Advice needed on cleaning dried pus from around eye.

[Laaaauren]

One of my piggies is currently suffering from an ongoing eye ulcer. She is being treated with two different kinds of drops, pain meds and antibiotics. However, since the ulcer is starting to drain it has been producing pus. I always make sure to clean this away before applying new drops, but some of it has dried into the fur around her eyes and is proving difficult to clean. I have tried using warm water and a cotton earbud to remove as much as I can but it only tends to work on the liquid that hasn’t already dried.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to clean away the dried pus? I’m just worried that it could affect the eye further if it were to build up too much.

Thanks in advance!

 

[VickiA]

In my experience of eye ulcers there has never been pus draining. Is there an abscess or an infected injury in/near the eye ball. Ulcers in my experience tend to cause weeping but not as they start to heal. Was the eye producing this pus when you saw the vet? When was she last seen?

 

[Laaaauren]

In my experience of eye ulcers there has never been pus draining. Is there an abscess or an infected injury in/near the eye ball. Ulcers in my experience tend to cause weeping but not as they start to heal. Was the eye producing this pus when you saw the vet? When was she last seen?

She was seen on Friday by our exotics vet and yesterday evening by a vet nurse. Our exotics vet thinks there is a possibility of an abscess, so our piggy is having an x-ray this week to determine whether that’s the case or not.
However, both our exotics vet and the nurse said the liquid is a sign that the eye is trying to heal and clear itself. It might not be pus necessarily, it could be a mixture of the drops and the white discharge piggies produce that helps clean their eyes. ‘Pus’ was just the word that came to mind when writing this!

 

[VickiA]

Aah that does make more sense. I just use a bit of cotton wool soaked in warm water to gently wipe away any discharge. If it’s dried hard, I think you might just need to soak it a bit more with the warm wet cotton wool and see if it will wipe away. If not I think that I would ask the vet for advice on whether to leave it.