RPM Face Book Live: The Eyes Have It!

Back, it's RPM Facebook Lives, and here's Nick Thompson, uh, to join me tonight. Yet again, another week without our good friend Conor. Um, he is sunning it up. I say that with a smile because I'm sure that there is some sunshine somewhere in Ireland, but he's sunning it up somewhere, I believe.

Where's he got— where's he actually gone, Ben?

I presume that he's stuck inside a border of Ireland. Has he gone to the south?

I think he went down south, didn't he? I think he went down south.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hang on a second, hang on, hang on, my phone's just ringing.

Oh no, no.

Uh, hello? Oh, oh, oh my goodness, look, our special correspondent has sent through, um, he's doing what? He's raising money for RPM. Even though he's on holiday.

Oh, he's a workforce. He's a workforce.

Absolutely amazing. Thank you for sending the picture through. See ya. Bye.

You see, guys, I can't— how can I help say thank you for you finding these photos from somewhere?

It's amazing. Brilliant. Thank you, guys. And our special correspondent, we really— our special RPM correspondent Thank you very much indeed. Brilliant. How's your week been, mate?

Oh yeah, mixed. Yeah, I've just, just waiting for a couple of weeks that we're going to be just doing some stuff outside the practice again. I've got a bit of a week off up in Scotland planned, so that'll be interesting. Really excited, there's some stuff coming up and we're going to say more about this later in, but I think we should sneak in right now because guys, we're speed reading this little fella.

Why are we speed reading that, Brendan?

Because on the 31st, good old Rodney and Karen are joining us on RPM Live to talk about their book, to talk about what they're up to, to answer some questions from you guys, just so that you can, you know, ask some questions of those those lovely people from across the pond. In fact, actually, I said across the pond, but actually we've got an audience that are from Canada anyway, so you can ask the people around the corner a question by asking it through us across the water and back again.

So they're going to be honorary Raw Pet Medics for the night, and we're very proud of having them on. The book is apparently dynamite. It's winging its way over to us, should be with us within the next day or two. We're going to read it.

Pre-order available, I believe for delivery in October, guys, ready for Christmas. If you want to order one, you can go on Amazon and pre-order.

Is it 68 languages? It's been— yeah, something like that. 68 languages.

Yeah, so phenomenal. There we go. So, um, yeah, one of those, uh, yeah, so we're reviewing it as well. So we're gonna sort of like get a sneak peek, uh, not that we're allowed to tell you what's in it, but but we'll give you a sneak peek by asking some questions on the night. So look forward to seeing you guys back on the 31st. You want to see Rodney and Karen answer some questions, give a little bit of background. Be great to see you then. Okay, so that's enough of that for now because we've got lots of other stuff to talk about. How's your week been, Nick?

I know it's been really good. I just want to say, just, it struck me that this, because of all the holidays and things, so next week we're going to be here. The three of us are going to be here. We're going to be here. Uh, and then the week after, none of us are going to be here, but we've got a little special little something for you. And then the week after that, it's Karen and Rodney, and we're going to be talking about the book. And that's going to be a bit of a biggie, might be an extended show. It's going to be a hoot, that's for sure. Um, so that's it. So that's August. So it's us tonight, then 3 of us, then none of us, and then with, uh, Rodney Habib. And which— sorry, and then all of us, and then all 5 Raw Pet Medics all at once on one screen due to the technology. So, uh, yeah, what have I been doing? Uh, we've been to the Wilderness Festival, which is, which is about as wild as Kensington High Street, I have to say. But it was very, very pleasant. It wasn't very wild, it was pretty muddy.

Oh, it's very rainy weather.

Yeah, it took us 4 hours to set up the tent in the rain.

And then did you have a puncture?

Uh, uh, no, it was just everything was wet and it's a really big tent and you've got to cut— you cart everything about half a mile. So we need 4 runs times of half a mile to get all the stuff and entertain children and what have you. And, um, and then our friends turned up And we thought, aha, they can have a couple of hours of putting their tent up in the rain. And suddenly the rain stopped and they just were— they had, you know, really very mild weather to put theirs up. And the weather continued to favour them for the entire weekend. And it started to rain just after we all left at the end. So actually, somebody was thinking of us and we had a great time. It was a lot of fun and the kids enjoyed it. The dogs didn't come. Dogs weren't allowed. But There you go. Dancing, music, dancing, great food, uh, good friends. Couldn't be better.

