5/12/16 – Our good friends at Bully’s Angels contacted us after sweet Aura was rescued from the streets. We were asked if we could assist with Aura’s eye issues. We scheduled Aura to visit our ‘go-to’ eye specialists, Veterinary Vision, and they came back with this report. This may be more detailed information than most would want to read but I thought our friends might be interested in this condition. Aura will have her surgery today so please say a little prayer that her surgery goes well. ~ diana
Medical Report: “A dog’s upper eye lid normally has between two and four rows of eyelashes while the lower lid has none. Distichiasis is a condition where extra hair arises from or near the meibomian (oil) glands. Often this condition is asymptomatic, however, when the hairs come into contact with the cornea or conjunctiva, mild blepharospasm, conjunctivitis and occasionally corneal ulceration may occur. Often times it is not the distichia hairs that are the problem but rather ectopic cilia which emerge from the palpebral conjunctiva and usually impinge directly on to the cornea.
Aura also has entopion of her inferior lids OU. When these lids roll inward, irritation to the corneas can be significant, much more so than usually occurs with distichiasis alone. The degree of spastic entropion versus true entropion is difficult to assess in Aura’s case, thus temporary tacking sutures will help evert eyelids from their current entropion and allow us to assess her more accurately. Regardless, surgical correction of entropion and electropilation of all visible distichia have been advised.”
