Rosie had stitches for tearing her eye lid. Itchy!

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barnbum

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This was yesterday. I have no idea how she did it. Nothing has changed in the pastures for 13 years. The barn does have a stone wall though---it's be tricky, but maybe that's how she did it.

Anyway--doc stitched her up and all is well except she keeps scratching it on stuff. She got her fly mask off twice this morning--I put a different kind on her. She got that one dirty rolling, so I switched it again. It's been raining for hours, so I finally took it off an hour before she was stalled for the night. I'm worried about her rubbing while in her stall. I've put an eye gel on it to try ot help, but I can't get it in her eye as much as I want.

Ideas? Has anyone had this situation and everything healed fine despite the itching?
 
When my hrose was bitten on the eye by a rattlesnake, I kept the fly mask on him. Just rinsed it off with the hose and put it back on him wet. I think I left it off after a couple of days, and he didn't scratch himself. I'm sure it was very itchy, but I don't remember having any problems. Not sure how many days; after the swelling abated I think I left it off at night. Left it on in the daytime, though, because of flies.

What kind of injury is it?

Hope all goes well for her.
 
Okay--she should be fine then. She tore her eyelid partly off somehow. Lord knows how maticulous about everything to keep them safe...

I kept the mask on all day--as described above. I didn't put it on in her stall tonight. Hoping things look better in the morning. The gel is supposed to help keep it moist. The rain helped that today too. ;-)
 
Eyes can be tricky - not just the injury but how the individual responds not to just the injury and it's healing but how they respond to the anesthetic, whatever is used for medication (oral and topical) and to the suture.

We had a 3 week old filly puncture her eye in/on a freshly bush-hogged pasture when she laid down and tipped over to roll. The vet decided that she needed to provide good blood flow to the eye and was hoping that that would prevent it from being "lost"... The first surgery was done w/ the wrong size/type of suture - but they were out of what should have been used on such a tiny filly and of course it was a SATURDAY. I have no idea (can't even begin to remember) what was used topically - but then the eyelid was actually "sliced" so that the inner lid could be stitched down over the eye - with a very fresh blood supply. Then the outer lid was also stitched down - to hold the other in place and to protect "everything". We then also used a topical ointment. We then applied Swat and a flyspray that we applied with a cloth applicator to make sure there were very few bugs on her face - it wasn't put where it would run into her eye....

Didn't matter - the whole thing must have been very itchy. We found rub/scritch marks all over the stall - and of course she had ripped out several of the stitches on both the outer eyelid and the inner one. The vet put her under again and restitched everything. I went home and found old nylons - instead of the fly mask that she'd been wearing that was too big and wrapped funny around her little head (not a mini, but still tiny 1/2 arab/hackney pony), we used a leg of the nylons. We just pulled it on over her head and cut holes for her ears. Also checked to make sure that her other eyes' lashes weren't "crushed" (don't remember how we actually kept the nylon from scrunching her eye). She managed not to scratch it for a little while and then opened everything again.

The new suture had arrived, so the surgery was done one more time and I guess 3x's a charm. This time the combination worked...

So - maybe try a nylon on her head? Find out if there is a different topical (there are a lot of different ones out there now) and see if that helps stop the itchiness that is causing the rubbing.

And yes, we've now been thru several eye infections and surgeries/injuries with different ponies/horses over the years. Most have healed great - one has not. Most have done extremely well with the original treatments that the vet prescribed while several had to be followed up on and other treatments tried until the "healing factor" found. That first little filly was born in 2001; has been shown under saddle on the flat and over fences; and has produced 3 1/2 shetland foals for us. She's since been sold as a children's hunt seat mount. Other than a small, blue dot where her eye was originally punctured you'd never know that she had an eye injury and most folks never even noticed that. One very serious fungal infection in our Arab mare's eye was treated with both oral and topical antibiotics prescribed by the vet and purchased at a human pharmacy - had no idea what started the infection but may have been a tiny scratch that wasn't found in time? She healed fine and is doing great now - but the treatment was "aggressive" to keep from losing the eye - it's the only time I've ever made a point of treating one so many times a day + had our daughters also doing some of the treatments so that she often got her eye lavaged and then ointmented up to 10x daily for the first 3 days. I think we literally did treatments every 2 hours - then the balance of the treatments were 4-6 x daily.

it's been two days since you first posted - how is your horse doing??
 
Use a bra! Cut out the cup for the eye you want her to see out of and leave the cup over the other. Will make for an interesting walmart run (girls section for a trainer for something her size!) but it worked like a charm when moms app got lepto! You can even stuff the one cup full of tags soaked in medicine to prevent itching!
 

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