Yeah, absolutely brilliant. Absolutely. Uh, one last thing before we set on our wonderful wild, um, view of what's going to go on, uh, just a great thank you again. Uh, we've had yet more people joining our community, uh, so thanks for all of the guys on Patreon, uh, for your support. Um, It's allowing us to do more and more stuff, and it's just great to see you all joining us. So thank you so much. We are honestly through— we've got a video streaming platform now that's being logged with all of these backlog of videos cataloged so that they're going to be then brought into the Patreon. So if you're on Patreon, you'll be able to actually go through the catalog a little bit better because Facebook starts to hide things, and so we start to lose stuff if we're not careful. So we're going to catalog it so you'll always be able to access it if you're on Patreon. Okay, so thanks again guys for all of your support. For those of you who've joined us on there, if you don't know how to join, please just follow the link that's coming down below. And for everybody else, please, yeah, just like our page for RPM. It's great to see you there for the support. Great to see you on a night like this joining us. So that's great. Thank you very much.

We're doing eyes tonight, and Brendan, I think you've got a model there. Would you be able to just take us through some of the basic anatomy so that we're all on the same page?

Yeah, okay. So I hope there's nobody in the audience who's squeamish, because I do this, you know, I'm perfectly fine with eyes, and I've got nurses that when I start to pick things out of eyes, they start to scream and run out of the room and go, no thank you. So if you're squeamish, turn away now. No, I'm joking. Look, this is just an eye, okay? I'm not going to do it on yourself, guys. It's not a real one, okay? Although if you look at it very carefully, it's such a good model, you can probably just about see the vessels in the back of the retina.

That's just lines going across, that's the blood vessels at the back.

Anyway, so I'll show you why. Oh, oh, and I just, just missed— oh, and there's the optic disc. There you go. So anyway, this is a model. Now, some really interesting question came up earlier in the week on the advert, and that is that somebody was talking about their dog's eye sort of seeming normal one minute and being like a gooey mess the next, and then they, you know, 5 minutes later it could be normal again. And it's something that you've just got to remember for dogs and cats. And sorry for those people that know this, okay, think to, uh, that they have a third eyelid. So if there's a piece of grass coming towards them, then they retract the eye and the third eyelid pops up and Okay, and if they, um, then they can relax, okay, because there's no sensation. They should be able to push the eye forwards and the third eyelid comes down. So you can artificially do that if you put a little bit of pressure on the eye and push it up, it will do that. Now there are muscles behind the eye that actually, if there's sensation, they will withdraw it back, but there's also fat pad back here. So if they lose fat in that situation, they will also— the eye will retract and you'll see the third eyelid come up a little bit. Okay, so be aware of that. If there's inflammation or irritation on here, they draw the eye back, the third eyelid comes up. So it's useful to understand if they're dehydrated, that's the other thing that will also cause the eye to come back and the third eyelid to come up. So that nictitans membrane, the third eyelid, is probably the first thing that we should talk about, okay, as being something to watch out for. And it can look quite red and inflamed but not be, it's just the color of the mucous membrane that's on that. So that's number one. So this is—

why would that come up, Brent? Why would it? So if they're feeling off color?

Yeah, so if they're dehydrated the eye sinks back, they'll feel off color. So if they've got a temperature, maybe they're a bit dehydrated, we see this in cats a lot, okay, they can become that. But also if they've got any irritation of this part, okay, the cornea, the sensation on there again. So if they've got feline herpes virus or they've had a scratch on the surface of the eye, that can cause irritation and make them pull the eyelid, the eye back, and the third eyelid come up. But it's the same with dogs, you know, if they scratch their eye on a piece of grass or sometimes they even get one of those little tiny grass seeds inside the third eyelid, you know, that will just irritate and pull that up. Even if they get conjunctivitis, so allergies and sensitivities there, again, that can cause the third eyelid to come up first and foremost.

Suzanne Fletcher-Scott has mentioned Panus there. Do you want to?

Yeah. Okay. Well, we're going to talk into this. Yeah, so this is a great model because it breaks apart, okay, and we're going to talk about the individual sections here, okay. So we're going to take out this bit, so this is nice and clear, okay, and this is the cornea, so the front clear part of the eye. Now normally this is clear because there's a special structure within here of a membrane across the top and a membrane across the inside, and the middle is made up of something that's collagen. It's very similar to joint material, but the endothelium on the inside and the epithelium on the outside effectively are designed to suck water out of that, in that layer, and they turn a milky cartilaginous material into a very clear dehydrated structure. It's a miracle, and it makes it see-through.

