Dimpled cornea?

Hello! Heather my 10 year old bun has been having eye issues for a couple of weeks now; one of her eyes looks a bit vaguely cloudy and there has been a huge amount of blood vessel growth around the edges. She has been treated with eye drops, metacam and panacur and is absolutely fine in herself - stable weight, active and otherwise healthy, but today I've noticed these weird dimples have appeared on the surface of the eye - there are a couple of them and the best way I can think to describe them is that they are a bit like the dimples on the surface of a golf ball. They aren't staining with fluorescein; we have today added systemic antibiotic and changed the eye drops, and could potentially consider swapping to a steroidal eye drop, but it's difficult to know what the cause is so we wanted to try different abx first.

Anyone seen this before, or got any ideas or experiences??

Lipid Keratopathy ?

http://wildpro.twycrosszoo.org/S/00dis/Miscellaneous/LipidKeratopathyRabbit.htm

Dammit, must be all that cheese I've been feeding her :lol: Seriously though, thanks for the link - I shall have a more detailed read. It is only in one eye though, the other is perfectly normal :?

I'll try and take a photo tomorrow, but I'm not sure how well it will show up if at all - especially as she won't stay still!

Santa said:

Dammit, must be all that cheese I've been feeding her :lol: Seriously though, thanks for the link - I shall have a more detailed read. It is only in one eye though, the other is perfectly normal :?

I'll try and take a photo tomorrow, but I'm not sure how well it will show up if at all - especially as she won't stay still!

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If it is that then those double cream doughnuts will be off the menu too

:lol:

And definitely no steak! I've just been out to do her eye drops, and her eye surface looks completely smooth now :? It's very odd.

Did they test the eye pressure? When my bun was diagnosed with glaucoma her eyes were cloudy (even a bit blue) and the "whites" of her eyes had really noticeable blood vessels.

Hope you can get to the bottom of it

Thanks - no we haven't done that yet - how is that done, does it need to be done under anaesthetic?

I'm seeing my vet again on Monday so will discuss what to do next steps then. There is an exotics specialist in Essex who is also an ophthalmic specialist so he would seem the obvious place to go if we think a referral is in order, even if it's 'just' for diagnosis...if there's a possibility she might need GA to have a better look, I'd rather it was done just once on a referral. I haven't seen the dimpled surface since the time we saw it at the vets, so I'm not sure whether it just doesn't show up in any other light or whether for whatever reason (heat, stress etc) it only showed up there :? Anyway, here's what it looks like when I gently lift the lid to expose the top - you can't really see the opaque grey bit but you can see how red it is. It doesn't seem to be bothering her and it isn't getting any better or worse. It doesn't look swollen, and the other eye is perfectly normal looking.



Anyone got any thoughts?

Does it bother her at all? :? It's a different species, but I had a guinea pig who had one eye that went absolutely awful. The vet at Wickford said the eye might have to be removed, but it just wasn't bothering her, so we left it. I never did know what the problem was, but it wasn't an infection. It didn't look exactly like 'pea eye' that guinea pigs get, but I'm inclined to think it was still a cholesterol type problem, and was age related.

Doesn't seem to be bothering her at all, no. I only took her because I thought her eye was looking very slightly cloudy a few weeks ago, with no other symptoms at all. I would be really disinclined to do anything radical for that reason (and the fact that she's nearly 10), but I would like to be a bit clearer with some kind of diagnosis if that can be achieved with minimal invasion, as then I feel as if I'd be in a better position to decide what to do for the best.

Oh I do agree. I wasn't suggesting that you just do nothing if there is a chance of finding out what it is. I just wondered if it was bothering her. It always amazed me with how horrible my guinea pig's eye looked and yet it didn't bother her in the slightest.

I have a bun with ongoing eye issues. About 6 months ago (maybe longer) I noticed her keeping one eye closed all the time especially in bright light. Took her to the vet to find that both her eyes are cloudy but one of them is worse and had what we thought was an ulcer on the surface of her cornea. She constantly squints the eye STILL and seems to be completely blind in it (although I think she can see light) but it doesn't seem to bother her. She was treated on various antibiotics and has her eye stained every month at the vets, the stain sticks to her eye but the vet thinks that the stain is sticking to a part of her eye that has cornea erosion. She also doesn't think the "cataracts" is anything to do with the cornea damage and believes it is simply genetic (She is roughly about 2 years old). She now just has dry eye drops to make sure she is comfortable..the stained part appears to be shrinking but I have noticed a white patch on her cornea...apparently scarring.
I don't know if this is similar to your bun? The scarring appears to be slightly raised and definitely noticeable in the light and when she first started with symptoms her eye was very red around the white part. Other than this Xena is perfectly happy and healthy, just like your bun. She also NEVER scratches at her eye or seems bothered by it apart from squinting it.

