Some advice please

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rabbitsfizz

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The yearling I am showing (well, it would be!!!
smile.gif
) has sliced her eyelid vertically from the eye down (God alone knows what on, whatever can happen.....) The cut is about 1/4 " long. Anyway it is clean, I have cleaned and applied antibiotic cream and given a/b's internally as well. Also a tiny aspirin sized dose of Banamine as she is neurotic (and in pain, poor baby) It is hanging open a bit because of the nature of the wound. Keep clean and free of flies I can deal with. I need to know if anyone has had any success with stitching a wound this close to the eye (the eye itself is fine) I am not being mean but I have had a lot of Vet's bills just lately and if all the Vet will do is say she can't stitch that close- it is the actual eyelid on the bottom- give me painkillers and a/b's and charge me $300.00 (going rate) then I can do without it, quite frankly!! If it is stitchable I will happily foot the bill somehow. I have dealt with serious eye injuries (loss of eye in Rabbit's sire ) and am not afraid of going this alone, but, if it is fixable, I'll go for it.
 
Oh Jane, poor baby, you too. I had a filly tear an eye lid practically off! The vet put her to sleep and stiched it back on and today she shows and you would never know it ever happened. I would say the lower lid would only need 2-3 stitches and well, I'd do it. I hate how expensive it would be for you. Cost me $110. I also used baby aspirin 2 times a day for a few days for her pain copurse she was just a baby. The babmine will probably help. WE used a triple anibiotic oinment for the eye also. The vet said eyes heal wonderfully quick and 7 days later he removed the stitches and she was great. Let me know how you make out. If you don't do it, she'd probably heal fine but her show days would be done as her eye won't look correct, I think. Does she have sweeling? Vet did tell me stitches need to be done asap if it's to work.
 
Jane, I am so sorry to hear about your yearlings eye. It sure seems like they can find everything and anything to get a cut on no matter how hard we try to keep them safe! I did have a full size horse whos eyelid was stitched and everything turned out fine. You cant even tell where it was. Corinne
 
I may not be much help, but I can offer my very recent experience.

A week ago Sat, my 2 mo old filly, No Disguise, split her upper eyelid open while I was body clipping her. My regular vet was out of town, so I called the equine clinic closest to me. The vet there came out and sewed up her eyelid. All looked good for a couple of days, then she managed to get her sutures out. I took her to the clinic last Tues to have the eyelid re-stitched. The surgeon there stitched her back up and sent her home. Inistructions were no banamine, no systemic antibiotics, leave her outside and just put antibiotic ointment in it a couple of times a day. By the next day, the eye was very infected looking and very swollen. I upped the antibiotic ointment to 4 X day, gave her some banamine and finally got the worst of the infection under control. But by Friday, I still didn't like the way the eye looked as it was still swollen and I thought the eye was looking cloudy.

I called my regular vet who was back in town, but his truck was in the shop and he couldn't come out. He thought it sounded like the eye needed to be seen again. I ended up taking the filly back up to the surgeon who did the last repair. His main concern was the eyelid and sutures. They were still intact, but he did stain her eye and said it had a small ulcer. But again, he wanted the filly to stay outside, antibiotic ointment every 2 hours. No indoors, no atropine, no banamine, no systemic antibiotics.

Saturday my regular vet was out, took one look at the eye and said "forget the eyelid, we need to treat the eye!". She had a rather large corneal ulcer, so she is confined to the stall by day, out at night. She is getting atropine, 3 kinds of antibiotics to the eye, systemic antibiotics, and banamine for pain and inflammation. The eye is looking much better now but she has the sutures out of the eyelid. My vet said not to worry about that because he could do cosmetic surgery on that later. The eye itself was his biggest concern.

So, I'm not sure what we will do with the eyelid at this point. It is not as separated as it was initially, but I'm not sure how much will heal and fill in on it's own. So that's my experience and I really don't know what to tell you other than my little filly has had a very painful time and still has an eyelid flap that may need treatment later.
 
My stallion tore his bottom eyelid last summer. Vet came and gave me the option of leaving as is which would mean he would always have leakage from the eye or stitching it up. I wasn't going to leave it looking like that as it looked awful. Vet knocked him out, gave him 3 stiches and he's been fine. Had to keep a fly mask on him for a few weeks. As he kept getting out of the fly mask, I had to put a halter over it to keep it on. I don't normally keep halters on anybody. He really needed the fly mask as he kept rubbing and rubbing on it. By the time the eyelid was healed, the fly mask was about in shreds!! He looks great now and you can't even tell anything ever happened.
 
Add me to the list!

Sonny did this at the beginning of spring. I walked into the stall and all I saw was a big bloody mess.

THE VET USED SUPER GLUE!

FIXED!!!!!!!!!!
 
Sure hope she heals nicely so it is not noticable. One thing you might check for which my vet always says causes 90% of eye injuries, is a bucket that has the metal curled up ends to hold the handle on. How they do it I don't know but they get their eye caught on those.
 