It is. And all the, all the fibers are, uh, orientated in the same way. Yeah, like, like a forest, like, like, like the trunks in a forest, so that the light can just pass straight through with minimum interference. It's probably the only, the only transparent tissue in the body. I'm just trying to think of any other transparent—

yeah.

Membrane, must be.

I mean, it's amazing to think how that's evolved to become that structure. But on the surface layer, this is kept moist. This epithelium is fed normally by a tear film, so the endothelium is fed by fluid building up in the anterior chamber of the eye, and that circulates around. And on the surface, this is fed by the tear film. So when you cry, you're actually feeding all of these cells. Now, in here, you actually, that tear film is not just a single layer of watery tears, okay? It is actually 3 layers. The bottom layer is mucus, so it sticks to the surface and allows the fluid to stick to it. The second layer is the aqueous layer, the layer of tears that your third eyelid has a gland in that produces quite a lot of tears. There are tears that will then flood out onto the eye. Okay, you've got then on top of that an oil layer which is called the meibomium, which is produced by the meibomian glands. Okay, and that actually reduces the evaporation from the surface of that tear film. So really interesting way. Now, if you have any one of those layers that starts to become malfunction, then you can start to get drying out of this eye tear film. So the most common one is we get a fault with the tear gland in the third eyelid, and that's an immune-mediated disease. And we've talked about immune-mediated diseases where your body recognizes your own tissues as foreign, and that can then inhibit this tear film from being produced. And Therefore you get a very mucousy, you know, the mucous glands, the goblet cells start to produce more mucus, so you get a very sticky eye, quite a dry eye. Now that can lead to the epithelium starting to get damaged. It registers that and blood vessels start to come in to try and protect it and heal it, and then what you end up with is this mishmash of stuff that starts to grow across the the front of the eye and cover up the normal clear parts. Okay, so immune-mediated diseases include the dry eye, and then we've then got on to actually attacking and malfunctions of what's going on on the epithelium here, and you'll start to get pannus as well.

Okay, that's really good. Now, Jane Eastwith says, is there any way to support to prevent this? And I would say to avoid— what is the product that we use for the gut which is— oh, sorry, no, that creates keratoconjunctivitis sicca?

Sulfonamide drugs. You need to avoid any— so there's a certain antibiotic which is trimethoprim sulfas, and then there's all of the sulfonamides. So there is a group of sulfonamides. There's even one which is an anti-epileptic drug now, and all of these can actually activate the immune system and cause this issue of activated autoimmunity.

There's the other one, which is— is it salazopyrin? Salazopyrin. That's what we kind of used to use for IBD-type problems. It's like an aspirin and aspirin linked together so it can get through without burning your stomach, but then when it gets down into your gut, it breaks apart, and so you get this anti-inflammatory effect, and it can be quite useful. In the old days, we don't— I don't use it nowadays. I'll use used food and what have you, but that can give you keratoconjunctivitis sicca. So I think avoiding those drugs is a really, really good idea. But apart from that, and, you know, apart from the obvious, which is eating the best diet you could possibly afford and having plenty of omega-3s, then, then I think that that's about it. However, I've got a very interesting study on keratoconjunctivitis sicca Okay, which, uh, if I could share that with you because while you're finding that, yeah, while you're finding that, there is a breed predisposition for this.

So just as with all of the immune-mediated diseases from hemolytic anemias, etc., um, this can also— so Westies are particularly prone to, to this condition, British Bulldogs, you know. So remember that there are genetic predispositions to autoimmunity as well. So think about that.

