chronic eye problem-need vitamins?

surellabaer · 01-10-2009, 08:16 PM

My lab/border collie mix, Bentley, has had pink eye twice already and seems to have a constantly irritated left eye.
It's always a little saggy, a little red, he's always squinting with it and sometimes its just closed.
I wonder if there's something natural I can give him-maybe eye vitamins like my mom takes for her macular degeneration.
Plus-why is he getting this? I have a really clean house and no rugs or carpeting at all. Sometimes I think its more emotional-he got pink eye when I went away for a week.
Anybody who's had the same experience please let me know what you did!
Thanks for your help, Surella and Bentley

lulusmom · 01-11-2009, 02:47 PM

One of my dogs has chronic Keratoconjunctivitis sicca (dry eye) and requires optimmune ointment in both eyes twice a day for the rest of his life. We rescued our baby from a shelter and he was raging with infections in his eyes and ears. His eyes were so bad they were bleeding. He squinted, he pawed at his eyes and rubbed them on the carpet and both eyes were beet red. You would think that if they have dry eye, there wouldn't be any discharge but my dog looked like he was constantly tearing. The vet checked his tear production via a Schirmer tear test. This is a just a strip of paper that is placed on the lower eyelid to measure how wet the strip gets. Did your vet do this?

surellabaer · 01-11-2009, 04:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lulusmom

One of my dogs has chronic Keratoconjunctivitis sicca (dry eye) and requires optimmune ointment in both eyes twice a day for the rest of his life. We rescued our baby from a shelter and he was raging with infections in his eyes and ears. His eyes were so bad they were bleeding. He squinted, he pawed at his eyes and rubbed them on the carpet and both eyes were beet red. You would think that if they have dry eye, there wouldn't be any discharge but my dog looked like he was constantly tearing. The vet checked his tear production via a Schirmer tear test. This is a just a strip of paper that is placed on the lower eyelid to measure how wet the strip gets. Did your vet do this?

NO! he didn't do this and what you described sounds alot like what Bentley has! The whites look really red very often and teary too! Sometimes in the morning his eye is a little gunky. I am going to research dry eye-thanks alot for your help!

lulusmom · 01-11-2009, 09:54 PM

Here is a very good site that lists the various symtoms which my guy had just about every one of them and sounds like yours does too.

http://www.lowchensaustralia.com/health/dryeye.htm

If left untreated, a dog can go blind so I highly recommend that you get him checked out as soon as possible. Optimmune is not cheap but they do have generic ointment and eyedrops. I am switching to the eye drops for the next refeal because I feel they are much easier to administer. Just a warnng, if your dog is a lap dog, they love to rub their eyes on you so every shirt we own has grease stains on them. I was paying $40 for a little tube that lasted not longer than a week or 10 days. I can get the same stuff now in generic at half the price at diamondback drugs in AZ. I get four months supply at one time.