[lilbumbleybees]

Hey all!

First off, I have been INCREDIBLY MIA from the forum for a long time. I apologize for that! I feel incredibly selfish coming here now for advice, but then again this is for my furbaby and not for me.

Back in June our little Yodi became incredibly sick. It started out as his right eye being incredibly red and swollen. Took him in for what we thought was possibly a shampoo burn or scratch on his eye. Got meds, went on our way. Got worse. We ended up at an after hours vet a few days later when his eyes weren't looking better and our vet was closed. He had started to become lethargic and it scared the living hell out of me. We ran blood work and the vet said he was definitely sick with something. It could be parasite (tick), bacterial, or something else that I can't remember. The latter two he said was highly unlikely. He highly suspected a tick borne disease. He was going to put Yodi on doxycylcline (and some new eye meds) regardless so he said to wait two days and see how he reacts to the antibiotics because he knew an extra $200 just to run the tick panel on his blood was a lot of money for us (I'm just 27 and a newlywed). Luckily he got better! It was like having a brand new dog. Well the eye problems have continued for over two months now. His pressure in both eyes is always too high or too low. It's like every time we get off meds his eyes get cloudy and red again and the pressure is haywire. He's off prednisone now, but he was on it pretty much off and on for two whole months. We recently saw an ophthalmologist our of Nashville, TN. He said overall his eyes look really healthy, but are a little hazy. He's now on a new eye drop twice a day, and two different eye ointments. One ointment for AM and one for PM. We go back next week and I guess depending on how his eyes look after these eye meds for two weeks, he may decide to do blood work.

My question is, do any of you have any experience with a tick borne disease or a similar eye problem? Do tick borne diseases (if that's what it is. Never ran the tick panel since he got better) still show up in the blood panel even after having been on the doxycycline? He feels absolutely fine, but I know he is so over having his eyes looked at just about every other day. He plays dead now too when I pull out his bag of eye meds. Haha

Sorry for the novel, but I've done SO much research my brain is about to explode! Not to mention his immune system is crappy to begin with. He had demodectic mange when he was a puppy (which is caused m=by a poor immune system) so I worry about him being on all of these meds. I have him on immune boosting herbs and fish oil to help out in that area as much as it can. It's be nice if I could find anyone with a similar experience!