This thirteen year old cat with renal failure from a rescue centre has a painful eye – what is the problem and what, given that surgery is out of the question, might you do?
This is a really nasty deep ulcer which could do with a conjunctival pedicle flap or corneoconjunctival transposition graft. In this sort of a medical and financial no-surgery nightmare we used autologous serum twice daily and either prayed or crossed our fingers (or both!) depending on our belief in someone ‘up there’ in control (or otherwise!). Clearly the cat had a direct line to the Almighty (or maybe it was the serum that worked a miracle!) as here is the result ten days down the line with the corneal deficit filled with a fibrous tissue reaction. Notice how much wider the palpebral aperture is now the ocular surface pain has gone. I’m sure we don’t realise enough just how painful these conditions are in many cases and how topical NSAIDs (I prefer ketorolac in Acular) and a systemic analgesic too can be really valuable.