Losing Sight in an Eye?

[FredRock]

I've posted before that Fred had a weird floater in his eye that moved one day, and that he's been pretty spooky and just not "Fred" in a long time. We asked the vet to check it out over the summer, and she said that she didn't know what the floater was but he didn't seem to be losing sight as far as she could tell. Main vet came out and did an ultrasound of the eye, and confirmed that it was just excessive pigment that's common, but at some point in time Fred's cornea inflamed and it touched the pigment, dragging it down when the eye returned to normal. Cautioned us to watch out for any signs of eye discomfort because he might have uveitis.

I visited Fred over the weekend, and he's got me kind of worried. Everytime I walk up to him on that side, he has to turn his head towards me. He was jumpy whenever I crossed over from the good side to the bad eye side even though I put my hand on him to say I was there. He also kept weaving and turning his head when I stood at his neck on that side to groom him. He'd look at me with his head straight and be fine. He even stepped on me when we were in the stall and I was on that side, as he was moving over. Of course everything on the good side was fine, normal Fred behavior.

I don't know if I'm being a mother hen about this, although I hope I am. So anyone have any help? Advice? I'm trying to decide whether this should warrant a special vet visit or should just wait for the spring shots appointment, which will be coming up sometime in April. I won't see him all that much in the weeks to come, and niether will my mother.

[natisha]

I'd have a vet out ASAP. Eyes are nothing to mess with plus they can be very painful.

I hope it all turns out to be nothing. Keep us posted.

[FredRock]

I will.

I've asked my mom to check on him when she can this week to see if he's acting weird for her, told her what I noticed (because otherwise she would just tell me I'm worrying over nothing). I'm sure that if she sees what I saw she'll have the vet come.

I should add that I didn't notice anything outwardly wrong with the eye, because it jumped out to me as weird behavior when I was with him and I checked it out, down to the eyelashes. So at least there didn't appear to be a burst of uveitis at the time. Of course, that doesn't mean there weren't any boughts of uveitis before, we told the BOs what to look for but since it's all finite signs, it's easy to miss.

[AUEquine]

Is there any drainage from the eye? Any cloudiness in the eye?

I agree with Natisha eyes are not something to mess with, they get bad fast! Are there any vets or vet schools near you with someone who specializes in opthomology? Have they done any stains or cultures on the eye to check for fungal, bacterial infections?

[FredRock]

My mom checked on him today and told me he is fine, didn't have any of the behaviors that I mentioned. She did neuro checks on the eye, no swelling or drainage and she said the eyelid is open all of the way. No cloudiness either.

Hopefully he was just being a brat because I didn't see him for a month. I'm still going to have the vet do a check when we do spring shots, which will hopefully be in the week after this when I'm home on spring break.

AUE- I was trying to find a thread I thought I posted but apparently never did, so sorry if all the info seems a little fuzzy:

Fred's had a floater type of blob ever since we got him back in 2005ish. The vet said that it seemed a little odd but that there was no indications of a problem, and to just keep an eye on it and let him know if it changed shape. It did change shape 4 years later, with the round top moving down to expose something resembling a tail. Also around that time Fred had swelling on that eyelid with drainage, but I thought it was simply from being outside of the eye, like he bumped it on something but there was no mark. I gave him some bute that day. When we had the vet out to look at it, she didn't know what it was but took pictures and was going to show them to the head vet. He came out to do an ultrasound to see if it was cancerous or something along those lines, and after a while figured out what it was. I don't remember what he called it off of the top of my head, I asked my mom and she can't either, but my mom's a nurse and recognized it at the time so it wasn't anything too unordinary. Anyways, he said that Fred had had some kind of inflammation in his eye at some point, the floater type of thing's head stuck to the cornea, and dragged down when the swelling subsided. He didn't see any indications of pain in Fred's eye at the time, didn't think it was hurting him or that he had lost any vision. But he did tell us what to look for in the future in terms of eye pain and uveitis so we passed it onto the BOs to help keep an eye on.

So we've never had any other testing done because we had an answer for the problem. There aren't that many other vets around here to get a second opinion on, and I'd say that this vet is the top of the top in terms of practice. If we were to go anywhere with more to offer it would have to be Cornell, which would be both very expensive and far to travel.