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White/blue Patch On Eye?

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Toffeewoffee

Toffeewoffee

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I noticed yesterday Lilly (neutered boar) had a white/blue circle on his eye, looked as if he just had a white pupil, no sign of injury or weeping or anything else, today it has got bigger I would say 75/80% of the eye is now this White/Blue colour, its not a block colour white, but its definitely not his usual brown/black. This has litterally only appeared sinc Saturday night.

He is fine in himself, just wondering what it could be to appear so quickly? I tried to get a picture but it was hard with the lighting in the room, i will try again later when i get home.

Thanks
 
I was thinking hay poke too, the eye can look blue when ulcerated.
 
Ok, i have dealt with several hay pokes in the past and on those experiences I would be confidently to rule it out, I will however get it checked out. Thanks
 
The other option would be a cataract but I would not think it would appear so quickly.
 
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Give Lily a cuddle and let us know how he gets on x
 
Just thought I would post a picture of his eye for you all to see, the circle has shrunk in size again.... I have had a very good look magnifying glass and all and would be happy to rule out hay poke of injury, but I am going to get it checked out to be sure anyway.

Just to clarify the lightening in the corner of his eye is normal, it's just the pigment of his skin. It's not puss or anything like that.

 
I agree that it looks more like a cateract than a hay poke. Usually cateracts are age-related and slower-growing, but they can progress very quickly, especially in a younger pig. You could get a vet to confirm a diagnosis, but treatment is not usually recommended, as the guinea will be able to adapt. Cateracts can be related to diabetes, so it would be worth checking for that too (but beware - a high urine glucose level may be diet-related, so needs to be repeated after a diet of hay, cabbage and oats has been followed for three weeks to be sure).
 
It looks like nuclear sclerosis, i.e. the whole lens going milky and opaque evenly in one go. This can come on very quickly over the course of just a few days. Cataracts typically tend to start as small dots in the lens that eventually connect. They look more like a the picture of a web of galaxies or at a later stage, light, broken cloud cover and they usually develop more slowly. The eye may look a bit glassy with a slight blueish tint in the very early stages in both cases. You can also notice the onset when an eye is starting to have a blue and not a red colour in flash light pictures.

My Mischief had nuclear sclerosis, which came on very quickly. You may need to brace yourself that the other eye can go within a few weeks of the first one. The transition period is generally worst when a piggy hasn't yet learned to make up for the loss with its other senses. A quick onset is most difficult to cope with, but once adjusted, a piggy can have a full and happy life. The more you challenge them, the more they can do.

I made a little children's picture story out of Mischief's experiences. You may find it comforting. Missy eventually learned to free roam again in the garden and come back into the run just using my voice updates for orientation over the distance of a few yards, as long as I was standing next to the run entrance and was keeping telling her whether she was going right or wrong.
https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk...nd-eye-on-mischief-another-piggy-story.33420/
 
Thanks @Wiebke are you saying (if this is what it is) that he is now blind in that one eye, and very soon the other could go and he will be left completely blind?

The circle has shrunk in size again, would this still be the case with your "diagnosis" xx
 
The size of the lens depends on how wide the eye is open/the eye reacting to the light. You just normally don't notice as much.

Sadly, he has lost most of his vision in the eye. He can still see light and dark and probably large expanses of colour. The sclerosis can get more dense with time. And yes, there is unfortunately a good chance that he may go blind on the other eye too, with either sclerosis or a cataract. Sorry about the bad news. It usually comes as a nasty shock, especially as there isn't anything you can do about it medically. :(

Don't change the layout of his cage for the moment and keep his normal daily routine. Switch to more audio than visual cues. Try not to approach him from the blind side; he won't like that! If necessary, send him a little mental picture of where you are going to take him, so he can brace himself. This will become more important for piggies with both sided sight impairment but whatever you can put in place now can make the transition easier on him later on if he is losing sight in his other eye.

Sight is not their strongest sense and a blind guinea pig's other senses will sharpen to compensate (hearing, smell and touch through the foot pads and the whiskers). Piggies that have gone blind need to rebuild the mental map of their world according to the changed information input, but once adjusted, they can move around without you noticing their impairment. At the moment, with one eye still operational he doesn't need to do it as he has got vision.

Please have the diagnosis verified by a vet. How old is Lilly? Congenital cataracts/sclerosis come on often during the second year of the life.
 
Thanks alot for your help and advice, I am really upset, the poor boy hasn't had it easy the last few years with various ailments but has always fought through them and survived, now he has potentially lost his sight :( He will be 7 around Aug/Sept, so i suppose this is to be expected. I will have the diagnosis verified and will make some changes to help him adapt to his new life.

From a personal point of view i would dread losing my sight, but i would have an understanding, my poor boy doesn't. he is still happy though.

Thanks again x
 
Aww buddy, massive hugs. He has a great mummy to look after him and Lily is a fighter you know that. It's horrible but he will be okay. Moo cow was blind and coped so well, but obviously Lily will have had sight before.. He has you and his friends to help him through it x x
 
PS: One of my cataract sows, Mali, a 6 year old lady with one eye more affected than the other, is still busy popcorning all over the living room floor, exploring the house if there is something interesting within (the wide!) reach of her nose and has no problems wiggling out of the run through a small dip in the lawn for a poke through the flower border if she can get away with it... Her cataracts are old age ones and she only developed them around age 5 as far as I know (she came here afterwards). ;)
 
Oh poor Lilly and you, not easy news to digest. You are a fab piggy mum though and he'll be in the best of hands as he learns to adapt x
 
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