Uveitis/acute Blindness (Sudden Onset Blindness)

[Guest Paden]

Hello, I'm new to GreyTalk. My parents adopted a greyhound, Paden, 4 years ago; he is now 8 years old. He's always been healthy and active but ten days ago my dad accidentally bumped Paden in his left eye with a coffee mug. As it so happened, we had an appointment to take Pae to the vet for his annual checkup two days later, so we mentioned the eye accident to the vet and he put a stain in Paden's eye and checked for cornea scratches (the cornea was fine). So the vet sent us home with a small bottle of eyedrops (antibiotics and steroids) and told us to bring Paden back in 7 days if things weren't improving. Over the next week, Paden began squinting his left eye all the time, and it started having a crusty discharge. Then we began to worry that he had lost his vision in his left eye. Then, six days after having been to the vet, Paden went blind in both eyes. We called the vet and made an emergency appointment for the next morning (this past Saturday morning). They examined him again but could not diagnose the cause of his problem.

 

The vet checked his eye pressure levels and said they're low - about 4 or 5 (normal is 15-20), and noted that his pupils are both dilated. She said his retinas look intact and the retinal wall does not appear to have any ruptures. The low pressure means he's got uveitis, which can lead to irreversible blindness if not treated quickly. As it so happens, we found a tick on Paden's left shoulder on Saturday morning before we took him to the vet, so it is at least possible that the tick made Paden sick. The vet drew blood to check for tick-bourne illnesses, also took urine to do a urinalysis, and sent us home with Rimadyl (anti-inflammatory) and doxycycline pills (oral antibiotics to combat anything the tick may have infected him with), as well as the same eye drops from before. Paden is on heart-worm prevention pills and tested negative for heartworm after the first vet visit last week so we know that is not the cause of the uveitis.

 

Other than being blind, Paden is not exhibiting any other symptoms of illness or changes in behavior (no loss of appetite or shift in personality, though he is of course confused and depressed because he can't see). The vet said it is unlikely that being bumped with the coffee mug was what caused the uveitis, but rather that Paden probably already had vision loss and that's what caused him to get bumped instead of ducking away from the coffee mug (dad was standing up from a chair with his mug in hand when Paden walked face-first into it). If that injury had been the cause of the uveitis, it wouldn't have affected both his eyes; just the left one.

 

I've spent the weekend researching dog opthalmologists in the area and am going to make some calls and set up an appointment for Paden first thing tomorrow. My hope is that the meds he's on will bring down the inflammation in his eyes and he'll regain at least partial vision.

 

I am posting here to ask if anyone has experienced anything like this with their greyhounds, or if uveitis/acute blindness is something associated with the breed. Thank you in advance for any info/insights/resources you can provide.

 

Paden:

[MauCarden]

Hi, I have no useful information for you. I just wanted to tell you that there are some very knowledgeable people on GT who may have info, but probably won't be active until tomorrow.

Paden is gorgeous, and I hope the vets will be able to help Paden. I have read of some GH having Pannus, but I don't know how prevalent it is nor how often it results in blindness.

Keeping fingers crossed for a good outcome.

[greyhndz]

Hi

 

I've become all too familiar with uveitis in humans, as I was diagnosed 6 years ago. The key here is to treat this aggressively, and to correctly diagnose any underlying problem that would have caused the uveitis. While it's possible that this is due to tick borne disease it's also possible that he has an autoimmune disorder, whichcwould cause inflammation somewhere along the uveal tract in his eyes, and this often requires steroids, either systemic or topical (drops). The other diagnosis to consider would be PRA, or even a neurologic event such as a stroke, but this is really an emergent problem that warrants an urgent evaluation by a vet ophthalmologist..

 

I sincerely hope that all goes well for Paden, and that at least some vision can be restored.

[Feisty49]

I have no advice for you, but will be thinking positive thoughts that the cause of his blindness can be addressed so Paden's vision is restored. He is beautiful. I just want to hug that face and give it kisses.

[macoduck]

A couple members here have had dogs go blind suddenly. One trick to help them adapt was to use different scents in the house so they can identify objects in their daily routine like their bed and the door.

