Our poor Zeke is now deceased. He passed away in August 2012. I am now going back and writing more about what I learned by taking care of my diabetic dog. While I was busy treating Zekes diabetes I did not have time to do too good of a job writing about it. In the end Zeke had diabetes, glaucoma in one eye, kidney failure, and we are not sure what else. It seemed like I was at the vets 3 times a week either to see the vet or to pick up medications or iv fluids or something but I was glad to do it for him.
Within a few days of his cataract surgery Zeke developed glaucoma in his left eye. We are not sure why but I know that a few days after the surgery he jumped from my bed to the floor which is about a 3 foot jump. I don't know if this was the cause or not. From doing research online I learned that glaucoma can be one of the complications of dog cataract surgery. Dr. Ebbinger thought that the retina had detached and that the glaucoma was a result from the detached retina. The pressure in Zekes right eye had went so high that it had ruined his vision and would be blind in that eye.
The glaucoma required constant treatment with eye drops with 4 differnet types of eye drops. The drops were Dorzolamide (generic for Trusopt), Timolol (generic) Prednisone, and Travitan. It was pretty expensive to keep buying the drops but he definitely needed them. We also need to get Zekes eye pressures checked every 3 months to make sure that the pressure was staying down.
Fortunately Zekes right eye was perfect until the retina in that eye detached for unknown reasons about 4 years after the surgery. When the right retina detached it was about the time that Zeke had a circling incident. I had found him very disoriented one night and he was circling and trying to figure out where he was. That lasted about 30 minutes and he seemed to recover within a day or so except I felt that he could not see at all. I took him to his regular vet who said it could be a vestibular disorder of the ear or a brain tumor. She could not explain the loss of vision so I took him to the veterinary opthamologist who confirmed that his right retina had detached and this was the reason for his loss of vision.
Zeke gained an addiitonal 4 years of sight in his right eye and we were very thankful for that.
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