Anybody ever have Cataract surgery for your dogs?

ScreamingPotato

ScreamingPotato

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My 12 year old Lab went from chasing balls to running into walls within 3 weeks. She's fully healthy otherwise (managing diabetes with insulin) so I hate to just confine her to the house forever. Obviously this will be discussed with the Vet but wanted to see if anybody on my side of the discussion had any thoughts or concerns I should bring up with the Vet. 12 years of gunfire over her head so her hearing isn't the best either and she's having a tough time adjusting but she's got most of the house and back yard figured out.
 
I've seen a lot of dogs do well after the surgery.
The issue is healing with a diabetic dog. One artery in and one vein out of the eye, so healing can be tricky even with a non-diabetic dog.

If you can stay on top her her post op meds and she is currently managed well with her current Insulin dose and diet, then I'd go for it if you feel that she's got plenty of life left. I would imagine that you have numerous Veterinary Ophthalmologist options in San Antonio.
 
We changed up where the dogs sleep so our old dog had an easier time not getting confused which part of the house she was in, and installed a baby gate to keep her out of areas she’d get lost in. Come to think of it, we also moved the food bowl and water to be next to a dog door - it seemed we were really reducing the space she’d have to roam around in, but it was a good change. Our little dogs live a long time and are nearly blind for years and get around just fine if there isn’t too much in the way to confuse them. The old blind lab in the family also seems to do just fine living in a section of the living room - it’s easy for her to know where outside, food, water and the bed is. She does wake up in the middle of the night confused where she is, but has been like that for a year, and it seems more like dementia than vision.

Running into walls or staring into corners or getting lost in a room can be more than just lack of vision. It’s too bad dogs get old.
 
dr.mooseknuckles said:
I've seen a lot of dogs do well after the surgery.
The issue is healing with a diabetic dog. One artery in and one vein out of the eye, so healing can be tricky even with a non-diabetic dog.

If you can stay on top her her post op meds and she is currently managed well with her current Insulin dose and diet, then I'd go for it if you feel that she's got plenty of life left. I would imagine that you have numerous Veterinary Ophthalmologist options in San Antonio.
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TaperPin said:
We changed up where the dogs sleep so our old dog had an easier time not getting confused which part of the house she was in, and installed a baby gate to keep her out of areas she’d get lost in. Come to think of it, we also moved the food bowl and water to be next to a dog door - it seemed we were really reducing the space she’d have to roam around in, but it was a good change. Our little dogs live a long time and are nearly blind for years and get around just fine if there isn’t too much in the way to confuse them. The old blind lab in the family also seems to do just fine living in a section of the living room - it’s easy for her to know where outside, food, water and the bed is. She does wake up in the middle of the night confused where she is, but has been like that for a year, and it seems more like dementia than vision.

Running into walls or staring into corners or getting lost in a room can be more than just lack of vision. It’s too bad dogs get old.
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Thank you. I'm assuming it's cataracts, her eyes look like the White Walkers from Game of Thrones with the white haze over them. Her glucose isn't successfully managed yet, she only just started 4 weeks ago when I took her to the vet for something else and they tested her glucose because we'd been monitoring for months now with ranges between high 200's and mid 300's but they seem to have gone UP since starting the insulin. I hope I didn't mess up putting her on the insulin, it seems her eyesight was fine and now it's almost completely gone. I bumped her Vet appointment up to Monday and they're going to look at the eyes and everything as well. Seems like this glucose drops to 400 +/- about 5 hours after a meal and rides 500+ pretty much the rest of the time. Vet didn't want to up the insulin dose yet because she said it can take time for her body to adjust to it.

This dog lives for fetching balls and ducks. I know the ducks are gone now, but figure if she's healthy enough I can maybe pay for one eye surgery and she can still chase balls around the backyard. We also spend probably 60 days per year at our off-grid camp down on the coast and she's a lot less familiar with that place, don't need her wandering off into the wilderness after smelling some hogs or a coyote or something. She won't chase most animals but if she smells a coyote she's unstoppable and doesn't tolerate them around so I don't think she'd care if she could see or not I'd still expect her to launch.

I'm scared to move anything in the house at this point, but we may have to depending how she's handling things. I figure she could see a couple weeks ago so that's her last memory of where things are.
 
My buddy’s wife is a veterinary ophthalmologist and does those surgeries in a daily basis. As mentioned previously by Dr Mooseknuckles post op care AND WEARING the CONE is essential.
First few days / week out may seem overwhelming with the meds but as the eye heals the frequency and amount of meds will lessen.

