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Comment by Anna Morelli on March 26, 2015 at 11:57pm

Don't worry about the distemper.  If she had eye ulcers from that, it would have been there when you first got her. Once healed, they would not recur.  I would stick with your regular Vet and a conservative approach. If you notice irritation, see if you can correlate it to something, like, for example, a high pollen count for that day.  If you make note of these observations you may see a pattern. 

There are things that just don't come to mind some times.  I have a 10 year old cat and he started loosing a lot of fur on his back.  I took him to the Vet, who said the skin looked OK and it was probably traumatic.  I  suspected he had grown too big for the cat door, refused the anti-inflammatories and had a bigger pet door installed. All his fur is now growing back!  At age 10, who'd have guessed.  I've had him since he was 6 wks.old.... He's a Maine Coon and, I guess slow to fully mature into his now 19.5 Lbs.. 

Comment by Carol on March 26, 2015 at 6:37pm

Anna-This last eye issue was the 4th in the few months that I have had her. Yes, the ER eye doc should've/would've known.  Both my regular vet and his co-vet are ISU grads. Reg vet says eye trauma and the ER eye vet says ulcers.  She did get sick off the medicine the ER vet put her on, he said no way, my reg vet said absolutely-hence the ER vet giving her the gastro-whatever diagnosis/food allergies and the kangaroo diet.  She has been fine however before and after the medicine as far as getting sick. She was fine with the drops and pain meds my reg vet had her on.
The distemper-interesting- I certainly will do some research on that. Maybe there's a blood test or something that would show it?  I thought it was generally fatal.
It's just so confusing when the vets have totally different opinions. I'm more inclined to listen to my vet over the specialist, I've been going to him for 25 yrs, trust his education and experience and he's just a super guy.
Zoey is doing great now.  These episodes last bad for 2-3 days and then the next few days improving and then she's OK. First couple days she is miserable, though.

Comment by Anna Morelli on March 26, 2015 at 1:23pm

Carol, those are pretty darn good credentials! It certainly is puzzling. How long has she had  the eye ulcers?  Could she have had distemper before you adopted her.  That can cause eye ulcers.  Could she be allergic to one of the Rx drugs you mention?

How is she doing now?

Comment by Carol on March 26, 2015 at 11:52am

Jill-Actually the opthmologist that saw Zoey at the Emergency Clinic was a professor at IA State.  He was the one who diagnosed her with eye ulcers caused by allergies.  I could find no info that that is a symptom of allergies-we're not talking watery eyes-this is like punctures wounds.  Staining the eye and using a black light.  Her regular vet doesn't think she has allergies as she has no other symptoms of allergies.  He wants to check for dry eye, which the IA State opthmologist did, but she was on 2 RX eye drops and her reg.vet said  that would not be accurate while on eye drops.  I know IA State has a great vet school, but I really question this guy.  He diagnosed her with food and environmental allergies before he even saw her, his tech told me not to get insulted but he would blame my dusty house (!) and he never ran any tests for allergies.  He had a list of 5 other issues she supposedly has and my vet doesn't believe she has any-his tech did the dry eye and eye pressure and that was it.  I did come across the 2nd site you gave me while doing research.

Comment by Jill M on March 25, 2015 at 11:06pm

http://www.doghasallergies.com/

http://www.welshcorgi.com/lists/archive7.html

maybe some of this will will help..... also since you are in IA, I know Iowa State has a great vet school, maybe you could contact them for an opinion or an appointment ( yes, I realize it's about 2 hours from you )

eyes are touchy things... I have one corgi who has allergies but nothing with his eyes. unless we use drops that are in a corn base. Then he gets an infection with green mucus and the works. :(  ...this corgi also  has eye issues: due to negelct by a previous owner- one eye is damaged to the point he is basically blind and has dry eye. This requires daily prescription meds to keep it lubricated.  His "good" eye has a cataract which is being closely monitored for the possibility of needing surgery should it get too big and obstruct the vision in that eye.

another corgi recently developed a white spot on one of her eyes. we are unsure what it is, but during the exam discovered she has some retinal dystrophy both eyes. she's on NSID drops for a month and then we'll go from there.

Comment by Carol on March 25, 2015 at 9:20am

Thanks, Anna.  I wrote that down and will pick it up next time I'm out to keep on hand  :)

Comment by Anna Morelli on March 24, 2015 at 6:19pm

I would keep the homeopathic eye drops on hand as they are drug free and can give some relief while the problem is small, evitating escalation. I use them for my own eyes occasionally. One drop will do.

Comment by Anna Morelli on March 24, 2015 at 6:14pm

Sounds good!

Comment by Carol on March 24, 2015 at 1:20pm

Oh-and feeding her kangaroo-her vet said there is a lot of other things to try first :)

Comment by Carol on March 24, 2015 at 1:19pm

Many thanks for all the comments and suggestions.  I talked to Zoey's regular vet yesterday, we had a bit of hassle getting the report from the Emergency Clinic, and he talked to the other vet in his office whom she had seen.  He had thought I either didn't understand or was confused about allergies causing eye ulcers, however he was tactful until he got the ER eye specialists report, then told me that is exactly what was in the report!  He doesn't believe she has any allergies since she has no other symptoms.  He pretty much disregarded all 5 of the ER's diagnosis for various things.  He does want to run the dry eye test on her next time we come in.  I said the ER eye doc had run that and my reg vet said it's not really accurate when she was on 2 RX eye drops.
Originally we thought she was running into things (branches, neighbor dumped a bunch of broken cement in my yard, etc) and her reg. vet thinks she is just a klutz and joked about goggles-I had thought about safety glasses.  Her vision seems great, we live by schools and a park and she went nuts watching the kids at one school go sledding at recess-that's a block away, you can see the hill from my back yard. 
Until next time, hope there won't be another, but if so, I have the RX eye drops and pain meds and if my vet is closed, she will wait, rather than go to this ER vet and be misdiagnosed and treated so rudely (me).
Thanks again to all the people who took time to read and respond  :)

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