Okay, okay, so here you go. I've got this paper here. It is a 2016 paper, Clinical Evaluation of a Nutraceutical— you'll be pleased to hear we're talking about food, but eventually— Clinical Evaluation of a Nutraceutical Diet as an Adjuvant to Pharmacological Treatment in Dogs Affected by Keraconjunctivitis. Sica, which is dry eye. And what they did in a nutshell was they took two groups, they both gave them standard because they had keratoconjunctivitis sica, but sometimes the treatment on its own is not enough. And so what they did was they said, right, to this group we'll give standard kibble, and to this group we'll give nutraceutical kibble, which contained extracts of melon, extracts of rockweed, Norwegian kelp, extracts of pomegranate, green tea, Japanese knotweed, curcuma, and pepper. And I haven't actually come across one with that quite that many extracts in. They may have got it made specially, but it was really quite a pokey formulation. And so they got these 50 dogs and they, to one group, they randomly selected one group went to the standard food and one group went to the nutraceutical food. And they found that an overall significant improvement of all clinical parameters, tear production, conjunctival inflammation, conjunctivitis, corneal keratinization, as Brendan was just talking about, this, your cornea getting thickened, and so it can't pass light, corneal pigment, pigmentation density, and mucus discharge, and a lack of adverse food reactions were observed in the treatment group, in the nutraceutical group. So that would suggest in dogs, according to this study, that giving extra plant-based high-density foods is a good idea. There, I will put this paper up into the, uh, uh, what's it called, into Patreon so that people can see that, see what, see what they were using. But basically it's just all those amazing antioxidants and omega-3. It had a high omega-3 content. So really, really good. So, so, Jane, actually inadvertently, that's what you can do. And that's going to help with everything.

Very quickly, this is just a third eyelid issue. Cherry eye is actually the tear gland, effectively the cartilage that holds that third eyelid. Is a little T-shape behind. Okay, and what can happen is they can get a fault which curls that cartilage and allows the tear glands to pop up and show behind the third eyelid. That's cherry eye, and it's really important if you have— if you've got a dog with cherry eye that you consider the operation options. There was an old way of dealing with this which was to cut the gland away and leaves the third eyelid. Unfortunately, it then leaves you with a dog with dry eye. Relatively inexpensive operation, still offered. I'm afraid to say it is still offered. I still see out there the actual proper way to deal with this is to actually place a suture inside this gland and actually stitch it back to the inside corner of the eye. Behind the third eyelid. Okay, so just be aware, don't ever think, oh, do you know what, I can get that dealt with for, you know, a couple of hundred pounds or dollars and that will deal with it and, you know, it's all gone. Because that generally means that the vet is just snipping out that gland and that's really not what you should be doing with that.

Brilliant. Somebody rightly said, what's the point in putting in all those antioxidants in a kibble if it's all going to be going through an extractor, an extruder, and all that kind of stuff. I would imagine they add them on right at the end when all the badness has been done. They would be adding them in that last enrobing stage. So, Jane, that's a good question though. Well done. Yeah, we talked about conjunctivitis because everybody will see conjunctivitis. If we get— do you fancy going through your favorite approaches to conjunctivitis?

Yeah, I would say, so if you— where shall I start with this? Conjunctivitis is a membrane, so the conjunctiva is a membrane that covers around the white of the eye. So we often see the white as the sclera, okay, which has some larger vessels in it that usually run from front to back, okay. And when you've got over that a membrane which is fairly thin, okay, and that thin membrane, it's not a good look.

So you won't forget that in a hurry. That's your conjunctiva.

Yeah, so that conjunctiva, basically, if it becomes inflamed, that's when you start to see it. And you'll see quite a pink membrane developing around the limbus, this area around the pupil of the eye. Okay, now that can become inflamed for a number of reasons. One of the big ones is if your dog or cat has gone out there and either got a scratch or from a thorn bush or another animal, and if you see the color of the cornea, the front part here, go milky, that usually means the cornea is damaged. Water has started to go back into that dehydrated layer, and as it swells, it refracts the light, and that becomes a waterlogged cornea that's damaged. And that would say you must go to your vet. You need to get them checked and make sure that that laceration hasn't gone into the eye and then it's sealed over the top because that can lead to all sorts of other problems. So please, if you see this go milky as well as you've got the conjunctivitis, you must go to your vet because you need to make sure that ulcer or that damage isn't going to cause permanent issues.

Okay, cool. Somebody mentioning about tea bags. Yes, you can use tea bags for— they can be really good. And they work because they're full of tannins. Yeah, a good tea's got lots of tannins, and tannins are very antibacterial. They congeal proteins, and bacteria don't like that.

And I really love chamomile tea. I find that really— yeah, the chamomile is soothing.

