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Treatment of equine corneal ulcer - vet involved

Horse Care
#1

Currently treating a minor corneal ulcer in my older (19) pony gelding who does have cataracts in the affected eye. Started out with swelling, discharge, squinting, cloudiness. Began treatment immediately with bute and external cleansing to remove discharge. Squinting ceased with a day; vet arrived to diagnose and used stain to find a very small corneal ulcer. Prescribed antibiotic ointment (10 days) and banamine (6 days). Saw excellent results, reduction in cloudiness, discharge, swelling, etc. Now after being off banamine for four days, cloudiness has made a comeback and is creeping back up the eye. Still no discharge, swelling. Call into the vet to re-evaluate tomorrow.

My question is this - has anyone else dealt this this occurrence in corneal ulcer treatment? Potential causes? Treatments?

TIA!

#2

I have…its awful and very painful for the horse/pony. We had a lavage system put in by the vet school to make medicating easier as we had to medicate for 60 days.

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#3

It may be that different antibiotic ointment is needed, maybe even an antifungal. I had a pony with a corneal ulcer that despite immediate treatment ended up with a fungal infection that required surgery and the lavage system that luvmyhackney posted about above. If you can get the pony to an equine opthalmologist for a consult, that might be the way to go.
My pony went from a having a small ulcer to needing surgery in a matter of hours, I don’t say this to scare you, just as a head up that eyes can go south quick.

#4

Might want to ask the vet about treating with autologous serum. Simple to do and often helps.

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#5

Last winter I dealt with a slow healing corneal ulcer on my 19 year old gelding. I think being older slows the healing even more. I’m going to be honest, you may have a long road ahead of you still. It took weeks of dedication for my guy’s eye to fully heal. I’m not sure how many times your vet has told you to put the antibiotic ointment in, but I had to do it 4-5 times a day. I was going out in the morning before work, during lunch break, after work, after dinner. I was told the more often the better. We also had him in a fly mask to help protect the eye.

We had relapses in healing like you are describing too. When we stopped the banamine, eye still hurt so we had to re-start. And there are so many factors that can go wrong. My horse was rubbing his eye in the stall, they can get secondary infections or fungal infections, etc. I eventually got a second opinion from another vet who was a lot more aggressive in treating and switched to a stronger antibiotic. This vet also had to debride the eye to get to to heal. Basically corneal ulcers is one of those situation where less ir not more, more is more.

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#6

I had a number of horses get cornea ulcers from rolling in the sand and then apparently rubbing their eyes (SoCal). After a number of times I tried the ointment every hour and most healed within a day or so. One horse was so bad the vet was worried that he would have to remove the eye, the next day when he came to check again he was in shock that it was almost completely healed. Wouldn’t have believed it myself if I hadn’t had it happen so many times. One horse I bought a racing mask with clear eye cups that he had to wear in turnout, otherwise this was a monthly occurrence.

#7

I’ve seen this happen on a 8 yo gelding, because the staff was not regularly putting ointment in his eye. Once they got onto a strict schedule his eye got better. The horse was wearing a mask for turnout and even wore it in his stall in the beginning as he was rubbing his eye. It healed fine but it took much longer than it should have.

My 20 yo mare got a small eye ulcer shortly after that gelding, and I made sure she was getting the ointment 5 to 6 times a day and wore a mask for turnout. She got Banamine for about 3 days. She was fully healed in a week or so.

Another horse of mine with an ulcer would not let me put anything into her eye. I took her to the vet so he could put a catheter in. After that, it was a piece of cake to medicate her, and her eye healed completely in a short time.

#8

Finished treatment for my gelding’s latest eye ulcer “in the best possible spot ever”, about a month or two ago. I say that tongue in cheek - vet said it (inner corner of the eye so everything slides that direction anyway!) but it was under the third eye lid so a little tricky to get things in there. Faithfully applied 4x/day. It took about 10 days to get the all clear. Treating it this time, he was a complete angel - using a one man twitch I could do it myself.

The first time he got one, he actually got a large marble sized rock stuck under his eye lid. That one took 5 or 6 weeks to finally clear as it was in the middle of his eye. We used a twitch this time and he was not great.

