woke me up crying and I saw the blue eye. It happened that fast....They have an eye specialist there but he was not on...the vet who saw her prescribed a solution that the specialist eye doctor developed himself. I took her to my homeopathic doctor the next day and he called them to find out what was in it so he knows but I don't. The bad thing was that it had to be refrigerated and it smelled awful so it was cold going into her eye.


My homeopathic vet made a referral to the eye doctor, Dr Basher, and I took her in to see him about two weeks later. It was still "remodeling" he said..the blood vessels in the eye were red and he just gave me an ointment to put in it to keep it moist. It has looked essentially the same now since about a month after it first appeared. It is a blue dot in almost the middle of the eye that is about half a centimeter in diameter probably.

[txshopper73]

Oh, WOW! Sounds painful!

[BamaFan121s]

Originally Posted by SoCalyorkiLvr

I took her to emergency at a veterinary specialty hospital at 3 am the night she woke me up crying and I saw the blue eye. It happened that fast....They have an eye specialist there but he was not on...the vet who saw her prescribed a solution that the specialist eye doctor developed himself. I took her to my homeopathic doctor the next day and he called them to find out what was in it so he knows but I don't. The bad thing was that it had to be refrigerated and it smelled awful so it was cold going into her eye.


My homeopathic vet made a referral to the eye doctor, Dr Basher, and I took her in to see him about two weeks later. It was still "remodeling" he said..the blood vessels in the eye were red and he just gave me an ointment to put in it to keep it moist. It has looked essentially the same now since about a month after it first appeared. It is a blue dot in almost the middle of the eye that is about half a centimeter in diameter probably.

Thanks...interesting stuff.