Cloudy Eye -cataracts?

[kerry]

Three ish months ago I adopted two girls from a woman who could not look after them. She mislead me about the care she had been giving them; in short she said they had monthly vet checks but from the length and curl of their nails, I doubt this is true. I have no idea how old the actually are, my vet said they were 'young' but I know from experience that they are fully grown, mature girls. Id guess at 3 to 4 years old.

One of the girls has rapidly developed a cloudy eye. One eye is completely clear, normal colour and the other has developed a cloudly blue 'mist' across the whole eye.

Now ive never ever had a pig develop this before but I have heard of cataracts and seen it in both a cat and a dog. She has not had an eye infection or sustained any injury to the eye or fought with her sister so its definitely not an injury. Her sister is fine.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought caracts is a thing that develops in old people/animals?

She can see out of the other eye and she relies on her sense of smell for water, hay and veggies and her food. She still happily runs around and I have yet to see her bump into anything.

I do not want to put her under the trauma of surgery while she still has her good eye and her sense of smell.

Has anyone else got a pig with cataracts or even a blind one? Are they okay?

This has developed over the space of a few days and has taken me by suprise

 

[helen105281]

Mrs Fuzzy has cataracts and is doing fine. She is only around 2 years old. I know Wiebke has a whole group with them too.

 

[GPTV]

might be worth taking her back to the vet & get them to have another check of her eye, one of mine had similar to yours, & i could see no injury at first or foreign body etc, the vet prescribed eye drops, which i gave her 3-4 times a day for nearly 3 days, still no improvement so back to the vet, also now i could see a matt area on her eye (with no shine on that area).
back to the vets we went, she put in the dye which showed the eye was injured- still no sign of a foreign body.

the vet added a local anaesthetic eye drop to her eye & we both had a good look & i found a tiny green line, the vet got it out by pulling the eyelid down carefully & got out a nearly 1cm long grass seed head, one that looks fluffy with the dangling down seeds. this had been rubbing against her eyeball, out of sight under her eyelid & had caused ulceration. we had a week of eyedrops & she is perfectly fine now. always worth a trip to the vets as eyes can get awful problems really quickly

healing vibes to your little girly & thankyou for rescuing them & giving them a caring forever home

from the girls & I. xx

 

[kerry]

might be worth taking her back to the vet & get them to have another check of her eye, one of mine had similar to yours, & i could see no injury at first or foreign body etc, the vet prescribed eye drops, which i gave her 3-4 times a day for nearly 3 days, still no improvement so back to the vet, also now i could see a matt area on her eye (with no shine on that area).
back to the vets we went, she put in the dye which showed the eye was injured- still no sign of a foreign body.

the vet added a local anaesthetic eye drop to her eye & we both had a good look & i found a tiny green line, the vet got it out by pulling the eyelid down carefully & got out a nearly 1cm long grass seed head, one that looks fluffy with the dangling down seeds. this had been rubbing against her eyeball, out of sight under her eyelid & had caused ulceration. we had a week of eyedrops & she is perfectly fine now. always worth a trip to the vets as eyes can get awful problems really quickly

healing vibes to your little girly & thankyou for rescuing them & giving them a caring forever home

from the girls & I. xx

Oh goodness! I will book her in for Thursday and hope that it is just cataracts! As much as I want her to have perfect vision I'd rather its 'just' cataracts that isnt hurting her.

I hope your little one is okay now

 

[helen105281]

If you post a photo on here in the meantime we can have a look for you.

 

[GPTV]

Any chance you could get her to the vet any sooner than thursday? The quicker, the better really, if it is an injury it could lead to bad ulceration/damage in that length of time & complications that would be really painful for her too.

good luck & speedy recovery
xx

 

[Briony_S]

I have had a couple of rye injurys the latter being only a couple of weeks ago. The eye does cloud over within 24 hours. Was this sudden or slowly overtime?

 

[helen105281]

It does sound to me like it could be an injury and I agree it would be best to get her seen sooner. My original post was from the train going across London so didn't post what I would have wanted to.

 

[kerry]

They eye doesnt look damaged or watering or red or anything that would look like an injury. There is nothing in or around it. It looks exactly like my nans dog that had catteract.

I had another look today and its clearer than yesterday. Ill catch her for a photo later before their dinner feed.

Thursday is the earliest I can do

 

[Wiebke]

Please have them checked by your vet re. ulcers! The ulcer is a blue film on top of the eye surface. Eye injuries always need to be seen by a vet. With the appropriate treatment, they usually go down quite quickly.

Cataracts are not all that rare in guinea pigs. I have a dedicated cataract group and they are doing just fine. They have a shallow ramp in their cage, roam the living room floor and go out on the lawn just like my other piggies. The transitional period is the most difficult until cataract piggies have learned to compensate with their other senses and to rebuild their internal map of where things are.

Cataracts usually start out as little dots inside the eye, whereas with nuclear sclerosis the lens goes uniformly opaque, again inside the eye.
Please have any cataracts confirmed by a vet to make sure that you have got the right diagnosis.

Here is more information: http://www.guinealynx.info/eyes.html