Wayne - Glaucoma in both eyes
CavyHouse, I am sorry to read of your and Wayne's struggles over the past year. I'm so glad he ended up back with you, for his good care and thoughtful consideration of his quality of life and careful attention to his condition and special needs.
Alot of folks wonder how an animal will do with sudden loss of vision. People often personalize the change and don't give the animal the benefit of the doubt that they might get along quite well without having the sense of great loss that an adult human might experience (in my experience, even human children do better with this than human adults). People might give up on an animal, when they should carry on with adjusting to the change, as you had.
We took in a boy who had a condition that was causing increasing blindness, and I care for a piggie who has been blind for years. The blindness did not hamper/has not hampered their ability to get around, eat or drink with keeping their cage environments stable. As everyone here pointed out, their senses of smell and hearing outweigh the sense of sight. It might be different with some species who require sight to survive, but not so for piggies.
I wanted to post this article on glaucoma written by a renowned veterinary opthamologist here near us in the Boston area, Dr. Ruth Marrion. She is highly recommended by our top exotics doctors here in this area. While she writes more on canine glaucoma in this article, she is well-versed with exotics opthamology cases. She writes about lens luxation (as it sounds like Wayne had experienced) as potential cause of secondary glaucoma, as well as about eye enlargement. Perhaps glaucoma in piggies isn't so common as some other eye ailments, but thought posting her article would be useful on the topic, and just for the sake of letting others know of who she is if they are local and have piggies who are experiencing eye ailments of any sort. ~ http://ivghospitals.uberflip.com/i/3063 ... ho-painmgt
Alot of folks wonder how an animal will do with sudden loss of vision. People often personalize the change and don't give the animal the benefit of the doubt that they might get along quite well without having the sense of great loss that an adult human might experience (in my experience, even human children do better with this than human adults). People might give up on an animal, when they should carry on with adjusting to the change, as you had.
We took in a boy who had a condition that was causing increasing blindness, and I care for a piggie who has been blind for years. The blindness did not hamper/has not hampered their ability to get around, eat or drink with keeping their cage environments stable. As everyone here pointed out, their senses of smell and hearing outweigh the sense of sight. It might be different with some species who require sight to survive, but not so for piggies.
I wanted to post this article on glaucoma written by a renowned veterinary opthamologist here near us in the Boston area, Dr. Ruth Marrion. She is highly recommended by our top exotics doctors here in this area. While she writes more on canine glaucoma in this article, she is well-versed with exotics opthamology cases. She writes about lens luxation (as it sounds like Wayne had experienced) as potential cause of secondary glaucoma, as well as about eye enlargement. Perhaps glaucoma in piggies isn't so common as some other eye ailments, but thought posting her article would be useful on the topic, and just for the sake of letting others know of who she is if they are local and have piggies who are experiencing eye ailments of any sort. ~ http://ivghospitals.uberflip.com/i/3063 ... ho-painmgt