I'm so sorry that little Sophie is losing her sight, but glad you're on top of it. Was the pressure in her eye 67 before or after treating with drops? Did the drops bring the pressure down? Glaucoma is extremely painful, and once the pressures start spiking like that, they are very hard to control. Once my little one's pressures started spiking into the 50's range, we spent a few months chasing the pressures with various drops which were expensive and did not work well or for long, trying to save an eye that she couldn't see out of anyway. Near the end of the chase, she was on five different drops, giving each three times per day. That's 15 different doses of eye meds, and none of them could be given at the same time. I spent at least three hours per day just medicating her, trying to save the eye. And all for nothing anyway, because Glaucoma always wins in the end. With pressure spikes like that, Sophie has probably already lost the vision in the eye anyway, and if she hasn't already, she will soon. It is probably time to start exploring your options for enucleation (removing the eyeball).
I know, it sounds - ICK - but as surgeries go it wasn't bad at all, and she felt so much better. Happier, more active, more alert, once that painful mass of an eyeball was gone. My girl checked in first thing in the morning, had her surgery around noon, and was released at 5:00 pm with bright blue stitches holding her eyelid closed and wearing the cone of shame. She needed pain meds (tramadol) for about 3 days, and was fully recovered in two weeks when her stitches came out and she could ditch the cone.
My girl has now lost both of her eyes to glaucoma. She had enucleation in one eye and chemical ablation in the other, and became completely blind at 13. Honestly, we don't even notice the missing eyeball anymore, and she's cute as a button and has adapted really well to her blindness. We're a little more careful now to keep things out of her way, because she still has one eyeball that she can't see out of anyway, and I worry about her bumping into something and injuring it. But she can do just about everything she could do before she lost her vision. She finds her way around the house easily, still sleeps on the bed (although I'll admit to taking the frame of the bed away and we now sleep on a box springs and mattress on the floor LOL), she goes up and down stairs on her own, still goes outside to potty, and is very happy and content.
There is an excellent blind dogs list on Yahoo that you might want to check out. It is a pretty active list, and they deal with all kinds of diseases of the eye including PRA, glaucoma, etc. I was scared stiff in the beginning, and the thought of my girl going blind sent me over the edge. I learned so much from that list about how to help my girl adapt to her loss of vision. It's been three years since she was diagnosed with glaucoma, two and a half years since she lost the first eye, and one and a half years since she lost the second one. Honestly, I don't even think about her being blind anymore. We have three dogs. Two males, and she's the only female. And she is still the alpha dog in our house!
Good luck with little Sophie. I can't imagine her being un-adoptable just because she's blind. I'd take on another blind dog in a heartbeat, and many on the yahoo list have adopted dogs that are already blind or quickly losing their vision. Yes, it takes a special kind of person to adopt a special needs dog, but I don't consider blind dogs to be handicapped. Get those eyes fixed up or out of there and I'm sure you will be able to find her a forever home!
Diana |