Looking for advice and stories of personal experience with prolapsed tear ducts (cherry eye) in rabbits.
Hi all, and thank you in advance to anyone willing to spend the time to read this and share their thoughts.
My bun is a 5 year old 7 month female (spayed) lop mix. A few months back I noticed a small lump under the bottom eyelid in the corner of her eye and rushed her to the vet thinking cancer and cursing myself for not having noticed the area earlier. The vet explained to me that this wasn’t cancer, it was a prolapsed tear duct and they happen very quickly. Cagalli was a little teary but overall it seemed to be very cosmetic so i was given some ointment and spent the next few months keeping a close eye on the area.
About twelve days ago the area worsened really quickly and the discharge from hey eye became sticky. I brought her back into the vet who prescribed some non medicated ointment (as the bun is now having issues closing her eyes all the way) to keep the area from drying out and some metacam for any discomfort, and referred me out to an opthamologist. Of course, the day after the appointment with the vet, her other eye started looking exactly as the first eye did months prior when this all started.
side note: through this all it kept being brought up that we wanted to avoid surgery at all costs because of the risk of anesthesia.
I managed to get an appointment with the eye specialist on thursday and they aspirated the area. She mentioned that there were a lot of fat cells in the material she collected and she was reaching out to other opthamologist to get other opinions and would get back to me monday. In the mean time talking to Cagalli’s normal vet it comes out that the opthamologist was throwing the idea of a thynoma around. (panic)
So the vet did get back to me today and it seems we’re throwing out the idea of a thynoma and she would like to move forward with the cherry eye procedure. which brings me to why i need advice and information from you lovely people. From what I understand prolapsed tear ducts aren’t common in rabbits. There is a risk as rabbits and anesthesia aren’t the best combination. The same surgery in dogs isn’t always successful so there is a chance we’ll end up right back where we started and the procedure is really expensive (i was quoted $1600). I was told that it’s not an emergency to get it done but not doing so means cleaning and putting ointment on her eye every four hours for the rest of her life, and having her eyes be uncomfortable.
The cost is a big concern, even though i wish it weren’t. I’m a disabled individual and when i receive financial aid to care for myself, I’ve already gone through most of my emergency fund bringing her to various appointments and buying medications. plus, money aside, the idea of her having surgery scares me.
Does anyone here have and experience or information that might help? I’d love to hear it.
Best wishes all.