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wildWoman
12-06-2008, 06:27 PM
My old dog has a chronic case of conjunctivitis and after running very low on the antibiotic eyedrops now, I switched to a homemade herbal concoction which works equally well.
It's an equal mix of chamomile, calendula and eyebright, steeped in hot water for 10 minutes and then strained. I put a couple of drops into his bad eye four times a day, which clears it up after about four days.
Just then after some days, his eye gets red again (as it did with the antibiotic eyedrops). Will torture the poor guy for three weeks straight now and hopefully get the upper hand on the bloody bacteria.

DOGMAN
12-08-2008, 10:26 PM
Are you sure it is conjunctivitis?

wildWoman
12-09-2008, 11:45 AM
Fairly sure. His one eye gets a bit runny (clear discharge) and is red then. About a month ago, both eyes were affected and the discharge was more yellowish and sticky - that cleared up after the antibiotic drops but since then, he keeps getting the clear discharge/red eye. I cross-referenced the syptoms in my dog health book and conjunctivitis seems the closest match. Any other suspicions? I'm stuck here, vet care is reserved for life-or-death situations at this time.

DOGMAN
12-09-2008, 12:12 PM
wW,
I understand your situation, I have to play amateur vet myself almost daily. Its definetly got to be a matter of life and death before I take a dog in.

With that said- I declare I'm an amateur home vet at best!

Anyway, it has been my experience that conjunctivites once treated with the anti biotics will clear up and go away. Normally it is a virus or bacteria type of conjunctivits, and if its bacteria caused- antibotics will clear it up in just few days, and it wont reoccur.

Virus based conjunctivits has to run its course before it clears up, and that usually takes a week, but it will go away.

Since your dog is old, and the symptoms are reoccuring I'm going to say it is either "chronic dry eye" medically called "keratoconjuntivitis sicca" which is a disease, that has to be treated for the rest of the animals life to get the symptoms to go away. It is often a sign of hypothyroidism which is common in older dogs.

Lastly...is the eye bulging a little bit out of the socket? Is there any cloudiness in the eye. Those symptoms along with the other things you've listed could be a glaucoma developing which is very common in senior aged dogs. Is your dog experiencing any loss of vision?

wildWoman
12-09-2008, 03:23 PM
Thanks Jason, you're hired :)
It's hard to say...I've been checking him as much as I can for other eye diseases and symptoms, but nothing really matches. He's pretty ancient, almost 16 and a large northern mutt, and he's been healing very slowly in the past few years whenever he had something. The eye drops definitely do some good, so I'll just keep on trucking with that for a few weeks, see if it totally clears up that way, and if not, I'll take him in sometime in spring.
Ah, the fun of living without road access :rolleyes:

wareagle69
12-09-2008, 03:48 PM
hey WW i just talked to the mrs she says could be conjunak how you spellitis or maybe an alergy or said to have a look see if a eyelash or something is under the eyelid

wildWoman
12-09-2008, 03:58 PM
Will have to hire you and Linda as consultants, too...Couldn't find anything in his eye. In one of my dog health books it says that conjunctivitis can become chronic, that's my best guess so far. Amazing how this stuff always happens during freeze-up or break-up; when I had the dog at the vet's in August of course everything was fine.

wareagle69
12-09-2008, 04:07 PM
linda was wondering which antibiotic you were using, she says if its thesame stuff she is thinking about the eyebright is really only effective for getting rid of the staining on the eye which might make it appear it is clearing up. that being said we admit we do not know much about herbal remdies althought i do know someone that does i will e-mail him he is a well respected vet here who does do herbal remedies

wildWoman
12-09-2008, 04:13 PM
I had been using polysporin eye drops (polymyxin B and gramicidin), but I pretty much ran out of them now and can't get any more in for a couple months.
Calendula and chamomile both have antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties and calendula is anti-viral as well, but it would be great if the vet you know has any more suggestions! I've also been dosing the dog with homeopathic pellets (aconitum @ 200C) and he's getting rosehips for extra vitamin C.

wareagle69
12-09-2008, 04:20 PM
actually linda just reminded me we have a volunteer dinner tommorrow night so i will ask dr jouppi then.

wildWoman
12-09-2008, 04:26 PM
Thanks WE! I'll go and shovel snow now - had a huge dump overnight. And one cow moose walking by the cabin 10 minutes ago.

crashdive123
12-09-2008, 05:05 PM
Nope - not gonna do it.

wareagle69
12-09-2008, 08:50 PM
haha thats awesome sometimes words are not needed the joke is in itself

crashdive123
01-02-2009, 11:51 PM
Sarge - Move to General Survival