Eye Discharge in Dogs

Hey, guys, this is Dr. Lara. Today I am here with Alexa, and Alexa is here today for ocular discharge. So the topic of the video will be on what to expect on dogs with ocular discharge, that is eye bolters. Stay tuned, and we'll get into it shortly. All right, guys. So the main reason that Alexa came in today was because the owners were talking about her having a lot of ocular discharge. So when I go ahead and look at Alexa, typically, you know, obviously I'll check for obvious discharge from the eyes. But when I'm looking at the eyes, what I typically want to do is, and I'm going to have e go ahead and take her once I'm done with her in about 30 seconds. But what I'll do is I'll take a look at the eyes and I'll pull up the top of the eyelid kind of like that. And what I'm doing is I'm looking at the whites of the eyes. So if you want to go ahead and take her for me, I appreciate that. That way she's not so nervous. There you go. And so the reason that I do that is because I'm checking to see if there's any sort of inflammation or anything like that that could potentially need something to bring down the redness or inflammation, like steroids. The catch is that if we are going to use steroids, we typically need to go ahead and we need to check for an ulcer. And so the reason we want to check for an ulcer if we're going to use steroids is because if there is an ulcer in the eye and we go ahead and put steroids in the eye, then that will cause the ulcer to become worse, and then we will not be able to actually help the dog. We will be hurting the dog, and the dog will then most likely end up needing some sort of surgical procedure to have that corrected. The smaller breed dogs are very prone to having the discharge from their eyes because the dogs have dogs, cats, I assume, humans as well. We have a gland that sits right here. And so that is something that produces normal lubrication and vitamins for the eyes, and that is constantly being produced all the time. What ends up happening is the old lubrication nutrients, the overflow goes into this duct which is right here. You can't see it. It's called the nasal lap lacrimal duct. So nasal means nose. Lacrimal in Spanish, lagginas, means tears. And so the old tears go down into your nasolacrimal duct. And so that's where you have that constant flow and you know, it gets evaporated or whatever. If in the smaller breed dogs they have a lumen or the size of the duct is very, very small, so it's hard or very easy for that duct to get clogged versus in a larger breed dog, the duct is, or the lumen of the duct is very, very big, comparatively speaking. So you're more likely to see these smaller dogs have the boogers building up and that kind of stuff versus with the larger breed dogs, you're less likely to see that problem. And so what ends up happening is we will, in this particular case, because there was no redness on the eye, I'm going to be dispensing a triple antibiotic with no steroids, I repeat, no steroids. And that is something that if your veterinarian dispenses to you, that is okay for you to use from time to time. If you have something, an eye drop that does have steroids, it is critical that you definitely talk to your veterinarian and most likely will need to bring your pet back to the veterinarian to make sure that there is no steroid, no ulcer in the eye before you go ahead and use any sort of medication that does have steroids. Because again, the, that is a major no, no, you will end up with a much bigger problem. Okay. So the most common cause, what I anticipate is either the duct getting clogged and that could be tied to a number of different reasons. One of them could also be allergies, also the size of it. I went ahead and took a look at the white of the eye to make sure that the eyes, that the scleral was white and didn't need any sort of steroids at home. You have the advantage of, you know, most likely, unless you have a one eyed pet, of being able to check both sclera, it's not going to typically be on both eyes. It'll typically just be on one eye. So you'll be able to see if one white of the eye is more white than the other or if one is red, more red than the other. And then if that's the case, make sure that you go to your veterinarian. If you do see redness, have them check it out for sure. If you do happen to have some triple antibiotic at home with no steroids and you want to try that, I think that would be okay. If you're concerned at all or it's going on for more than five days, definitely go see your veterinarian and have them check it out for you. Hopefully you guys found this video helpful. If you did, please give us a thumbs up. Subscribe if you know somebody who needs to watch it, please share it with them. Thanks for watching and be safe. Sam.