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Winifred has an eye issue ...

Qualcast&Flymo

Qualcast&Flymo

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I was just thinking earlier this evening, in relation to a thread about preventing haypoke, that I'd been lucky enough never to have had to deal with it..
:doh: I think I jinxed myself - went out to tuck the piggies up for the night, what do I see but Winifred sitting in her cosy with one eye almost completely closed and watering. I took her indoors to look more closely, she opened her eyes more ( as they do when scared) but I could see that sometimes the inner eyelid was part way over the eye. It's obviously not comfortable for her.
I've phoned my vet's OOH service, they advised bathing it gently and she's booked for a appointment at midday Sunday.
Does it sound like haypoke, or a scratch, or something else?
 
Hi,

Unfortunately it could be any of the above...a lot of the times you can see if hay is still there although sometimes they fo get it out themselves...scratches again sometimes under the right light you can partially see them...if she isn't opening her eye properly though definitely the vets as it could have slipped under the eye lid...one of my piggys seems to be prone to hay pokes no matter what I do...in fact they had a bit removed today, thankfully I was able to get it and clean their eye and gave them some eye drops and they're fine now...hopefully it will be easily sorted for you...Good luck for the vets! If it is quickly caught and dealt with then it will hopefully lessen any damage done
 
It turned out that Winifred had a piece of fine soft meadow hay nearly 2cm long under her upper eyelid. The dye made it look really bad, but she's got Isathal and Metacam for it and I think it's feeling a bit better already.
Got to take her back on Friday to check that it's healing well. 🤞🙏 I hope no long term damage has been done.
 
Glad you found our what was wrong, 2cm of hay! Ouch! Eyes often heal amazingly fast though, any problems are usually with the injured eye drying out and the vet might recommend some artificial tear gel to pop in, in between isathal.
Hopefully plain sailing though except to joy of capturing a piggy and getting them to let you squirt stuff in their eye repeatedly! Healing wheeks for Winifred x
 
PigglePuggle said:
Glad you found our what was wrong, 2cm of hay! Ouch! Eyes often heal amazingly fast though, any problems are usually with the injured eye drying out and the vet might recommend some artificial tear gel to pop in, in between isathal.
Hopefully plain sailing though except to joy of capturing a piggy and getting them to let you squirt stuff in their eye repeatedly! Healing wheeks for Winifred x
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Yes, that length of hay rubbing every time she blinked or whatever must have been very uncomfortable, no wonder she was closing it. I think it hadn't been there long, I'm pretty sure her eye was normal when I did their evening veggies.
I've just discovered the vet also gave me some "Remend" gel to put in. That's an artificial tear gel isn't it? It'll be even more of a pain (for me!) if it has to go in at a different time to the Isathal - Winnie isn't keen on being handled anyway, so she's going to be really fed up with me by Friday:D
 
Remend is very good, its an artificial tear gel with a special ingredient (hyaluronidase) to break down excess scar tissue so the eye surface heals cleanly with no lumps or bumps. Excellent stuff, Tallulah had this after isathal alone hadnt worked too well- although Ollie found the taste of it irresistable so we had to do laundry basket hippo prison for half an hour afterwards to protect her dodgy eye from all the licky caecotroph breath boar love :)
 
And Remend goes in at least 30 minutes after Isathal, ideally an hour. Eye ulcers may as well be classed as a full time job, catch a pig, wrestle a pig, add eye drops, get hated, get bitten, give a treat bribe, repeat... repeat... repeat... repeat...
Any luck it will be better in a week :)
 
Just been out wrangling an unwilling piggy to administer first doses of Remend and Metacam. The eye drops were easier - I don't think she's had Metacam before and on tonight's showing she's not about to become a metacam-junkie piggy! But it went in in the end.
Squeaks did show an interest, but it seemed to be more in the Metacam than the eye gel .. and Winifred wasn't interested in his attentions anyway :))

One problem I had was the Metacam bottle - it has a dropper built in so I can't put the syringe in it to fill it. I put some drops on a spoon and then drew it into the syringe, as suggested by the vet, but that method wastes a lot. Do Cat Metacam bottles always have a dropper now? What does everyone else do to administer it to their piggies 🤔
 
Qualcast&Flymo said:
Just been out wrangling an unwilling piggy to administer first doses of Remend and Metacam. The eye drops were easier - I don't think she's had Metacam before and on tonight's showing she's not about to become a metacam-junkie piggy! But it went in in the end.
Squeaks did show an interest, but it seemed to be more in the Metacam than the eye gel .. and Winifred wasn't interested in his attentions anyway :))

One problem I had was the Metacam bottle - it has a dropper built in so I can't put the syringe in it to fill it. I put some drops on a spoon and then drew it into the syringe, as suggested by the vet, but that method wastes a lot. Do Cat Metacam bottles always have a dropper now? What does everyone else do to administer it to their piggies 🤔
Click to expand...
My last bottle of 15mls cat metacam also had a weird pointy top that would only fit the odd wide cat syringe that came with it... someone here told me that whole top bit will pull off just leaving the open bottle neck? I found that out only after wasting loads and only getting about the same number of doses from the 15ml cat metacam as I can from the 5ml cat loxicom with the proper top...!
 
PigglePuggle said:
My last bottle of 15mls cat metacam also had a weird pointy top that would only fit the odd wide cat syringe that came with it... someone here told me that whole top bit will pull off just leaving the open bottle neck? I found that out only after wasting loads and only getting about the same number of doses from the 15ml cat metacam as I can from the 5ml cat loxicom with the proper top...!
Click to expand...
Yes the vet said something about having to give me a 1ml syringe instead of the right one. I thought of trying to lever the top off with a thin knife, but was afraid the effort would result in all the liquid being thrown out the bottle and all over the floor.
In the end I remembered I have some tiny measuring spoons- labelled "smidgen ", "pinch" and "dash" - which I eventually found after much hunting. Yesterday 1 smidgen wasn't enough for the dose (0.2ml) but today 1 pinch was ... :))
Hopefully that means I won't run out before the checkup on Friday...

Her eye seems better today than it did before.. yesterday parts were still reddish and I worried I'd left it too late seeing the vet..
 
Hope lovely little Winifred and her eye feel better soon :)
You can remove the little top quite easily off the metacam bottle with a sharp knife etc :) My local vets always leave it on so I’ve done it many times!
 
Qualcast&Flymo said:
Thanks all. As far as I can tell , the eye looks pretty normal now. Continuing with the meds until the vet confirms it has healed though.

As of yesterday, Winifred has decided she likes Metacam, so I don't have to fight to get it in 👍👍 Sensible piggie!
Click to expand...

Another Metacam junkie in the making. Good to hear all is going in the right direction.
 
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