The second one was a fungal infection, no idea how that happened. Went with the lavage system which was GREAT until he severed the tube going over the poll and the cup against the eye lid fell on to the cornea and made a fresh ulcer. Yeah, that wasn’t fun. I found it in the middle of the night doing middle of the night treatment. I went with the lavage because said gelding was horrible with the first one and thought it would be easier. We ended up using dorm gel and a twitch.

I have told dear gelding that he gets 3x with that injury. The next one he will be a one eyed horse.

Good luck with your treatments! I sincerely mean that. I think it’s one of the worst things to have deal with for a horse.

#9

I just went through this last New Years. Eye would heal and then have a set back. My mare is 25 and it was likely a very small puncture/abrasion.
What seemed to work best for us was stitching her third eyelid over. I myself had a severe corneal injury (kinda at home Lasik…) and was warned about the possibility of the corneal cells peeling off every time I blinked! I have never wanted to tape my eyelid open more! So I honestly think that the poor mare was healing and the new cells would be “blinked off”. The surgery was quick and inexpensive. She went from being on banamine for months to not needing any. BIG change. My only word of advice is to make sure the vet puts the suture knot on the outside of the lid in such a way that it can’t migrate when the stitch dissolves. We may have had a really big setback because of a stray knot :frowning: but dang did that puppy heal fast with all of the debriding it did!
I wish you all the best on the eye :slight_smile:

#10

I haven’t had a setback with an eye ulcer so I can’t speak to that part – but one of the best vets at Aqueduct racetrack, an old timer even at the time, said that bute worked way better for eyes than banamine. He didn’t know why, just that it did, and always prescribed it over banamine. Just wanted to mention this as an aside.

#11

There can be all sorts of reasons for this. :slight_smile: I have a horse that gets frequent corneal ulcers. I am currently dealing with an ulcer and I think it is the thirteenth one he has had. :frowning: If you mean cloudiness in the eye other than the ulcer itself, that is uveitis which can accompany ulcers. Can you still see the ulcer itself? If it has healed but the uveitis has remained you might want to try something like diclofenac or flurbiprofen which are anti-inflammatory ointments. Your best bet is to have vet back out to re-stain and see exactly what you are dealing with. The anti-inflammatory ointments can be used in conjunction with antibiotic ointments.

Some of the ones my horse has gotten have healed then re-opened, probably from him rubbing his eye. Occasionally the edges of the ulcer do not meet well and it has to be debrided and allowed to heal again.

Like others have said, the duration of these things really varies. Mine have lasted anywhere from 7 days to 5 months.

#12

Ugh yes summer of 2017 was spent working on an ulcer.my poor mare got two ulcers in one eye and one healed up in a few days while the other took all summer. It became fungal and I was doing ointments/serum etc every 1.5-2hrs. Luckily she’s the world’s most tolerant mare! Not many horses would gladly walk towards me with a flashlight in the pardock early morning/late night to have their eye messed with day after day. My vets are impressed that she didn’t lose the eye, she only has a small scar!

#13

Disagree completely. Banamine works on smooth muscle, including the muscles around and inside the eye, much better than bute. (This is also why it works best for colic.)

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#14

All I know is that bute does work. Ages ago one of my horses bashed his eye on something – swollen completely shut, tearing etc. Vet was called; horse had a small ulcer; banamine + ointment 3xday was prescribed. I switched to bute morning of day 2 (remembered what old time vet had said) because eye was still swollen shut. By mid day swelling was completely gone + horse healed 100%.

From then on I’ve used bute for eyes – it does work better than banamine in MY experience.

No one has to follow my lead on this + free to disagree of course.

Just passing along info from a vet who treated hundreds upon hundred of horses at the track where there are lots of eye injuries.

#15

The equine ophthalmologist who treated my horse’s stromal abscess (abscess within the cornea) said Banamine for eyes… bute is almost worthless. There is legit research to back this up.

1 Like
#16

Yep. Every veterinary ophthalmologist I have worked with, both in vet school and my internship, agrees.

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