[Guest IrskasMom]

As my Boy Morty had Uveitis (Conjunctiveitis ? ?)In his right Eye almost the entire Summer I suggest you go see an Optomologist for Animals immediatly.I don't belief the Tick had anything to do with it. Have Vet do an entire Bloodpanel.

Please give us an Update on Paden after the Optomologist

 

BTW. Welcome to GT .

Edited November 28, 2011 by IrskasMom

[Scooby172]

My grey/whippet mix had uveitits, she did not go blind but was in a lot of pain while she had it. After many tests it was determined that she had hypothyroid, which may have been related to the uveitis. We used a vet ophthalmologist, Keeva is now on medication for her thyroid and we have not had another flare of the uveitis. I had uveitis once, it was very painful and was very difficult to see. Good luck

Linda, Valor and Keeva

[sweetdogs]

Just want to welcome you to GT & say that Paden is a beautiful boy. Getting him into a veterinary opthamologist is the way to go. Sounds like your vet is excellent but Paden needs a specialist, as you've realized. I hope his blindness is temporary but there are resources out there for help if it isn't. I fervently hope he won't need it. Please keep us posted & my very best wishes for Paden & his wonderful family.

[Guest happygrey]

Our Tatam had uevitis about a year ago or so ago. Fortunately, he did not lose his sight. I definitely would recommend getting your pup to an ophthalmologist asap.

 

He underwent steroidal treatment which returned his eye pressure and inflammation to normal. I'll see if I can find a thread on it.

 

 

Good luck.

Edited November 28, 2011 by happygrey

[Guest mcsheltie]

Our Tatam had uevitis about a year ago or so ago. Fortunately, he did not lose his sight. I definitely would recommend getting your pup to an ophthalmologist asap.

 

He underwent steroidal treatment which returned his eye pressure and inflammation to normal. I'll see if I can find a thread on it.

 

 

Good luck.

Second... getting to an ophthalmologist ASAP. There is a possibility it can be reversed if treated soon enough. It can lead to glaucoma if not controlled.

[Guest Paden]

Thank you all for the warm wishes and thank you for urging us to take Paden to a dog opthalmologist. Pae is my fathers' dog and though dad loves him dearly, when things like this arise dad tends to go into denial and minimize the problems because it provokes his anxiety. So although my mom and I urged him to get Paden to an opthalmologist, dad got upset and said it's his dog and his decision and he'd rather "wait and see."

 

But as luck would have it, dad left town for a business trip yesterday morning so mom and I loaded up the dog in the car and drove him straight to the opthalmologist today Good thing we did ~ the opthalmologist said the uveitis is so bad that both of Paden's retinas have detached and he is stone blind, but thankfully the overall structure of his eyes is still healthy and there is still a window of opportunity for his retinas to re-attach if we can bring the inflammation down. She also discovered the apparent cause of the problem: Paden's blood pressure is dangerously high (220; regular is 160 or lower). This is wonderful to know because it means there's a good chance of saving at least some of his vision by getting his BP down. He's now on a regimen of doxycycline (antibiotics), prednisone (steroids), pepcid AC (antacid to protect his GI tract from prednisone), prednisolone eye drops, and amlodipine besylate (to lower his BP). Dr. Armour said if this works to restore his vision we will see results in about three days. If the retinas do not naturally reattach, I don't know if we'll have further options. We were told that there is a surgical procedure to manually reattach the retinas and of the four veterinarians in the country who can perform the procedure, one of them is actually relatively nearby in Virginia Beach. However, Paden would probably be a bad candidate for surgery because of his high BP.

 

So we're going to give him his meds and keep our fingers crossed that Paden will get some sight back by the end of the week.