If her BG is in the 500’s still then her Diabetes is not under control at all. If she keeps running that high then sounds like we may be seeing her in ER at some point.
IF you are willing to spend the money for cataract surgery then I would first recommend seeing an Internal Medicine Specialist to get her diabetes under control, otherwise that eye will never heal. AND if your ophthalmologist is reputable he / she won’t do surgery with BG that high either

That being said if she was my dog I would go through with the procedure. Just know the first week is crazy with amount and frequency of meds.. but that will taper out and the dogs usually do really really well
 
DuckDogDr said:
My buddy’s wife is a veterinary ophthalmologist and does those surgeries in a daily basis. As mentioned previously by Dr Mooseknuckles post op care AND WEARING the CONE is essential.
First few days / week out may seem overwhelming with the meds but as the eye heals the frequency and amount of meds will lessen.

If her BG is in the 500’s still then her Diabetes is not under control at all. If she keeps running that high then sounds like we may be seeing her in ER at some point.
IF you are willing to spend the money for cataract surgery then I would first recommend seeing an Internal Medicine Specialist to get her diabetes under control, otherwise that eye will never heal. AND if your ophthalmologist is reputable he / she won’t do surgery with BG that high either

That being said if she was my dog I would go through with the procedure. Just know the first week is crazy with amount and frequency of meds.. but that will taper out and the dogs usually do really really well
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Good copy, thank you.
I work from home so the post-op care shouldn't be an issue, and wife is an RN so can probably assist as well if for some reason I can't handle it. The glucose numbers are freaking me out but the vet isn't worried and keeps reassuring me that it's a process that'll level out over time. To clarify I'm taking them randomly throughout the day, the 5 hours post-meal/injection are usually 315-415 or so which I think is still too high but Vet says to take it slow (I'm not changing anything without approval). I certainly don't want to spend several thousand to get an eye back only to lose her shortly after to DKA or whatever or have it not heal. I know she probably won't hunt again, but if she could chase balls around the house for another year I'll spend whatever it takes honestly.
 
It's quite common for Cataracts to progress rapidly with a diabetic dog.
I'd make sure to have your vet check full labs (if not done already) to make sure she doesn't have another issue going on. Cushing's disease can make dogs become diabetic due to reduced insulin sensitivity (how I dumb it down anyway) and can therefore make managing their diabetes a roller coaster.

You could also see if your vet can place a Free-Style Libre for continuous glucose monitoring. The device lasts 2 weeks and you can scan it with your phone via an app. We've had some difficulty getting them in our clinic, but have script them out for owners to have us put on. Your vet can create an account and invite you to it so they can monitor her glucose curve's online. Pretty handy tool. Your wife could place it too, just have to shave a spot so it sticks to the skin. We apply small drops of skin glue around the periphery of the patch.

I've got one client who has basically kept a Libre on her dog for the last 6 months so she can track it constantly. Her dog also has Cushing's that went undiagnosed for a long time, due to her getting preventative care from the local no-kill shelter with government subsidized Veterinary care. Proof that you get what you pay for!

Hope things work out for your pup!
 
We had one dog go blind on us. We ruled out surgery as he was 13 when it got to the point he was mostly blind. We enrolled him in a scent class which was training dogs for a ack competition. It helped him navigate around unfamiliar areas. He was pretty much in his own world his whole life so being blind wasn’t really much of a handicap for him. He would just keep bumping into things until he didn’t and go on with life. He ended up with a brain tumor which led to seizures and we needed to put him down a 14.5. Walking in circles and staring into corners are also signs of a brain tumor, not just being blind.
 
We had a chocolate Lab that went blind, and became diabetic, when she was 5. The 2 were not related. We took her to an ophthalmologist who said she had Progressive Retinal Atrophy.

Anyway, we got her diabetes under control, and she learned her way around quite well, even with us having 2 houses at the time. She rarely went more than 20' from the house.

1 time, I had a tail mower for sale at the road. Someone stopped to look at it, and she came with me to talk to them. As we were walking back to the house she was right by my side, and for some reason my wife called her. She ran face-first into a stump!

She made it to 10, had a stroke one evening while we were out. She died in the backseat of my truck on the way to the emergency vet. :cry:
 
My daughter is a licensed vet tech and has worked at the Animal Eye Clinic for 18 years said the diabetes is likely the cause, but you probably know that.
 
