Hi All,
I'm new to the forum, a proud Mom to four Sphynx cats. I've been lurking for a while since Mews2Much introduced me to the forum, but this is my first post.
Let me start from the beginning...almost two weeks ago, I took my 3 year old boy, Nelson to the vet because he was squinting his right eye. It was too swollen to do a stain without sedation (and I wouldn't have allowed sedation, because he has a heart murmur and hadn't yet been scanned for HCM - different story!) Anyway, what my vet could see of his cornea looked good, so he prescribed Durafilm. Treated with Durafilm for 4 days and his eye was getting better, almost completely back to normal, but then he took a turn for the worse. I took him back to the vet for a recheck. This time all the swelling was gone, so he did a stain and found a very large, shallow ulcer on his eye. We immediately took him off the Durafilm (no steroids for an ulcer!) and put him on Atropine and Topramycin drops. 4 more days of this and STILL no improvement...
So, on the third visit to the vet, we drew blood and my vet spun it to make a serum of his blood proteins and Baytril. I have to put a drop in his eye every 2 hours, and continue giving the atropine and topramycin drops as scheduled.
Here are my questions - does anyone have any experience with this treatment? If so, was it successful? How quickly did it work? What sort of things should I be looking for to know if it's working? I'm terrified, because it's going on 2 weeks now, and I would be devastated if he lost his eye. I know the next step will be to take him to an ophthalmologist, and possible surgery, which I'm willing to do, but I don't want to wait until it's too late. However, if this treatment is going to work, I'd certainly like to save thousands of dollars...
Last evening I started him on the serum drops. When I went to bed last night, his eye was looking worse than it ever has. His eyeball literally looked like it was melting, not smooth glass like it's supposed to look - you could see ripples on the surface of his eye, his third eyelid was almost completely closed over. I was horrified.
When I got up at 4am to give him the next dose of drops, I pried his eyelid open, and his eyeball was perfectly smooth, all the swelling was gone, and there was a beautiful green eye staring back at me. I was so tired and confused, I had to double-take! I thought I'd opened up the wrong eye in my sleepy state. So, if anyone else has experience with this treatment, is this normal? Does it sound like it's working? Any input here would be greatly appreciated!
I'm new to the forum, a proud Mom to four Sphynx cats. I've been lurking for a while since Mews2Much introduced me to the forum, but this is my first post.
Let me start from the beginning...almost two weeks ago, I took my 3 year old boy, Nelson to the vet because he was squinting his right eye. It was too swollen to do a stain without sedation (and I wouldn't have allowed sedation, because he has a heart murmur and hadn't yet been scanned for HCM - different story!) Anyway, what my vet could see of his cornea looked good, so he prescribed Durafilm. Treated with Durafilm for 4 days and his eye was getting better, almost completely back to normal, but then he took a turn for the worse. I took him back to the vet for a recheck. This time all the swelling was gone, so he did a stain and found a very large, shallow ulcer on his eye. We immediately took him off the Durafilm (no steroids for an ulcer!) and put him on Atropine and Topramycin drops. 4 more days of this and STILL no improvement...
So, on the third visit to the vet, we drew blood and my vet spun it to make a serum of his blood proteins and Baytril. I have to put a drop in his eye every 2 hours, and continue giving the atropine and topramycin drops as scheduled.
Here are my questions - does anyone have any experience with this treatment? If so, was it successful? How quickly did it work? What sort of things should I be looking for to know if it's working? I'm terrified, because it's going on 2 weeks now, and I would be devastated if he lost his eye. I know the next step will be to take him to an ophthalmologist, and possible surgery, which I'm willing to do, but I don't want to wait until it's too late. However, if this treatment is going to work, I'd certainly like to save thousands of dollars...
Last evening I started him on the serum drops. When I went to bed last night, his eye was looking worse than it ever has. His eyeball literally looked like it was melting, not smooth glass like it's supposed to look - you could see ripples on the surface of his eye, his third eyelid was almost completely closed over. I was horrified.
When I got up at 4am to give him the next dose of drops, I pried his eyelid open, and his eyeball was perfectly smooth, all the swelling was gone, and there was a beautiful green eye staring back at me. I was so tired and confused, I had to double-take! I thought I'd opened up the wrong eye in my sleepy state. So, if anyone else has experience with this treatment, is this normal? Does it sound like it's working? Any input here would be greatly appreciated!
