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Swollen eye

MollyH

MollyH

Junior Guinea Pig
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I have just noticed that one of my guinea pigs has a sore looking swollen eye. Is this somthing potentially serious that I should phone the emergency vets about or can it wait untill the morning? Is there anything I can do untill she can get vet help? I don’t want to seem over dramatic but of course I want to help her as soon as possible.
 
Molly3827 said:
I have just noticed that one of my guinea pigs has a sore looking swollen eye. Is this somthing potentially serious that I should phone the emergency vets about or can it wait untill the morning? Is there anything I can do untill she can get vet help? I don’t want to seem over dramatic but of course I want to help her as soon as possible.
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Hi!

A suddenly swollen eye is serious. It is usually caused by an abscess behind the eye (retrobulbar abscess). Please see a vet asap for a preferably strong antibiotic like zithromax. But the sooner you can step in with an antibiotic and stop the abscess in its tracks, the more of a chance you have to save the eye.

All the best!
 
Wiebke said:
Hi!

A suddenly swollen eye is serious. It is usually caused by an abscess behind the eye (retrobulbar abscess). Please see a vet asap for a preferably strong antibiotic like zithromax. But the sooner you can step in with an antibiotic and stop the abscess in its tracks, the more of a chance you have to save the eye.

All the best!
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Thank you very much for you reply. I have phoned the emergency vet and waiting for a call back from them within the next half an hour.
Eek poor Olive ☹️
I hope she’s okay!
 
Molly3827 said:
Thank you very much for you reply. I have phoned the emergency vet and waiting for a call back from them within the next half an hour.
Eek poor Olive ☹
I hope she’s okay!
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Also ask for some metacam; the pressure on the eye is usually rather painful!

Fingers firmly crossed for her, but you are seeing a vet as you can, and that is what you should do and all you can do. Eye injuries and problems are not something that can wait. :tu:
 
I’m back from the vets and very tired! Olive is doing okay she had a very large peice of hay stuck in her eye. The vet could see a little bit of hay which she pointed out to me. When she removed it was much larger and been stuck behind her eye! It looked very painful. They put the colourd drops in her eye and it did show up some damage. She had an injection of pain relief, then some eye drops and some metacam. I’ve brought her home she’s back her friend Norma and is eating and drinking well. She’s got to go back tomorrow to have the coloured drops in again to see if the damage is healing.
My poor little Olive I’m glad we’re both home now I’m off to get some sleep 😴
 
Well done getting her seen so quickly. Hopefully the damage won’t be permanent, or too extensive.
 
Olive went to the for them to look at her eye again. There is still quite a bit of damage and I think the said an abscess is there. When I look at her eye I can see a kind of red line along the top. Olive has to go back next Saturday, in the mean time she's on two different eyedrops one three times a day (clorogen 0.5%) and the other (Remand corneal repair gel) once a day. She was on Metacam but the vet said she can stop that now.

In other people's experiences is her eye likely to heel quickly and will it continue to bother her in the future?
Is there anything I can do in terms of preventing this from happening again to her or to Norma my other pig? Should I be using a rack or a hay tray or is a certain type of hay better? This is not something I have had any experience on before.
Thank you for you help.
 
There isn’t really anything you can do to stop hay poke. They like to burrow so that’s a difficult one. I sometimes pick out the really sharp bits, but even with that if they'll get it they’ll get it. 🤷🏾‍♀️

Someone will be along to newer you better. I just wanted to offer support.
 
There's not much that can be done to prevent haypoke. My lily had a particularly bad one early this year. Her eye tripled in size and looked incredibly painful. Both the emergency vet and my usual vet warned me over the first week or so that we may not be able to save it. Luckily it was superficial damage and there was no abscess. It took 2-3 weeks but with eye drops and metacam the eye soon went back to normal and now you would never know she had had a problem
 
I agree - hay poke is very common. Both of my boys have done it. They need a lot of hay so avoiding poke is very difficult. My two are bedded on soft meadow hay so run through it all the time but I put their Timothy hay in a rack due to it being sharper but they could still poke themselves in the rack. It was the soft meadow that my two had their poke injuries from.
I hope olive recovers quickly
 
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