I just had a yearling filly rip her upper eyelid halfway off a couple of weeks ago too (what is up with these horses???). I had the vet out and she knocked the filly out (with drugs, not a 2 x 4, lol) and stitched her up. took a LOT of stitches. It looked great but when I finally took her fly mask off several days later, she ripped a few of the stitches out and it happened while I was out of town and my caretaker didn't notice it because it looked too old to re-stitch when I saw it. And of course this is the filly that went Grand the one time I showed her, sigh....

If it were me though, I'd have the vet stitch it, for sure
 
rabbit can you get some of that medical glue?? we had a llama delivered and she cut her eye open in the trailer. My friend ran to the equine hospital and got a bottle of that medical clue. Glued the rip shut and she healed so beautifully. NO scar at all. the bottle was only like 10.00. And i have to say this was a very large rip/cut. this is the same stuff they use on human cuts to heal them without a scar
 
The longer you wait the worse the outcome cosmetically but as long as you don't care how she looks then it's probably best to NOT mess with it and let it heal on its own.
 
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Add me to the eyelid injury list. One of my mares ripped half of her upper eyelid off and the vet had to stitch it back together. There was a permanant scar but she had no problems using the eyelid.

Hope your little one heals quickly!
 
Marty said:
Add me to the list!
Sonny did this at the beginning of spring. I walked into the stall and all I saw was a big bloody mess.

THE VET USED SUPER GLUE! 

FIXED!!!!!!!!!!

422464[/snapback]

Marty,

I have heard this phrase before, but are you sure it was common old Super Glue that you can get at Walmart or was it some special medical kind of glue. I would think that Super Glue might cause blindness if used around the eye. Just wondering.
 
About 10 years ago, we had a baby do the same thing- sliced her eyelid on a small rock of all things. That's the best we could figure, anyway.

The vet came out, looked at it and said he didn't feel comfortable stitching it himself, especially since the owners wanted a show career for her.....But he knew someone who could. Called one of his other customers, who happened to be a plastic surgern. Surgen came out, stitched up baby with about 8 teeny weeny little stitches and you'd never have known once the stitches came out a few weeks later. She went on to a successful show career.

It's a long shot but.....does your vet have any plastic surgens as customers?
 
Thanks everyone- I chickened out and got the Vet out- he told me to put antibiotic ointment in and leave it alone Sooo....It cost me $300.00 to be told "keep doing what you are doing" It is right in the corner of the eye, at the bottom, and has brought up a little "nobble " of flesh. Although it will take a lot longer his plan is to let it heal on it's own, as it goes into the muscle, then sedate , slice off the "nobble" and stitch just the skin over the top, which he hopes will leave no noticeable scar but have a much better chance of not ripping out. He reckons the worst that can happen is that he needs to reopen, under text book conditions, the whole wound- that makes sense to me, I've done this on a shoulder wound on an Arab filly and the HUGE area scarred healed without a trace when it was excised and the skin sutured back together. He must have felt sorry for me because he is going to raise the issue of gelding my colts cheaper cos they are so small!!! Because it was so hot he reckoned it had a poor chance of holding if he stitched toady, there was a tiny amount of localised swelling and he thought with stitching that would get worse. I trust this Vet, I've known him since he qualified, and we have all promised not to laugh at her because I have no Mini sized fly masks so she is in a cut down full sized one and the ears make her look like a Donkey!! So, bathing it off with Aloe gel, putting in Fucithalmin and keeping a close eye (Yes, Pun
smile.gif
) on the eyeball!! Thanks again.
 
The medical tissue glue has the same ingredients as superglue but NOT in the same formulation. I really hope to God that no one decides to use over-the- counter superglue on their animals or themselves!!! This is why I just get so ticked at some of this do-it-yourself "vet" advice.

Songcatcher said:
Marty said:
Add me to the list!
Sonny did this at the beginning of spring. I walked into the stall and all I saw was a big bloody mess.

THE VET USED SUPER GLUE! 

FIXED!!!!!!!!!!

422464[/snapback]

Marty,

I have heard this phrase before, but are you sure it was common old Super Glue that you can get at Walmart or was it some special medical kind of glue. I would think that Super Glue might cause blindness if used around the eye. Just wondering.

422648[/snapback]

 
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It was most definately medical super glue that they use all the time in surgerys etc. Sorry should have made myself very clear. The proper name for it is "TISSUE MEND"
 
I'll be hoping the eyelid heals up nicely for you with minimum scarring - and hopefully you'll be able to keep showing her after she is healed.
 
Ugh...

I am going through this right now. Just today one of my show horses ripped the bottom eyelid 3/4 way off. Caught it about 30 mins after happening, rushed to the vet so was there within about an hour and a half. Tissue was still very fresh/blood suppy great.

So we put 5 stitches in it - and am giving sulfa tabs twice daily, Banamine once daily, putting in oinment 4 times daily........stitches out in two weeks.
 
My vet was out today and checked the eye on my little filly. She had most of her sutures gone, so he just took the remaining ones out. He'll do a repair to the eyelid in a couple of week or so after the eye completely heals.
 

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