Then kind of—

yeah, I don't know whether it is more soothing. I think it is generally a soothing option for them, but I— so I would just make a single tea bag into like a teapot of water, let it stew, mash, whatever you want to, you know, just so that it seeps out and let that water cool down and then I tend to fridge that and I'll just use the cotton wool dipped into that, you know, so it's soaking and then onto the eye and just leave it. Never clean one eye and then the other with the same piece, always use a clean piece for each eye.

Okay, well, like you do, Brendan, um, of an evening I've heard, uh, that you will get, um, uh, the chamomile tea bags and cool them down in the fridge and then lie in a darkened room with, with those on your eyes for 20 minutes to improve your complexion. Is that correct?

I, I thought that's what you did. That's why you've got such a good complexion, Nick.

Well, I taught you to do it and then you've been doing it ever since. Somebody— Jane's mentioning about makeup, and here's my just a little tip about taking makeup off. Not that I wear an awful lot of makeup, but you probably know this better than I do, but I'm going to tell you anyway. So you— so if you've got— yep, ladies mainly, but not exclusive— you've got makeup on your face and you want to get rid of it without using lots of horrible chemicals, or maybe something that might go in your eye, then you get the the, um, the, the, the oil, the coconut oil, and you rub it on your face and it will take off even fat-soluble greasy makeup. You then wipe it off, and the beauty of it is it leaves a, a layer of this beautiful coconut oil on your face overnight, which will act like a night cream. So I think that's brilliant, I really do, because it's natural, there's no nonsense in there. You're not going to damage your eyes with it. Not an awful lot to do with dogs, but quite interesting nonetheless. Yeah, I think colloidal silver— do you use colloidal silver for conjunctivitis?

I have. I tend to say to people, look, if you've got just some discharge from the eyes and you are finding that it cleans away with one of the teas that we've just mentioned, that's fine. If you've got something that's more severe than that, you're absolutely right, there could be other infections. They're going to take time. Sometimes these infections can take 3 days to resolve, even with the ointments that the vet gives with an antibiotic. I think we're trying here to talk about things to avoid overuse of antibiotics. But this is why eyes are such delicate organs that we've just got to be really careful whenever there's an infection or damage that you are getting them checked so that they're not at risk of losing the eye because of an ulcer or something like that. Okay, so do be aware, yeah, there are some great stuff out there that's more natural approaches to ulcer healing, to speeding up ulcer healing, to reducing bacterial infection. And so certainly I've used colloidal silver where we've got resistant bugs in the eye, or there's ulcers which are not responding to the antibiotics and we've had to go in with other options. So yeah, those are the times that I've used colloidal silver. Do you use it a lot, Nick?

I don't use it very much. I don't tend to see a lot of conjunctivitis because I'm not in first opinion practice, but where I do I do see it, I would be reaching for colloidal silver. Somebody's mentioned it is really important you get the stuff which is appropriate for eyes because you can get some really strong stuff for, you know, wounds and things like that. So make sure it is the stuff for eyes. And the other thing that I do use is Lucillin. Oh yeah, yeah, they do a drop. And if you've got a problem where you've got resistant bugs in eyes, Lucillin is really, really useful. If everybody knows about that, Lucillin, L-E-U-C-I-L-L-I-N. N. It's, it's like Demestos except it's not damaging. It is—

don't say that! Don't say that!

It's not damaging.

Do not put bleach in your dog's eyes.

No, I didn't say that. I said it's like Demestos. Yeah.

And, uh, what acid is that again? It's, um, hypochlor— hypochlorus—

it's hypochlorite, which is Domestos. Yeah, so don't use Domestos, guys, in your eyes. And that's basically, uh, the Americans will call it, I don't know, bleach. It's bleach essentially. Yeah, okay, don't you put— use bleach. This is really special.

What do you mean by injecting bleach?

Oh, that was, uh, Trump was saying he, he, he might have been saying hypochlorous or something like that.

Anyway, when you're away, Nick, that's it, Trump's on your picture now. That's, uh, yes, okay.

Jane says, is there a different Lusilin for eyes? No, there isn't. They just put it in a little pot that you can drop it in as opposed to spraying in, because people don't usually like having spray in your eye.

