Over the last few weeks, we have seen many emergencies due to traumatic injuries of the eye and more specifically, the cornea.
The cornea is the clear/see through structure at the front of the eye. It contains lots of nerve endings and hence any trauma is extremely painful.
In addition, it has its own normal microflora, but when there is damage to the cornea, opportunistic bacteria can take hold and cause an infection.
When bad bacteria multiply in a horse’s eye, it causes a dramatic response from the horse. An imbalance can happen in the tear film between enzymes that promote degradation of proteins and enzymes that inhibit this breakdown. As a result, the cornea can start to be dissolved. We say it is ‘melting’. The scientific word for this is ‘Keratomalacia’.
Take home message:
Treat every painful, swollen or tearing eye as an emergency.
Antibiotics are almost always used topically when waiting for a corneal trauma to heal.
Do not wait to call for advice.
Once bacteria trigger an increase of these destructive enzymes, there is limited time to react before the cornea can perforate (burst) and the horse requires eye removal.