 

In the meantime, the new problem is finding out what caused his high BP in the first place. The opthalmologist said the most likely causes are either a heart problem or kidney problem. She listened to his heart very carefully and said that she thought she could hear a murmur. She also said his heart was beating fast and loud and she could feel his pulse quite strongly in his jugular, which is not normal. So his heart may be working overtime and that's what drove up the blood pressure and that's what screwed up his eyes. On the one hand, I feel like maybe we dodged a bullet because if he hadn't developed the eye problems we'd never have known about his BP and might not have found out about his heart until it was too late. One trip to the dog park could have resulted in total disaster! On the other hand, Paden has an appointment scheduled with a canine cardiologist tomorrow and I am very nervous because I don't know what options there will be when it comes to repairing a damaged heart. There may be high risk and high costs ahead of us. Poor dad was almost too shocked to speak when we apprised him of the opthalmologists' findings. Hopefully by the time he comes home Wednesday we'll have more answers and good news for him.

 

Apparently these kinds of medical ailments are not common to greyhounds as a breed.

 

Anyway, thank you all again for your replies and for taking an interest in our sweet boy. Pae is a super-affectionate grey and loves everyone he meets. I'll attach a couple of gratuitous pics of him roaching to end this post, and write back again later with another update once he's seen the cardiologist.

 

 

Edited November 29, 2011 by Paden

[Feisty49]

He is truly a beautiful Grey, and I love to see them roaching. My girl doesn't do that, except during an occasional bigggg stretch, but then she returns to her side. Continuing the good thoughts for Paden. I'm so glad your dad went out of town.

[tbhounds]

First -- good for you sneaking him off to the vet.

Hypertension is common with Ghs-many times it is compounded via the white coat syndrome. Also, almost every gh will have a heart murmur with NO heart disease.

I'm sure others will chime in with educational links.

Of course it's a greyt idea to follow up on these findings just to understand that some may be normal for a gh.

Keep us posted- wishing only the best!

[Guest june]

I'm so glad you chose to follow up in spite of your father's protests. He is a beautiful boy and I'm looking forward to hearing more about how he is doing.

[Guest happygrey]

I'm glad you sneaked him off to the ophthalmologist. I didn't want to add in my original post that the ophthalmologist who saw Tatam thought that something else was causing his uevitis. In his case she strongly thought it was a distant tumor somewhere in his body. Thankfully, all that was ruled out, and his case was judged to be idiopathic (meaning no real explanation as to what caused it). Fortunately he's had no other issues for more than a year now. (Knock wood!)

 

I looked for the original thread I had posted about it, but it must be too old, because it's not showing up in the searches.

 

I hope that Paden recovers fully and that his case ends up being idiopathic too.

[sweetdogs]

Thank god for you & your Mom. Good luck at the cardiologist tomorrow.

 

Here is a list of medical links if you're interested: linkies. There'll be info on greyhound idiosyncrasies, such as heart size & bloodwork that might be helpful.

 

Continuing best wishes for Paden.

[Guest BlueCrab]

He's a cutie! Thank goodness you did sneak him off, as now you know a plan of attack. Hope it all goes ok.

 

BTW, our Trixie has a heart murmur with no other heart-related problems, which I understand is pretty common in greys, as well as Pannus, which is controlled for us by every couple days application of eye drops. Best of luck.

[XTRAWLD]

ACK, how does he roach on the carpet? And on the carpet over hardwood/laminate it looks like to boot!! Kasey is a common roacher but refused to do it on the carpet cause it's way too hard!

 

Glad you caught the problem with Paden. Keep us updated!

[greytpups]

Here's hoping for a good outcome for Paden

[greyhead]

I'm sorry if you already said and I missed it, but have his kidney values been looked at? Not to say this is what's happening to Paden, but I went through this with a cat with chronic renal failures and learned a lot. Our cat's retinas detached too, but they reattached because we got his BP treated immediately.

 

With kidney disease the BP goes up, which actually helps the kidney situation by circulating the blood at a faster rate to reduce the toxins in the body. But it only works up to a point and, obviously, comes with a big price tag. The main treatments for kidney disease are a lower-protein diet and administration of sub-q fluids (which is easy to do once you get the hang of it). If kidneys are at the root of this problem, you'll want to know as soon as possible so you can do what can be done.

 

In any case, congratulations for pursuing the problem, and best luck to you and Paden!