Here's a little tip for all of you dog and cat owners. You may have noticed that when you're putting drops in your dog and cat's eyes, that it's really hard because as soon as you start to come towards their eye, they go, uh, don't want that, I can see it. So the little trick is tip the head back and just come from over the top of their head and just spot it, and you don't actually have to go on to this part, okay, the clear part, you can actually go on to the white of the eye. So you can just drop, you know, a single drop is enough to cover the tear film. If you think you've missed, you can add another drop, but actually if you add a second drop and they've got the first one, you will start to overflow down the tear duct. Okay, the surface layer of the eye only will hold a single drop of fluid. It's amazing. Okay, so if you're hit with the first drop, that's all you need. If you're using any of the ointments, about a rice grain's worth. Okay, basmati, if you want to know, okay, is the preferred grain, but that is the size but do come from over the top, okay, a hand under the chin just to steady them, but come over the top, spot it on. That's my tip for giving drops.

Okay, what about if, which something that I do see quite commonly is when you've got tear staining just here, Brendan, because your nasolacrimal duct has been blocked. Okay, so here we go. So have you ever noticed that when you cry, you blow your nose? Now, why is that? Because your nose is here and your eyes are here. And the reason is that you've got a nasolacrimal duct. If you look really, really carefully, you'll see a little tiny hole there, literally like a pinprick. And that is a bit like the guttering You know, on a roof, all the rain comes down the roof and then is taken away very nicely by the guttering. Exactly the same thing happens with the eye in that all the tear that's produced, and you're continually producing tears, goes down the nasolacrimal duct. The nasolacrimal duct, it's a little tiny kind of string of tube and ends up there. And In some dogs that will get blocked either because they've got a bit of a head cold or because they've got gunk in it or they've got inflammation. Although with pups sometimes it's kinked because the face isn't grown yet and what have you. And it's really wonderful. You can test it very, very easy. That's the beauty of it is, you know, the green stuff that you put into eyes, it's called fluorescein. And vets will use it if they're looking for cuts on the surface of the cornea because you don't want to have a sliced cornea. So they use this stuff and it sticks to where the tear film has broken because you've got a cut. Okay, clever, clever, clever. But all the excess will go down the nasolacrimal duct and come out of the nose, and it should come out after about 60, 80, 90 seconds. If it doesn't though, it means that you've got a block in your nasolacrimal duct. And if you're lucky, you can just use some drops and that might clear it. But sometimes you've got to have the dog knocked out and very gently a little cannula put in to squeeze to empty that nasolacrimal duct. And that can make a big difference. If you say, if you've got a dog who's got especially one which is really runny and one not so runny, then that would be worth because it's the simplest test in the world. They call it epiphora. The vets, the posh name for it is epiphora. Don't ask me why. It's Greek for I've got a mucky cheek.

Got a watery eye.

Yeah, it's in Homer, I think you'll find.

Oh, don't you just love how educated we are? We are.

Or is it the Ovid? I'll check.

Do you know why the tear and saliva stains brown.

Oh, well done you. I should do, but I don't. Go on then.

So this is, um, so you have protein-bound, um, uh, pigments called porphyrins, okay? Um, and they, they have iron. So these proteins have iron in them, okay? And what happens is, as they come out, as that iron oxidizes, just like rust Okay, that's the orangey-brown staining that you get. Now, if you get a lot of staining, so you get a lot of tear flow out, then the underlying skin can start to become damaged, and you can get yeast and pigment, um, you know, building up underneath that. And Lucilin is great for resolving that too. Um, there are a couple of other things you can even use. Luca, remember that, that old one from skin days? You know, the Luca spray, the probiotic sprays, you can use it around the eyes and in the facial folds, but the staining itself, so that's a little indicator that you've got overflow of tears. It's just like saliva, so if you've got brown paws on your little pooch, okay, you know they've been licking them, it's saliva staining, okay. So just the same, that's the staining that's going on in the eyes. So there are actually proteinaceous or enzymatic washes that you can get which actually will dissolve all of those porphyrins from the face and therefore remove the tear staining.

But unless you fix why they've got the tear staining in the first place, i.e., the nasolacrimal duct, uh, you're mentioning the Oculus Prime, which is one of Brady's products. Let me get you an example. Oh yeah, it's a good idea, very good idea.

Guys, you're absolutely right. So rust stains, that's the one. So whilst he chose to— oh, there we go, Oculus.

So this is just to make up for the fact that we showed him in his budgies earlier.

He'll forgive us, don't you worry.

And that's for staining. You know, you see it with Bichons and other small white dogs with slightly shorter noses often.

