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Hi everyone! OK, so this will probably be a long post so forgive me!
A little backstory:
Toby, our almost 20 yo male, has end stage kidney disease/failure. He is palliative, but we are keeping him comfortable until we feel it's time. I won't go into details but he's happy and content for the time being.
Almost 2 weeks ago, we brought him into the vet to see if our latest course of treatment was helping him. And unfortunately, that visit did not go well and he was very stressed. So the vet did not bother trying to test him further and simply told us to bring him home, keep him comfortable and really start thinking of his end of life care. (this is the short version, our vet is wonderful and we've been both working very hard and trying everything possible for our Toby)
So Toby had been going blind already, but we knew he could still see shapes and movement from far and more details up close. When I brought him home from the vet, and I took him out of his carrier, I could tell he went completely blind. I figure it was due to high blood pressure that was exacerbated by the stressful vet visit. (CKD cats are prone to high blood pressure and the retinas can detach due to high blood pressure causing blindness) I have read that if you can get and keep the blood pressure under control quickly, vision can be restored. What I seem to be missing from the information I'm trying to find is, does that mean the retinas will heal / re-attache on their own / vision come back by itself?? or does that just mean the vet will be able to do a procedure, and it will be successful??
The reason I ask, is as soon as we came home although he was disoriented for the first day (walking into walls, tripping, did not use litter box....) he managed to find his way and adapt to the blindness. But now almost two weeks later, I swear he can see!!!! He follows small movements with his eyes, his pupils are no longer totally dilated and he will follow our movements as we move about the room. He does not "sniff" his way about as much and has, for the first time this morning, found his way into his little "comfy cave", which he has avoided these past two weeks, even though it was his favorite spot to sleep. I'm overjoyed that he seems much more comfortable and engaged and it gives me hope that his quality of life is THAT much better.
So, are the things I'm noticing for real? Do the retinas re-attache by themselves? If anyone has had experience with this, I would greatly appreciate it.
A little backstory:
Toby, our almost 20 yo male, has end stage kidney disease/failure. He is palliative, but we are keeping him comfortable until we feel it's time. I won't go into details but he's happy and content for the time being.
Almost 2 weeks ago, we brought him into the vet to see if our latest course of treatment was helping him. And unfortunately, that visit did not go well and he was very stressed. So the vet did not bother trying to test him further and simply told us to bring him home, keep him comfortable and really start thinking of his end of life care. (this is the short version, our vet is wonderful and we've been both working very hard and trying everything possible for our Toby)
So Toby had been going blind already, but we knew he could still see shapes and movement from far and more details up close. When I brought him home from the vet, and I took him out of his carrier, I could tell he went completely blind. I figure it was due to high blood pressure that was exacerbated by the stressful vet visit. (CKD cats are prone to high blood pressure and the retinas can detach due to high blood pressure causing blindness) I have read that if you can get and keep the blood pressure under control quickly, vision can be restored. What I seem to be missing from the information I'm trying to find is, does that mean the retinas will heal / re-attache on their own / vision come back by itself?? or does that just mean the vet will be able to do a procedure, and it will be successful??
The reason I ask, is as soon as we came home although he was disoriented for the first day (walking into walls, tripping, did not use litter box....) he managed to find his way and adapt to the blindness. But now almost two weeks later, I swear he can see!!!! He follows small movements with his eyes, his pupils are no longer totally dilated and he will follow our movements as we move about the room. He does not "sniff" his way about as much and has, for the first time this morning, found his way into his little "comfy cave", which he has avoided these past two weeks, even though it was his favorite spot to sleep. I'm overjoyed that he seems much more comfortable and engaged and it gives me hope that his quality of life is THAT much better.
So, are the things I'm noticing for real? Do the retinas re-attache by themselves? If anyone has had experience with this, I would greatly appreciate it.