Hi there

I'm posting on behalf of a friend, and want to find out if anyone's dogs have suffered with an eye ulcer and the outcomes.

Henry has had this ulcer for about 6 weeks now. Originally it was treated with eye drops and when they didn't work he went in to have the eyeball scraped. That was also unsuccessful so the next thing done was to stitch the eyelids together for a week (don't know what that was meant to achieve). Today the stitches burst open and the eye was as bad as ever. He is now having eye drops again. My friend went to another vet out of desperation really, to get their opinion, and was told this is relatively common in Boxers and if he wanted to be referred to an eye specialist it would cost around £1000 for the consultation alone! The cost isn't an issue, although that amount, just for a consultation, seemed somewhat excessive to me.

Anyone got any advice or recommendations?

I know another boxer who had this problem. In the end the vet put in a contact lens for a few weeks to stop the cornea being damaged further whenever the dog blinked (that's why they stitch the eye shut for a while).

Two of my Boxers had this problem one it cleared with drops the other had the scrape and stitch which sorted it fine. Contact lens is a new one on me but I haven't had Boxers for 111 years.

Hope they get it sorted

I've had experience with several eye ulcers and with different dogs (Boxers).
Treatments vary over the years.

The third eye lid stitch has mostly been abandoned by vets as you can't check what's going on.
I've also had the serum drops which were made from your dogs blood. Again this has had mixed results
so vets are out on this method.

The last eye ulcer was a long winded affair, we had debriding, eye surface scratched with a needle to promote healing,
lots of different eye drops but was successfully treated with phenol in the end.
This is pretty nasty stuff and does send the eye grey in colour but it helped my eldest Boxer.
That combined with her lower eye lid being stitched down (skin partially pinched and then stitched) to keep it from rubbing on her eye.

The one thing paramount is with the eye drops you must be able to put them in the number of required times.
Alot of people can't due to work and for this reason eye ulcers can take longer to heal.

However another important thing to note is that if a dog is hypothyroid eye ulcers can take longer to heal.
It took 4 months for the last eye ulcer to heal, but that dog is hypothyroid.
Has he been tested for hypo-t?

In all cases my dogs that have had eye ulcers have not lost their eyes. Some vets will remove eyes if the eye ucers won't heal.
We did come close with one eye ulcer to the vet mentioning removal but thankfully the eye ulcer started to heal.

Hope this helps some

Having had some experience of this condition, I've formed a rather controversial opinion of treatment of eye ulcers over the years.
In eye ulcers in Boxers...... they go if they are treated and believe it or not, they go if they are not!

I chose (with my vets compliance) not to treat aggressively ie scrape, stitch etc but rather to let the eye heal naturally.
We have used a combination of anaesthetic drops and time....... and every ulcer has healed it's self. Having seen the other alternative, I'm confident that it's the kinder method.

I don't recommend this method to anyone ... I just tell people what has worked for my boxers.

I know that boxers are prone to what are called indolent ulcers, and they can take a long time to get healed.  I'm guessing that was a mistype and the specialist consultation was £100, which yes sounds about right - Dorain has been to an ortho specialist - £1000 for a consult I would definitely consider excessive!!

http://www.vetspecialists.co.uk/06_Animal_Welfare/Ophthalmology_Facts/Indolent_Corneal_Ulcers_in_Dogs.html

Does this info help at all?

our boxer boy who sadly died last year (due to age) had a ulcer it took a good six months to heel, he has various treatments to no avail he had drops of different types,debridding and cross hatching the eye ball the vet done some test and found out he was lacking a certain cell in his eye that was stopping the healing process she said instead of the eye healing like a lumpy flint wall instead of a smooth brick wall with cells on top of each other, he was taken into the vets where some of his blood was taken they then spun the blood to get this plasma like liquid to had to be put in his eye every two hours for 36 hours this had to be done through the night but the results were amazing he also had eye drops in as well and viscotears his eye started to build the right shape cells after two days, our vet said that a lot of boxers have this cell missing so it might be worth getting your friends boxer checked for this, one of our other boxers has had a ulcer and that went with just one course of drops same for our boston

Thanks for all the info - I will pass on your replies.

And to munrogirl76, it wasn't a mistype, £1000 is what the vet said! Was the ortho specialist you saw at Davies (as in the link you posted), as they are in our area?

No, the ortho specialist was elsewhere - that was just a link I found about indolent ulcers. Surely if the price is that much must include treatment for the condition as well as the consult. If not I am sure there will be somewhere else cheaper. It may be worth them double checking with their vet re the price, or seeing if they can refer somewhere different. As I say I don't know anything personally about the place I posted in the link - it was just information about indolent ulcers. :-)

Have had it in dogs and cats too many times. If they are stitched, they need to be kept closed for several weeks, and if the stitches come undone, will need to be redone again. The trouble with ulcers is that they CAN cause the eye to rupture. I've had that happen in cats several times. One cat the vet managed to repair a ruptured eye in three times (this was twice in one and once in the other), another's rupture was so total (virtually nothing left of the eye, it just literally burst like a balloon) he had to have his eye removed.

They do need eye drops whilst the eye is stitched, many times a day (seem to remember it was 8), and usually they give atropine drops also to enlarge the pupil behind the closed lids as that apparently helps.

If there has been no improvement after as long as 6 weeks, I'd be very inclined to ask for a referral to an eye specialist.

T-bone (boston terrier) has had ulcers in her eye alot- they wanted to scrape it and I decided to just do the drops a lil longer- took almost 3 months but it did clear up :) I had to do them 4-5 times a day, the more the better. The dog doesn't have entropia (where the eye lashes are inverted which could cause an ulcer? T-Bone also had cherry eye's when young which caused an ulcer. She had one this year which took forever to go away grr!! Finally its gone :) Hopefully to never return but she is always getting onto things so who knows with her.

I gave her 5ml sandoz gentamicin 0.3%

Well my boxer has had this an ulcer on his eyeball and it exploded or something off the sort im not sure but it seemed bad and my mum took him to the vets and they said they will have to remove it so hes just come back to day so it didnt turn out good for him or us but i know he only had his for a week.

hope for the best :)