How Was Your Pup's Pannus Diagnosed?

[Guest JustBreathe]

Hi, I apologize upfront for not visiting and posting on greytalk as often as I used to.

 

 

About 6 weeks ago we kept noticing Molly(3 1/2) seem to have some eye matter everytime you turned around...not teary or a draining eye, just a little "eye burger". For a couple of weeks, I just assumed it was allergies. Then one day while under the florescent lights in the kitchen I caught a glimse of what I thought was a scratch or tear on her cornea near the far outer corner. We took her to the vet the next morning. He stained it but saw no scratch or tear. He said it looked liked scar tissue, gave us an antibotic eye oinment to put in 3 times a day, and asked to see her back in a week. That was when hurricane Ike came through and left Houston in a disarray so I didn't get her in for her followup for 2 weeks. By then I had been doing my research and was pretty sure this was pannus. They stained it again, but couldn't provide a definitive diagnosis so referred Molly to animal opthamology at Texas A&M University. There they were pretty sure it was pannus, but did a cell scraping to be sent to the lab. They said to keep her on the antibiotic ointment for one week to heal the scrape area. By then they would have the lab results back and have the results, diagnosis, and treatment recommendation sent to our regular vet. At our vet a week later, they stained her eye again only to find the scrape wound had not healed and sent us home to use the antibiotic ointment for one more week. I took Molly back today...stained again and again the wound is still taking the die. This time he recommended using Molly's own blood serum 3 times a day in the eye, along with the antibiotic ointment. They took 3 or 4 vials of blood, spun it to separate it and sent us home with a small vial of blood serum. I am anxious and frustrated because she is yet to be able to start a treatment for the pannus.

 

Was cell samples for lab test done when any of your pups were diagnosed with pannus, or for any other eye disease?

 

 

And I guess there is at least a couple of different medications used to treat pannus...corticosteroid or cyclosporine. A&M recommended the first but our vet would perfer the second. He is going to contact the opthamologist to discuss, so at this point I'm not sure which we'll be using with Molly once her scrape wound is healed. Which do you use for your pups?

 

 

 

tia,

Tanya

[Guest GentleHugs]

To answer your question if a cell scraping was done when our little LuLu was diagnosed with pannus - the answer is no. In fact, I've never heard of a vet doing a cell scraping of the eye when they suspect pannus as the cause.

 

Luckily, my regular vet has experience with pannus so the only thing he did was an eye stain test. He didn't really need to do that because the pannus was very obvious in LuLu's eyes but he wanted to rule out any other problems first.

 

A couple of the obvious signs of pannus is constant redness of the white area and an opaque line around the outside of the iris (the colored part of the eye). In some cases, you can actually see a "film" of white webbing (similar to a spider web) over the cornea of the eye. You can see the white webbing best if you take your dog into a darkened room and shine a flashlight in each eye and you have to look closely. That's how I check LuLu's eyes to make sure the white webbing has not increased in size. It looks like film over the cornea of the eye.

 

LuLu's eye were extremely red - almost like she had been drinking too much or had severe allergies. When I lifted up her top eye lid a little, I could see the opaque line outlining the iris of her eye. Since I never had a dog with pannus but heard about it, I started researching pannus on the web. I compared pictures and such then picked up the phone and called my vet.

 

LuLu had a small white webbed looking spot on her iris in her left eye. Her left eye is worse than her right but she has pannus in both eyes.

 

She's been on pred drops - 2 drops per eye twice a day since February 2008. We started to decrease her eye drops but the white webbed spot started getting bigger when we did so we put her back on 2 drops twice a day per eye to keep it under control. That's probably where she will stay at on dosage for a while. Most of the time, she has no redness of the white area except when I'm a little late in the day on giving her the eye drops. She's a very good girl about getting the eye drops and will sometimes remind me if I forgot to give them to her.

 

Pannus is not curable but it is treatable. LuLu will be on meds for the rest of her life to control it. If pannus is left untreated, obstructed vision or blindness can happen.

 

Hope this helps.

 

[fourofem]

Lizzie was misdiagnosed originally; vet thought she'd somehow scratched her eye and put her antibiotic drops. We were back in a week later when it had not improved (actually had gotten worse), saw another vet in the practice and she picked it up right away and put her on Optimmune. She's seen an opthomologist since and he recommended we continue with the Optimmune once a day and she'll probably have that from here on out. He wants to see her every six months. Having gone through Lizzie, I recognized it with Lewis early on. He has also seen the opthomologist and is on the same dosage of Optimmune as Lizzie. Optimmune doesn't come in a drop; it looks like and is the consistency of Neosporin and comes in a little, tiny tube that costs a bundle if I get it from the vet. I have since found it for a bit less at SmartPak and have loaded up. Neither are crazy about getting it but they're pretty used to it now.