I had this happen to my Great Pyrenees. Got diabetes then went blind over a weekend. Diabetes caused lenses to fill up with sugar and become cloudy or something like that. Doctor said it is very common when a dog becomes diabetic. There was a animal eye clinic in Spokane that replaced his lenses and he was able to see just like before. Best money I ever spent.
Animal Eye Clinic of Spokane. animaleyeclinicofspokane.com
 
Had a vet visit today, quick update for anyone interested and for info.

Dog has gained about 1 lbs of bodyweight which is good because she was really skinny after hunting season.

Good rapid pupil response to light. Testing the eyes there's zero reaction to the spook test or whatever it's called where you wave the hand at the eye like you're gonna hit it. The left eye does have some response, vet says there's a shadow response that she can probably detect changes in light.

Her glucose was 302, and the vet tech gave me a drop of blood from what she drew to use my PetTest branded glucose monitor and I tested it right there in front of her and it read 455. So all these dozens of tests I've been doing at home are clearly irrelevant at best and dangerous at worst. If somebody buys one of these home monitors and doesn't speak to the vet before taking action they could seriously OD their animal on insulin. Luckily from previous experience I know better and just kept true to what was prescribed and just took readings for informational purposes, though the tests gave me some heartburn for a week or more. I'll be returning the monitor and getting my money back.

As for the cataract surgery, the vet isn't ready to refer me to the ophthalmologist yet. Her glucose at 302 is still too high and we're going to test again in 2 weeks. Vet did NOT adjust the insulin dosage, she says she expects the reading to keep slowly coming down with the same 16 units. She said the glucose needs to keep coming down lower and hold lower consistently before she'll refer us to the ophthalmologist and then they will also do their own exams and tests before agreeing to do the surgery. I also agree from a financial standpoint, no sense in spending $4k for a surgery just to have the dog's organs fail a few months later or eyes not correctly heal due to diabetes, we need to manage that before proceeding.

She also said this is the first dog she's ever seen where she had no symptoms before diagnosis. I'd originally taken her in for Labrella for arthritis and they just happened to want to do the normal health checks and she came back high on the glucose. She said every other animal she's diagnosed with diabetes has come in symptomatic.
 
dr.mooseknuckles said:
It's quite common for Cataracts to progress rapidly with a diabetic dog.
I'd make sure to have your vet check full labs (if not done already) to make sure she doesn't have another issue going on. Cushing's disease can make dogs become diabetic due to reduced insulin sensitivity (how I dumb it down anyway) and can therefore make managing their diabetes a roller coaster.

You could also see if your vet can place a Free-Style Libre for continuous glucose monitoring. The device lasts 2 weeks and you can scan it with your phone via an app. We've had some difficulty getting them in our clinic, but have script them out for owners to have us put on. Your vet can create an account and invite you to it so they can monitor her glucose curve's online. Pretty handy tool. Your wife could place it too, just have to shave a spot so it sticks to the skin. We apply small drops of skin glue around the periphery of the patch.

I've got one client who has basically kept a Libre on her dog for the last 6 months so she can track it constantly. Her dog also has Cushing's that went undiagnosed for a long time, due to her getting preventative care from the local no-kill shelter with government subsidized Veterinary care. Proof that you get what you pay for!

Hope things work out for your pup!
Click to expand...
Vet says she doesn't have very good luck with the Libre, she said they always have trouble with the needle falling out and it becomes quite the hassle. Sounds like you've had better luck though. I may ask her about it again next visit in a couple weeks, if I'm going through the trouble and expense of trying to deal with all this I feel like the more data we have the better.
 
ScreamingPotato said:
Vet says she doesn't have very good luck with the Libre, she said they always have trouble with the needle falling out and it becomes quite the hassle. Sounds like you've had better luck though. I may ask her about it again next visit in a couple weeks, if I'm going through the trouble and expense of trying to deal with all this I feel like the more data we have the better.
Click to expand...

I've had a couple come off, but generally, dogs do well with the Libre's. Cats are a different story. Your dog may have been caught early in her DM before she showed overt signs.
 
dr.mooseknuckles said:
I've had a couple come off, but generally, dogs do well with the Libre's. Cats are a different story. Your dog may have been caught early in her DM before she showed overt signs.
Click to expand...
About a year ago or so she basically just quit eating all together. I thought she was being spoiled on human food so we cut out all scraps and I started making her food at home based on BARF diet principles. I'm wondering now if it was hitting around that point and she was getting loopy after eating regular kibble and scraps. She was doing great on that as far as I could tell. I did get a big bag of the Royal Canin glycobalance and now I'm mixing that in, maybe I can get her back on kibble but gotta take it slowly.
 
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