• Discussions taking place within this forum are intended for the purpose of assisting you in discussing options with your vet. Any other use of advice given here is done so at your risk, is solely your responsibility and not that of this forum or its owner. Before posting it is your responsibility you abide by this Statement

Pls help guinea pig has complete fogged eye

G

guineapigbear

New Born Pup
Joined
Dec 21, 2021
Messages
11
Reaction score
7
Points
140
Location
Allendale
I woke up this morning to feed my guinea pigs and noticed my guinea pig Bears left eye was fogged and looked blind. Thats when I noticed a small piece of hay stuck in it. I pulled out the small piece of hay and he has a vet appointment for tomorrow morning at 9am. I feel so awful and need advice on how to help him and make him feel better in the mean time. Should I flush out his eye with water or go buy some sort of sterile eye solution or just leave it alone? Is he blind in that eye now? Any advice or input would be very appreciated. Thank you.
 

Attachments

  • Bears eye.webp
    Bears eye.webp
    38.2 KB · Views: 6
Hay poke and eye injuries are very common and no, he is not necessarily blind in that eye. It's great that you got a vets appointment asap as eyes are very delicate but they are the one injury that any vet should be well equipped to deal with as they would be treated the same as other animals. It's likely the vet will put dye in the eye to check for ulceration etc and prescribe some eye drops and pain relief for you. Spotting and treating it quickly is key and the vast majority of eye injuries make a quick recovery this way
 
It should be fine most eye injuries look worse than they actually are,
it looks like a haypoke or eye ulcer,
you can try and clean it out with saline if you want but it should be ok
 
Hi and welcome

Eye injuries in guinea pigs are quite common; especially hay pokes. They deteriorate very quickly and often ulcerate (produce infectious gunk). The sooner you can have them seen, the better because they also heal the better less bad they get. In the UK, eye injuries are seen as a priority and will be squeezed in at a vets as soon as possible.
Any injury should be ideally seen within 24 hours; if there is blood, then this counts as an emergency and may need a trip to the out-of-hours vets. You can eiher google for out-of-hours vet services or get the contact number from your vets' phone message when the clinic is shut.

Since guinea pig eyes are just like dog or cat eyes and require the same treatment consisting ideally of antibiotic eye gel or drops, lubricant and an analgesic (anti-inflammatory and painkiller), speed comes before specialisation - see the vet who can squeeze you in quickest, whether that is a general vets or an exotics one.
Any gel you gently dab on the eye and for any eye drops you gently pull the lower lid down and aim the drops into the gap. If necessary, distract the piggy with their favourite veg and assert your authority with a spot of piggy whispering. Please always wait at least half an hour between the antibiotic gel/drops and any lubricant whether that is a vet brand or plain carbomer tear gel to ensure that the antibiotic is fully absorbed and cannot be washed away. You should see a noticeable improvement latest after 2-3 days.
Thankfully, most hay pokes heal well without complications if seen promptly. The eye can look worse before it gets better, especially if healing blood vessels appear temporarily to bring oxygen to the wound in the eye. Please always continue medicating until the last of cloudiness has fully disappeared.
Who is the Boss - Your Guinea Pig or You?

If it is any consolation to you, I've been to my local general vets this morning with a piggy of mine that had some hay stuck under her lid (which I was able to remove yesterday) but also has been found to have a small ulcerating perforation of the cornea, so I am following the same tips in this post myself right now.

All the best!
 
I too am currently treating an injured eye and am following Wiebke’s advise above after my Ella had a grass seed removed from her eye yesterday. We didn’t see it ourselves but the vet found it wedge in her upper eyelid.

It must have happened during the night / early hours of Monday morning and I managed to get her an appointment at a local Vets4pets as my regular vet was closed yesterday and had her seen promptly. She’s on a painkiller (metacam in this case) eye drops and corneal repair gel several times a day. Her eye is already starting to look a bit better

All the best for your little Bear x
 
guineapigbear said:
I woke up this morning to feed my guinea pigs and noticed my guinea pig Bears left eye was fogged and looked blind. Thats when I noticed a small piece of hay stuck in it. I pulled out the small piece of hay and he has a vet appointment for tomorrow morning at 9am. I feel so awful and need advice on how to help him and make him feel better in the mean time. Should I flush out his eye with water or go buy some sort of sterile eye solution or just leave it alone? Is he blind in that eye now? Any advice or input would be very appreciated. Thank you.
Click to expand...
UPDATE: Took Bear to the vet and they put the dye in his eye and it revealed an ulceration from the scratch of the hay. They prescribed him eye drops to put in his eye 3 times a day and a follow-up appointment in a week. Thanks to everyone who responded to my post!
 
Poor Bear.
Hopefully the eye drops help.
One of my girls got 2 hay pokes but the first time we were on holidays (We had the guinea pigs with us but their was no vets nearby) so we had to try and clean it with saline and it kept oozing this nasty gunk.
The vet prescribed eye drops and it was all dealt with fairly quickly.

I hope everything goes well for you and bear.
 
Bear will soon be on the mend. It’s great you got him seen at the vets.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top