The same mare that has the dry skin also has a swollen eyelid. Just one side. I took her to the vet and she found nothing in particular. Positively she said there didn’t seem to be any injury or cateract on the eye.
She sent me home with instructions to wipe out the eye as it was weeping quite a bit. Also, to put some liquid polysporin in her eye.
The swelling comes and goes, from quite puffy on top and bottom eyelids to no swelling for a couple days then puffy again, it does not seem to be painful as my mare always lets me clean it and put the drops in. (such a nice mare!)
It is bothering me far more than her at this point. I have taken pictures and when I look back I think it is gradually getting worse, when it swells I think there is more swelling.
I am taking her back to the vet for another exam tomorrow.
The vet has suggested she could put a steroid drop in the eye to treat it. Thinking some kind of autoimmune issue. Thoughts on this treatment?
I am looking for any thoughts on what to ask the vet to check, any ideas on what this random swelling could be?
Sorry, no experience except with easily identified scratched corneas. Just wanted to send jingles for your girl. I’m sure someone else will jump in with some good advice. 
When you say the vet found nothing, I assume she stained it and looked very carefully for not only a scratch, but anything even hinting at a potential ulcer? The last thing you want without making SURE there’s no ulcer, is a steroid.
Some vets are treating eyes with an anti-fungal as well as antibiotic as they are finding that somehow speeds up healing from whatever.
Thank you JB, yes, at the last visit she did stain the eye. When I see the vet again today I will ask her about what she did. I have never seen an eye exam before so have no experience to say she did a thorough job, she did seem to spend a fair bit of time looking around with the stain and a flashlight.
I found another post about an ulcer on the eye. Recommendations there were to put the ointment in the eye 2-3 x daily, was not told that!
Yes, it’s a pain, which is why, when my mare had one, I opted to get her fitted with a catheter. That made things so much easier and she recovered just fine.
i do not know about horses, but i have had a couple of dogs that had an oalfbstruction in their tearduct and vet injected saline through a nasal duct and flushed it out. Currently have a llama with a weeping right eye and next time vet is here for anything i’ll see if he can fix her that way too. I’ve tried 7 days of ointment and that didn’t cure her. (fwiw this is a ‘nice’ female llama, and even still quite a pill to catch and do her eye after day one)
Blocked tear duct may be another source of the issue. If you get it flushed, follow up with a few days of eye ointment that contains steroid to try and calm the tissue in the tear duct.
as long as that light also involved magnification to see INTO the eye, then it sounds like she did a thorough job
That’s why it’s really important to know if there is or isn’t, an ulcer and/or a scratch. Actual injuries may need atropine to get and keep the pupil dilated if the eye is painful enough that it’s constricting. The injury may require medication in the eye even 4 times a day. That’s what I was doing the few times I’ve had to deal with scratches, and then ERU, 2 different medications at various intervals.
Ulcers get treated differently from scratches, so you definitely want to know what’s what
ok again thank you! Now I have some ideas when I see the vet. Will post an update.
Probably my post. Recommendation got upped to 4-6x a day (ulcer was easily visible without stain though) and some 6-7 weeks later horse is back in ridden work but ulcer is still visible, but I think we’re nearly there. Eyes take a LONG time to heal. Don’t muck around with it.
If it is an ulcer definitely no steroids. My girl was on atropine 2x daily for about a month, 4-6x daily with an antibiotic/antifungal. Still treating a couple times a day with that one because the last thing I want is a nasty getting in with it so close to healed.
Thank you, :), I did call the neighboring town to try that vet who is considered a very good equine vet. However, being calving season the soonest appointment I could get was not until the middle of next month. I really wanted her seen again sooner.
Is she turned out with other horses? I’ve had some mild eyelid swelling in my herd in the past and it is always during shedding season. I think they rub their faces on each other and end up getting hair in their eyes and/or mild scratches on their cornea. Maybe not even enough to be seen with dye.
I would definitely watch the face rubbing - and maybe consider putting a fly mask on if it persists.
The lovely mare’s eye was not even slightly swollen by the time we saw the vet, but the vet did examine and look carefully in the eye again and we talked about possible causes and treatment options.
Perhaps the polysporin drops did the trick.
I was pretty thankful I had pictures to prove the swollen eye at various times because of course random swelling does not fit a typical pattern.
