Cornea Ulcer

Sunshinegirl

So I took Layla to the vet and apparently Baylie did scratch her in the eye.

You are taking Baylie in Monday - right?  How about having the vet trim just the tips of Baylie's front nails (making sure there are no sharp edges)?  The nails will grow back.  I am assuming here that Baylie is an indoor cat who is not going to be trying to climb trees.

You do NOT want to have the nails removed.  A nail is an integral part of a cat's toe, so removing the nail amounts to removing the first joint of the toe.  Recovery is very painful and the cat's balance is permanently effected.

You could also ask your vet about Soft Claws nail covers for cats.  http://www.softclaws.com/

Yes, Bailey is an indoor cat and I won't have her declawed knowing what I know now.

I will look into the Soft Claw covers, they look like what we need. Thank you for the info.

Tinkerbell got a corneal ulcer (scratch) either during her time in foster care or just prior to being turned in -- vet essentially gave her the same thing.

Yes, it will scar -- will it affect the vision?  Not enough to notice -- remember dogs do NOT have excellent vision anyway.  (particularly not a pug) - nor do dogs with 'bangs' -- they see what they need to see but most of how they know what is 'where' is from their sense of smell far more than sight or hearing. 

You won't even notice it and neither will she.

Trimming nails?  Yes -- that's awesome and if you can get the vet to trim them back and try a Dremel to maintain them, you can keep them short AND 'dull' easier.

Muffin had a corneal ulcer (his was a big one -- he stuck his nose in BBQ ash and sneezed and got ash in his eye **big time** and one piece put a serious scratch in his eye).  Same drill -- same meds -- healed very well.

Be faithful with the drops and ointment -- it bothers US more than them (but she WILL try to wipe her face on furniture and on your clothes so after you mush the ointment around in her eye have a turkish towel in your hands so she can bury her face in that and save your furniture).  If you wipe it off you'll be more in control of it.  If you've ever had **ointment** in your eyes it sucks -- you can't see thru it so they try to bury their face in fabric to try to wipe it off. 

Be prepared with treats and something to distract her (maybe being groomed or brushed if she likes that) after you put the ointment in and it works better.

From what I hear, treated corneal ulcers heal pretty darn well. However my kitty Kovu clearly had an UNtreated ulcer as a kitten, and still has a severely scarred eye now, over 6 years later. I know he can see through it, but not well..and it covers his WHOLE eye. You can actually see it in the picture in my sig. Though I'm also pretty sure his ulcer was caused by feline herpes, and not a scratch as his rescue told me when I got him... Sigh.

I guess my point is do the drops and stuff religiously, and it shouldn't be too bad.

Definitely keep up on the drops, and if it seems to not be healing, get back to the vet asap.  Legend had an ulcer that just wouldn't heal. He even had a tarsorrhaphy done to allow it to heal. He still required meds for a bit afterwards, but it did eventually heal. He has a scarred eye now that doesn't have much vision, but he's an older guy with cataracts so didn't need to see much anyway. Just glad he didn't lose the eye.