Karen's got you nailed. She knows, she knows that you're going to get paid. Okay, that's really—

oh, that's good. Can I hold you to that, Karen?

Yeah, I hope he does because he never pays his own.

I promote his stuff enough. Goodness me. Um, uh, warts on eyelids. Oh yeah, Brendan, this is— see, this is great. I mean, we were having all sorts of chats about, oh, what should we do? Should we talk about macular degeneration? Degeneration and all sorts of things. But actually, let's talk about the really common stuff because many, many older dogs will get warts on their eyelids. Why do they get warts on their eyelids, Brendan? Right.

Well, there's a couple of things. So firstly, defining is it a wart, you know, is it truly a skin proliferation? There can be viral origins to that. There can be irritations that have developed in that way that some bodily just predispositions to producing warts. But I also see you've got to differentiate from little meibomian gland growths, which are these little oil-producing glands in the eyelid that I was talking about. They deliver— so they're spaced out along the eyelid and they just deliver this even coating every time you close your eyes across the surface of the eye. There is a little spray, actually, something called Clarimist which can replace that oil. So if you've got a dog with dry eye and you're really struggling to keep in 5, 8 drops a day because it's that dry outside, you can cheat with some Clara Mist, and that actually puts that surface layer of oil back on the, the teardrop that you've just put in. That's an aside. So these little glands can do one of two things. They can either produce a cyst, which can look like a wart, a little growth in the eyelid, or they can actually go wrong and as the dog gets older actually start to form little growths, little tumor cells within those and therefore grow. So you've got to be really careful you're differentiating those lumps and bumps very carefully as to which one they are. Some of them you can even get melanomas and those pigmented tumors on the eyelid surface, so do be careful when you're looking at them. If they change, if they bleed, if they're growing rapidly, you know, you must get them checked.

Wow. Um, the other thing, if they are definitely warts, I, you— I'd be thinking about, oh, some really exotic homeopathics like picric acid and, uh, yeah, Nitac. But Causticum is also good for facial warts and So consider your homeopathics in that direction. It's good because it's all so delicate. You have to be careful. People— some people are talking about castor oil. Not sure whether I'd be going with castor oil.

These remedies can be taken orally for this. So that's the thing, it's not about applying them topically.

Yeah.

Or even Thuja, you know, just some people will swear blind by Thuja for any— any—

yeah, yeah. Be careful with castor oil near eyes because sometimes it can be really pokey. I'd be pretty careful with that, to be honest. Okay, immune-mediated episcleritis with corneal lipidosis. Stem cell treatment any good for it? I haven't got a clue. I don't know what you're talking about. I went to college, guys. I'll explain why I say that so blithely. I went to school with a lovely guy called Dave Gould who went on to become a European and world specialist in ophthalmology, and he's only 100 miles away at Davis Veterinary Specialists. So if I get any problems at all— he's now in Holland actually, but he was that way though for years and years— so if I had anything that was remotely complicated, didn't like the look of, I just go, 'Dad, send them off to him.' So what's episcleeritis?

So the sclera, as I said, is this white bit, okay? So if you've got around the edge the episclera, okay, and an -itis is an inflammation, okay, so anything -itis is inflammation. So we'll talk about very briefly those coming up, but ultimately then you've got the— with corneal lipidosis, so this clear part ends up with fat deposits on the inside. So it's an inflammatory condition which has led to probably secondary lipids being deposited on the inside of the eye. And if you've got inflammation, somebody asked earlier about you know, how does nutrition work inside the eye, and somebody asks about floaters. So floaters generally are found in the aqueous humour, and what actually happens is, if I can show you this section here, is fluid is produced down effectively behind the pupil down here and it flows up in front of the lens and then effectively comes through the pupil and then behind the cornea where it feeds the cornea and flows down into this surrounding area at the edge of the iris. Okay, now that flow carries nutrients, but sometimes you can get little bits of dark material that fall off the back of the pupil of the iris, and they can float up in that aqueous and move around. Now, sometimes the cells don't get eliminated, and you'll end up with these little iridial cysts that are little dark patches. Pippa has one, actually. Little dark patches that just are a group of these pigmented cells that are sat inside the cornea just growing away in a little circle, and they can move. So as the eye moves, they will slide up and down the inside of the cornea. Perfectly harmless, but they're just little dark pigmented iridial cysts. But anything, any material, any clumps of cholesterol or fatty lipids or these cells or debris or white cells, if you've got a bit of an infection going on in your bloodstream, they can get into that fluid and they can cause these this floating sensation of little things that are floating around in that aqueous. Okay, excellent.

