Maintenance

After RV had come home from New Bolton Center I was very broke. His bill was over 2 grand and before that the vet was out almost once a week. I could not afford to do the implants at that time, but was planning on getting them put in in the near future.  My mentality always was that RV had taken care of me for many years, and it was my turn to take care of him!

I continued with the maintenance of his eyes for 2 months. He seemed to be doing quite well, he was back into work and going out everyday. I don't know if I mentioned before, but horses with uveitis must go out with a fly mask everyday even if there are no flies. This helps to protect their eyes from the bright sun, bugs, winter, dust, etc. It is also a good idea to make sure that aisles are swept and blown when the horse or pony is not in the stall- dust irritates their eyes and can cause inflammation!

I had called Dr. Utter in late January to get some information on the implants. Just a few days after I spoke with her RV had yet another flare-up in his good eye. She advised that as soon as his eyes became quite we should go ahead with surgery. RV had him implant surgery in mid February of this year. I was told that the implants would take 6-8 weeks to start working and would need to continue the maintenance medication up until then.

RV's surgery went well, he was in and out in 3 days. When RV came home, he didn't want to eat and was really not himself. The vet concluded he had had a virus that was going around. Unfortunetly horses that have uveitis when their immune system goes down, the eyes are always affected. Sure enough RV had another flare-up in the good eye! We worked at treating this uveitis for weeks with the topical ointments and the internal steriods, Unfortunetly the vet told me there was nothing more he could do and to take him off of everything and let the implants do their job. The problem was that the uveitis was blocking the retina so he could not see anything but light and shadows. I now had a blind horse on my hands.......