Thanks for that - I don't think this is the same though, the stain isn't sticking to Heather's eye at all so there doesn't seem to be any ulceration or corneal erosion. One of my others has an eye ulcer at the moment (after getting a hay seed stuck in his eye) so I'm fairly familiar with what they tend to look like. It is most odd though - there's clearly something going on to cause all that extra vascularisation but there's nothing obvious causing it and it's not improving with antibiotics, anti-inflammatory and/or panacur.

Santa said:

Thanks - no we haven't done that yet - how is that done, does it need to be done under anaesthetic?

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No GA required, my vet uses a Tonometry "pen" and uses a local anaesthetic in the eye and used the pen to gently touch the eye surface and gets an average reading from 3-4 go's. Believe eye pressure should be 10-15 in a bun. When Lavender was first diagnosed her pressure was about 20 and she only had a little cloudyness and a lot of redness around the eye. When the pressure continued to rise to 54 (I believe this was my face :shock: ) her eye went completely cloudy and quite blue.

She had to have the unresponsive eye removed but her other eye is almost normal now with Trusopt, Viscotears and Atropine drops

Hope that helped :wave:

She doesn't have any enlarged Lymph Nodes anywhere does she ?

Doesn't seem to have - I'll ask Sam to have another thorough check when I see her on Monday. What are you thinking - some kind of tumour?

Santa said:

Doesn't seem to have - I'll ask Sam to have another thorough check when I see her on Monday. What are you thinking - some kind of tumour?

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The eye looks exactly like Stanley's. Stan is 11. We suspect he has Lymphoma, the eye issues being one of the symptoms along with lymphodenopathy.

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1219134-overview


We do not believe it to be in Stan's best interests to subject him to the stress of a battery of tests so he is on palliative care which is keeping him comfortable for his remaining time

This may not be what is going on for your Bun at all, but thought I ought to mention it xx

Thanks everyone!

Been back today, Heather's eye has now ulcered we haven't done pressure testing partly because she doesn't think it looks like a pressure problem, and partly because heather does not stay still, so there is a much higher risk of causing more damage if she moves while being done. Instead she's going to speak to a referral vet who specialises both in exotics and in ophthalmology, as she feels we might move forward more quickly if she is seen by someone who sees this sort of thing more regularly and has more specialist equipment. Fingers crossed...

Santa said:

Thanks everyone!

Been back today, Heather's eye has now ulcered we haven't done pressure testing partly because she doesn't think it looks like a pressure problem, and partly because heather does not stay still, so there is a much higher risk of causing more damage if she moves while being done. Instead she's going to speak to a referral vet who specialises both in exotics and in ophthalmology, as she feels we might move forward more quickly if she is seen by someone who sees this sort of thing more regularly and has more specialist equipment. Fingers crossed...

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Lots of vibes being sent for her xx

Righty ho, I've just got back from my referral, and it's amazing how simple the solution can be! We have a diagnosis of keratoconjunctivitis sicca - i.e. she isn't producing enough tears...none at all in her right eye, and some but still abnormally low in her left. He thinks the recurring ulceration is simply due to the switching of drugs, as the fucithalmic is quite lubricating so the ulcers go as soon as she's on that, and come back as soon as she's off it. So I've got viscotears liquid gel to give 2-4 times a day for the rest of her life. He did say that because she's been on other drugs, it's possible that they've been masking something he can't see, but he doesn't think so.

I do feel quite reassured more generally too, as with all his fancy equipment he gave her eyes a really thorough going over and there's no sign of any glaucoma, tumour or anything nasty there - a smidge of cataract in both eyes but nothing unexpected or worrying given her age.

Santa said:

Righty ho, I've just got back from my referral, and it's amazing how simple the solution can be! We have a diagnosis of keratoconjunctivitis sicca - i.e. she isn't producing enough tears...none at all in her right eye, and some but still abnormally low in her left. He thinks the recurring ulceration is simply due to the switching of drugs, as the fucithalmic is quite lubricating so the ulcers go as soon as she's on that, and come back as soon as she's off it. So I've got viscotears liquid gel to give 2-4 times a day for the rest of her life. He did say that because she's been on other drugs, it's possible that they've been masking something he can't see, but he doesn't think so.

I do feel quite reassured more generally too, as with all his fancy equipment he gave her eyes a really thorough going over and there's no sign of any glaucoma, tumour or anything nasty there - a smidge of cataract in both eyes but nothing unexpected or worrying given her age.

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Great news