Penny says CBD for glaucoma, and yeah, I definitely— I think for years people have been using, you know, humans have been smoking marijuana and taking it in other ways for glaucoma, among other things, and arthritis and things like that. But I would definitely give that a go. I never have, but I would definitely give it a go. I would use it alongside a conventional treatment initially, but it might be that you'll be able to reduce the conventional treatment and just continue with the CBD. That's a really good, really good call.

Yeah, we could write a book on this. In fact, I think people have. You know, there's so many things to do with eyes, isn't there? So we're running out of time, but somebody has asked about cataracts. This is a lens, okay? And I just wanted to point out that yes, cataracts can vary. Generally, when you're shining a light in the eye you will see the retina reflected back at you, that clear colour. It's not magnified anymore because I've taken the lens out, but that suggests that light is getting all the way through and back at you. If there's truly a cataract, that light can't usually pass through here, or there's areas of darkness that are obstructed by the cataract within the lens. But remember, as this gets older and your dog gets more short-sighted, there is a thing called nuclear sclerosis, which is actually really common. And this is where it will look blue in bright light because the light is no longer passing straight through it. It is refracting through and back at you as well. So you can get very blue lenses in bright light. But when you shine a torch, you will see in dogs they have a reflective tapetum, a reflective part of the retina that shines back at you, which is why you can shine a torch from, you know, 200 yards away and see your dog looking back at you in a dark night. It is that if they've got a torch on in their eyes, you can see the retina still because the light is very unidirectional, will go straight through. But if it's a diffuse bright light, they will look like they've got blue eyes. So for old dogs, it's worth getting them checked for, you know, cataracts. But just remember, it could be as simple as your dog is getting a little bit short-sighted, that's why they're not seeing as well, and it's just old age. Okay, so brilliant.

Claudia says, could you feed eyes to help eyes? And yes, absolutely. There's a lot of goodness in eyes that you can't get anywhere else in the body, and so that's very, very, very good nutrition. And that's one of the wonderful things and one of the essential things about feeding nose to tail wherever possible. And if you're squeamish about eyes, the easiest way to feed eyes is by feeding little sprats and things like that.

Fish eyes. So not with their heads chopped off.

So yeah, feed the heads. They're really crunchy and what have you, but dogs really love them and they're supreme nutrition. Feeding nose to tail, everything from here to the end of the tail and everything in between is the way nature has intended it. The skin, the testes, the lungs, the heart, the muscle. The muscle's the least nutritious bit of the entire beast actually. It's everything else is the good stuff. So very, very, very, very essential stuff. So, Brendan, what are we going to do next week? What do you think? We've got Brady back so we can talk about more nutrition, heavy nutrition stuff.

Yeah, well, squeeze a Q&A in this month.

We have to, don't we? Because we won't get one in otherwise. Yeah.

So we'll do a Q&A. I think there's so many questions that people ask, so many great questions that I think it's certainly worth covering. Okay, definitely, definitely would be thinking Q&A next week. And guys, just remember, on the 31st we've got these guys, Rodney and Karen, joining us. So that'll be the 5 of us broadcasting on the 31st of August. If you've got any questions for them, I'll put a little ad up, you can start adding your questions below. You can't obviously ask what's on page 32 because we're not going to tell you, but if you've got questions for them, maybe just a bit of background, maybe how they got into what they do, why they're such a popular stream service, then, you know, ask away and we will ask those questions for you.

And also Patreon, Patreon people, we will definitely be looking very closely through any questions that you want to ask The lovely Rodney Habib and Karen Becker. So good. Q and indeed A in 7 days, guys.

That's it. Thank you for all of you guys that have supported us, uh, and come on tonight. It's been great to see all of your questions, your comments. I will be floating through quite a few of those and just adding some extras just to answer. Um, uh, yeah, thanks. And thanks again, Nick.

Thank you, Brendan. Thank you for doing most of the work, actually. It was great. I was really entertained. Let's do more of that. Yeah, brilliant.

Brilliant. Great. Thanks, guys. Thanks for all of you. We'll see you soon, and all three of us back next week.

Great.