[macoduck]

Here's an article on blindness: My link

And murmurs: My link

A resource site for owners of blind dogs: My link

And info from Dr Feeman's site: My link

[Guest Paden]

Hello again, I've got a quick update on Paden.

 

His main issue is hypertension. He was started on a blood pressure med called Amlodipine, at a dose of 2.5mg every twelve hours. This dosage is apparently very low and though he seemed to be responding to it initially, subsequent BP readings indicated that the meds weren't effective at all so his dosage was upped to 3.75mg, and now it's at 5mg.

 

The opthalmologist we took him to when he went blind was also the first vet to take a blood pressure reading, so she was the one who discovered his hypertension. While I'm grateful to her for making that crucial discovery, I wish she had told us at that point "I'm an eye specialist; for hypertension you should see an internist." Instead, she tried to get to the bottom of the hypertension herself, which meant she was the one who prescribed the too-low-to-be-effective dosage of Amlodipine, and then she sent us on a wild goose chase by referring us to a cardiologist and a neurologist because she was convinced that Paden's hypertension was caused by either his heart murmur or a brain tumor (took about $1000 in unnecessary tests and consultations before we learned that his heart and brain are fine and there was not much reason to think otherwise to begin with). He'd had a urinalysis at his regular vet a few days before we took him to the opthalmologist, and the results were normal so we'd already ruled out kidney problems.

 

So the good news is that Paden's major internal organs all appear to be functioning just fine and are seemingly tumor-free. The opthalmologist also prescribed Prednisone to reduce the inflammation in Pae's eyes; the drug worked and his retinas reattached but he still can't see, so it would seem that the hypertension caused irreversible damage to his optic nerves and he'll remain blind for life. It's a bummer but not the end of the world; Paden is already adjusting to the blindness and acting more like his old self every day.

 

The 5mg dose of Amlodipine appears to be helping, as he's had more energy and a healthy appetite in the last few days. We still need to take him in for a couple more blood pressure readings to make sure he gets on the right dosage, or possibly switch to a different BP medicine (apparently there are two or three alternatives to Amlodipine) if it turns out that he's still not responding well to the upped Amlo.

 

A new issue that's arisen is that Paden is losing weight even though he's regained his appetite and is eating and drinking a healthy amount. He's had gas and very loose stool for the last week or so. When we take him in for another BP check I plan on asking them to do a fecal float and/or give him a dose of deworming powder. Up until yesterday we were giving Paden all his pills in cream cheese but since it's very likely that the cream cheese is contributing to, if not the root cause of, his gas and runny stools, I was hoping some of you could suggest alternatives to cream cheese. My ideas so far are to try pill pocket treats, peanut butter, hot dog pieces, braunschweiger if I can find it in the metro DC area (it was really easy to find in grocery stores when I lived in St Louis but not so popular anywhere else), or just sticking the pills in his wet food.

 

Also, I'd appreciate any suggestions on what to feed a greyhound if you want to fatten them up.

 

Many thanks for all the kind and helpful responses; this forum is a great resource for info, ideas and support.

 

[Batmom]

I'm sorry his blindness hasn't resolved but glad to hear he is adjusting.

 

Re pills -- I do it the mean old way -- shove 'em down the throat and then immediately give a "good dog!" and nice treat. My angel Batman would actually show up at @ pill time and stand there patiently waiting to have his pills shoved on down so he could get the treat.

 

Hugs and best luck going forward.

[TheFullHouse]

Glad to hear you've found the answers to a lot of questions. Since he's already adjusting to the blindness things should improve. I've had great success using pill pockets and a little big of peanut butter on a small piece of bread. I just stick the pill in between a small "sandwich" and it works like a charm.

[greyhead]

We put our pills in a meatball made from canned dog food. (The Wellness variety has good consistency for the purpose and is what we use to make gravy for their kibble anyhow.) We also sometimes do it the Batmom way, which isn't bad at all once everybody gets the hang of it. When I do it that way, I've taught them to cooperate when I say "Open". It seems to help them recognize what's happening and what's expected of them, which makes the whole transaction so much easier. "Easier" is everyone's friend!

Edited December 11, 2011 by greyhead