Pressure Check

Our equine vet, Dr. Erin Taylor of Blue Mountain Veterinary Hospital in Missoula, came out to the ranch today for several cases:

-- Beaver the Belgian needed round two of a treatment for a sarcoid tumor on his belly.  Erin gave him the first treatment two weeks ago -- here's a photo I took then --  and we'll do at least one more treatment before we can tell how much progress we're really making.  But the tumor did seem to have shrunk in the past couple of weeks.

-- Blue the blind Appaloosa needed to have a suspicious red, icky area on his sheath biopsied as a possible cancer.  We suspect a sarcoid or a squamous cell carcinoma.

-- Cash the blind foal needed to be examined because he has a bit of pot belly; this might be normal foal conformation, but just in case it isn't, we wanted him checked out to make sure it's not parasites or something else.  (Yes, he is regularly dewormed, and no, he isn't drinking beer.)  So Erin did a physical exam, ran bloodwork, and took a fecal sample.

-- Darby the blind mare needed an eye pressure check because of a painful eye we've been treating for a week with only limited success.  She has glaucoma, and we were concerned that she was having a pressure spike in the eye and/or a uveitis flare-up.  (Glaucoma in horses is typically a secondary result of uveitis.)  Ironically, her "bad" eye -- the one that's been squinty, tearing, and looking very uncomfortable -- had a lower-than-expected pressure reading of 45 units of mercury (high end of normal is 33).  Her supposedly "good" eye, which wasn't showing any discomfort, registered double that, with readings of 88 and 95.  Ouch.  We kept testing and testing and coming up with the same results.  So now we're a bit baffled.  It's clearly not a pressure spike causing the discomfort, more likely a uveitis flare-up that is just proving tough to get under control.

-- Cactus Jack the blind Appaloosa also needed an eye exam.  Ironically, he had developed a painful, squinty, teary eye the same day that Darby did, but unlike her, his eye responded quickly to treatment.  Cactus is blind from glaucoma, too, so we wanted to check his eye pressure as well.  That's what Erin is doing in the photo at the very top, while Alayne holds Cactus.  She's using our Tono-Pen, the medical device that Medtronic donated to us a few years ago.  (Medtronic has since sold the product line to another company.)  In this photo, Erin is calibrating the Tono-Pen between readings (you have to reset it each time).  Amazingly, his eye pressure was as low as we had ever seen it ... the eye we'd been treating registered 21, which is normal!  And the other eye was within normal, too.  No, that doesn't change his vision -- he will always be blind because the damage was done a long time ago -- but it does mean his eyes are comfortable.

(Click on photos for larger image.)

Comments

[Mary Young]

You think Cash has had to many milkshakes? He may be sneaking milk when you all are not around!

[Shirley & James, Portland, OR]

Wow, one busy day of check ups!!