Cherry Eye Northern VA

Submitted by PrimasMom on January 19, 2012 - 11:55am

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My 13 week old Bulldog has cherry eye. My vet instructed me to use a medicated eye drop, and NOT to massage the gland back into place. My vet basically said there was nothing they could do at her age. I’m hesitant to have the gland removed, but am unsure of how successful having the gland repositioned will be. Any suggestions?

I live in Alexandria, VA, does anyone know of a good vet or optometrist for the surgery?

Thanks!

Not sure why they would tell you to not at least try to massage

Submitted by Lonna with Harl... on January 19, 2012 - 12:18pm.

it back in. I and several others here have had great success massaging cherry eye back. With Harley when he was about your puppies age his would come out a couple times a day. I would massage it back and gradually it came out less and less. He is now 3 and hasn't had an issue since he was about 6 months old. I think some vets "jump" to the surgery option too quickly and I personally am thrilled that we did not have to go that route with Harley. (There is a excellent video on Youtube that demonstrates how to do this.)

If surgery does end up being the only option we have had experience in the past with both the removal technique and the "pocket" technique. Removal is quick and virtually no recovery time at all. Eye looks normal in a very short time. The pocket or tacking procedure requires your dog to be put under and recovery is more extensive. With our experience it took several months before the eye looked normal again. Having experienced both, I personally prefer the removal as we saw no long term effects (dry eye) in doing this.

__________________

Lonna & Harley

Agree with Lonna

Submitted by Micki Jablonski on January 19, 2012 - 2:16pm.

My experiences have been the same--cherry eye glands have either easily been massaged in where they stayed for a time and then I repeated massage until it gradually doesn't come out---or, we've had the gland snipped in cases where it didn't stay in at all. I have not had any other procedure done. There is a listing of veterinarians recommended by posters on the home page. You can call around to the ones in VA and MD and see what kind of response you get. I believe opthomalogists will now only do the pocket procedure. One I've spoken to actually told me that she didn't believe snipping caused the dry eyes, that the breed is predisposed to dry eyes, but she would not snip.