I haven't done an up date on Charlie's eyes in a long time -- he had his 6 month check up today and the vet was really happy with it. so I'll try to tell enough of the background for those who don't "know" him and generally what's up.
This isn't the best picture but it shows both eyes well -- his left eye is merely cloudy -- he HAS pretty darned good vision in that eye. The cloudy appearance is *not* a cataract -- it's edema and moisture in the eye (because the surgery in that eye to remove the cataract was particularly difficult).
Anyway -- Charlie's eye surgery was about 17 months ago. For those who weren't around then Charlie had such old cataracts he was blind in both eyes when we got him. We planned -- from the first second of knowing about him -- to have the surgery done. (Long story short -- Charlie was abandoned in a flooded house during Hurricane Irene 2 years ago - folks got out themselves and took the pregnant pug they wanted to sell the puppies -- but they left behind the blind dogr in a house flooded up above the 2d story????)
For those who have never dealt with cataracts (it's the same in humans as it is in dogs actually) -- any time there are catarcts, there is **always** the risk of glaucoma. Even *after* the cataracts are removed, the risk of glaucoma is always there so any dog with cataracts honestly should have their eyes examined **at least** annually simply because if glaucoma is present it's hugely painful and it can cause the eye to rupture.
Anyway - -that's just all stuff *I* never knew. I wasn't living at home when my folks had their cataract surgeries so I was essentially just plain ignorant. Probably the BIGGEST shock to me was the hellacious amount of EYE DROPS (hear the Twilight Zone theme music here -- it is weird territory!!).
Phew -- right after his surgery he literally had 6 different types of eye drops and ointments and they had to go in like three times a day but they all had to have like 20 minutes between them ... sheesh -- you'd have thot the only thing anyone had to do was put drops in the dog's eyes???
It's probably one of the many reasons (not to omit cost) that cataract surgery on dogs isn't "run of the mill".
OK -- all that to say this:
David took Charlie for his 6 month appt this morning -- YAY -- **no more pressure drops!!!!!!**
Those were the ones that are used for glaucoma -- and while the eyes are healing they do them to help the eyes heal properly I guess. He was on a much stronger pressure drop at first ... gradually they weaned him back to twice a day on those and then dropped him to timobal which is a less strong pressure drop.
As of today -- no more timobal!!! YAY
He still gets a prednisolone drop once every other day and he gets an ointment in the cloudy eye twice a day (that is supposed to gradually help that cloudy eye altho they're sure that eye will always be cloudy).
For whatever it's worth to anyone (again -- I had NO CLUE what occurred in any sort of cataract surgery -- human or dog!) -- if you remove cataracts early the goal is to break up the cloudy lens and remove it -- leaving the little membrane "envelope" inside the eye intact -- THEN they slip a prosthetic lens in that membrane envelope and vision is incredibly good.
Because Charlies cataracts were so OLD (he was like 7 when we got him and the cataracts appeared when he was about 18 months old (it's a Cavalier thing) -- that membrane envelop was thick and battle-scarred from the long-term inflammation/irritation the cloudy lenses cause. so they had to cut out that membrane envelop during the surgery (he couldn't have seen *thru* it).
The way they explained it to us -- it's essentially like our vision where we are far-sighted (you can't read the newspaper but you can drive just fine???).
That pretty well defines his vision -- the closer he is to something the less clear he sees it, but he **DOES** see, And he sees quite well out of that cloudy eye as well.