[Guest greytmonty]

Our derm vet spotted a cloudiness in Monty's eyes and sent us to an opth vet. Diagnosis made by exam and by ruling out other problems with standard eye tests (no scraping or bloodwork).

[Guest Greensleeves]

I diagnosed Whistler when he walked under my stitching lamp (I do needlework) and looked up at me--the light shone right on a webwork of the cartilage/scar tissue spreading across his iris. I knew what it was immediately, and our vets just confirmed it.

 

It took an ophthalmologist to diagnose Atypical Pannus, which is when the third eyelid is involved. I can't recall what she did, although I know they did a tear test and stain every time we went in. I don't remember her ever taking cell samples (tho' she might have).

 

Whistler took Neo/Poly/Dex (steroid eyedrops) and tacrolimus (immuno-suppressive drops). His case was moderate-to-severe, and his doctor called him "moderately controlled" on his meds. We were able to reverse the webwork of cartilage that could have blinded him, but the redness in the third eyelid only improved a little. About every six months she gave him injections into the eye itself (steroids, IIRC), which caused some pain/irritation the day of, but controlled the symptoms better than his meds alone.

[Guest rosebudd]

Leo had cloudy eyes when I adopted him and a few people at my first expo asked me and suggested I go to a opto. unfortunately I was far away from one and they were very expensive so someone on grey talk recommended a vet that was grey savy and he diagnosed it. He showed me how to look for it with the light. Leo is now on drops for the rest of his life.

[ZoomDoggy]

My regular vet (at the time) misdiagnosed the tissue in Tipper's eye as old scar tissue. I knew that was wrong because I could see it changing, getting worse over time. So I researched a lot and learned about pannus. I was pretty sure that what it was, so I made an ophthalmologist appointment on my own. The instant the eye-doc looked at Tipper, she said "Yep, that's pannus! Good eye, you caught it early." No cell-scraping or anything. I think (it was five years ago) she did a tear-test and maybe a staining just to rule out any other injury, then sent us home with NeoPolyDex ointment. He's been on that ever since (decreasing frequency over time as his eyes recovered), and now you can't see the pannus at all.

[greytlucy]

Our vet sent us to the ophthlamologist who diagnosed/confirmed pannus. No scraping involved. We see her about every 9 mos and have for the past 5 years or so. We use NeoPolyDex and Cyclosporine daily. I definitely recommend involving a specialist.

[Guest crazy4greys]

Leo had cloudy eyes when I adopted him and a few people at my first expo asked me and suggested I go to a opto. unfortunately I was far away from one and they were very expensive so someone on grey talk recommended a vet that was grey savy and he diagnosed it. He showed me how to look for it with the light. Leo is now on drops for the rest of his life.

 

Yup, that was my vet. I didn't even notice it. He diagnosed it when Skylar was in for a routine check up I believe 2 yrs. ago. She is on drops too.

[rycezmom]

Red eyes, my vet sent me to the opthamologist and she diagnosed it fairly quickly without sending cell scrapings. Gus is on Tacrolimus gtts twice a day. It can be aggravated by sunlight so he has his big playtime outside early in the morning and late in the afternoon. He is doing very well on his drops and we should be able to cut it down to once a day soon.

 

L.

[seeh2o]

I noticed cloudiness on the outside edges of Carl's corneas in June. The vet diagnosed Pannus, it seemed to get better immediately with prednisone drops, then it started getting worse. We upped the dosage to 3 drops per day. I asked for a referral to an opth. We went, in Sept, and found that it was NOT Pannus, but we have a tentative (I think) diagnosis of Corneal Dystrophy. No scraping or blood work at the opth, though he had bloodwork from the original Pannus dx, indicating no problems.

 

So far Carl cannot tolerate Tacromlimus ointment or the Cyclosporin ointment, he had a bad reaction to both of them. He is on the Pred 2 x a day for now. I'm wondering if the problem is with the agent in the ointment rather than the medications themselves.

 

I have one tube of each, used once each, sitting in my fridge, if anyone is So Cal can use them I'd be happy to give them to you. I don't think it would be a good idea to ship them as I believe they both need to be refrigerated all the time. Please PM me if you want one or both!