PUG EYES

www.bionational.com/.../015-canine-cataract-treatment.html?... -

Here's the link.

and yay for solomon!

Hi there! New here to the forum but wanted to ask and share! First of all, I have a very senior Pug, Hop Sing. He's 14 1/2 and he has severe PK. I wanted to let everyone know that a great website www.absolutelypets.com has the BEST OPTIMMUNE price I have found. My vet charged me $40 a tube and I get it there for $25 and very quickly. I've been getting it for a few years now, used to be $23 which was awesome... but $15 a tube savings is amazing.

Unfortunately I was looking for some help for Hops as his eyes have gotten extremely bad lately. I was thinking about the lubricating drops every few hours and I read someone mentioned that, so I am going to try that. I don't think I want to take any more heroic measures with him as he is blind, deaf, arthritic and has some OCD too!!! But I do want to keep him comfortable.... I am going to look into the Tacrolimus someone mentioned.... See what that can do. Thanks for all the great input.

That is a good price for optimune!! If your pug is not responding to the tubes, they are .2%, if your vet will give you a script, you can get 2% (ten times as strong) from a compunding pharmacy, might help your old guy, it did mine!

ah yes the fun times of pug eye issues...

For those who remember us from when buddy was a pup they may remember most of my story

when i picked buddy of from who i thought was a reputable breeder he looks fine...by the next morning he was squinting, and his eye was all gucky... so we take him to my vet, and find out that he has a very deep ulcer, so i spend the next few weeks putting drops and ointment in his eye every 3 hours.. the ulcer clears up but he had some pretty horendous scar tissue..

Since then we have had constant issues with his right eye...due to the severe scaring his actual eyeball is bigger then his left...so of course if he even bumps his face on anything its scratched..i keep the ointment and drops on hand, but am seriously considering requesting my vet remove his eye, but i am nervouse about him having major surgery, and since he can't see anything, and it does not cause him pain anymore ( now even when he gets a scratch its like he has no feeling in the eye)...any advice is the eye removal the best option???

If the eye isn't causing pain, then it's more a matter of what feels best for you. But don't assume it isn't uncomfortable just because he shows no obvious signs of discomfort. Hazel had both eyes removed due to dry eye and she was already blind. When I was at the point of using eye lube every hour to keep her eyes lubricated, I took the eyes out. One in 2006 and the other (which was in the negative numbers on the tear production test by 2009) in 2009. Every time she had an eye removed, her energy improved. She didn't present as having discomfort, but I suspect she had learned to live with it and once it wasn't there anymore, she felt great.

My pom lost an eye this past spring to hypopyon and my shih tzu is also one eyed. I'm a bit of a fan of enucleation in many circumstances. I know it makes us cringe, but I've seen such improvements in my dogs with eyes that either weren't saveable or were no longer functional post enucleation. It gave them better quality of life--both because the eyes weren't bugging them and because I wasn't always hauling them up for drops.

Hi,
I see this thread has lost some of it's categorization, but I thought I'd post this in the original "eye" thread instead of starting a new one.

Wally has always been my dog w/ eye goo. It just seems lately, he has more. I'm guessing it's an indoor allergy thing exacerbated by our extremely cold winter and thus more indoor furnace time--but just thought I'd see if any others' pugs are especially "gooey" when it comes to eyes.

He and Emmet both get Tacrolimus daily for PK; I must admit, I'm less vigilant about the Genteal, and also the NeoPolyDex the doggie eye vet recommends every other day. I have been better about that lately, though, given the additional goo.

Thanks!

Sometimes eye goo can be a symptom of a mild allergy, and if contact causes (dust, dry eye, lashes, skin folds etc) and viral causes (a mild cold can cause extra eye goo as well as extra snot) are ruled out, then chances are very high it is an allergy and it could be a food allergy that may not cause any other symptoms at all.
This becomes fairly obvious if you have changed the diet and the goo increases within a few weeks of that.
From your description, it could be a seasonal thing with Wally and humidity balance due to furnace etc.
Bottom line is if goo production steps up, you probably need to increase the lubrication so I would be a bit more conscientious (doh can't spell today sorry) with the Genteal.

Forgot to add, sometimes they can trick you - I know of one puglady that wipes her own face on her bedding when she wakes up - unless it is the wrong fabric!!. For instance only pure cotton wipes for Madam LOL so when given polyester (shudder) bedding she will make her mum panic and assume she suddenly has heaps of overnight goop - every day until laundry day, when she got to wipe her own face on the big bed sheets awaiting their turn on the laundry floor! Luckily the daughter in that family was a vet nurse and did the detective work on that one!

Thanks, Angela. I think an allergy makes sense--likely a seasonal one since it's gotten worse since it got so cold here...he's always been my gooey boy. I have made a commitment to be better w/ the Genteal, too.

The compounding pharmacy in North Carolina we came upon is FAR cheaper than any online source for Optimmune. Our veterinary ophthalmologist recommended it and not only is the price lower, the tube is BIGGER than that supplied in the Schering - Plough (now Merck) formulation.

I found it because Schering decided to shut down the plant that manufactures the Optimmune without starting another plant first, resulting in a HUGE shortage of the stuff. Starting a pharma manufacturing line is a LONG process as it has to comply with quality control, FDA inspecitons, etc. It takes MONTHS.

So I called my ophthalmologist and she suggested the compounding pharmacy - and they were WONDERFUL. They filled the prescription promptly and have been very responsive for refills.