I have a 2 year old chihuahuas that has been diagnosed about 1 week ago as having glaucoma. We are treating him with eyedrops as well as oral meds his eyes seem very irritated especially after the drops. How soon should we expect some sort of improvement.
Optional Information: Age: 2; Male; Breed: chihiahuasAlready Tried: eye drops and oral med
Let me see if I can help you, but I need a little more info first.
What medications were you using?
How was he diagnosed with glaucoma?
What were his eye pressures when you started?
What are the eye pressures now?
Reply to osupetdoc's Post: The medications are as follows: Eye drops: Pilocarpine 0.5 % 1 drop in r eye every 12 hours 1 drop in l eye every 24 hours Oral med: Methazolamide .25mg 1/4 pill every 8 hours the pressures were measured with some sort of scope after numbing his eyes with drops the pressure in r eye x 1 wk ago = 25 the pressure in r eye x 2 days ago = 12 the pressure in l eye has remained the same at about 12 Although the numbers are decreasing his eyes seem extremely sore and irritated.
It sounds like the glaucoma is being effectively treated, so it seems less likely that the irritation is due to the glaucoma itself. Pilocarpine can cause irritation to the eyes especially at higher concentration. You are using a low concentration, but it may be that your dog is particularly sensitive to it. I would suggest calling your vet and letting them know what's going on. There are many effective drugs for treating glaucoma out there and I suspect that your dog might do better as far as irritation with one of them.
The second possibility is that this is actually glaucoma secondary to an inflammatory problem within the eyes. This can be caused by a number of diseases and each needs specific medicaiton to treat the underlying problem. As Pilocarpine often only works on primary glaucoma, I think that this is probably unlikely.
What other sort of medications can be used effectively? We've already "weakened" the dose of pilocarpine and our vet has told us there is nothing else to use?
There are dozens of medications out there for treating glaucoma, so I'll just give you a few. My favorite is timolol (Timoptic), this is frequently used in combination with methazolamide and is usually readily available from a human pharmacy. If you wanted to stop both medications, you could start with topical dorzolamide (Trusopt) or a combinaiton of dorzolamide and timolol (Cosopt), however these are pretty heavy hitters and your dog may not need them. If you wanted to stay with a drug very similar to pilocarpine you could go to lanaprost (Xalatan) unfortunately, this one tends to be very expensive.
Experience: Doctor of Veterinary Medicine; No online consultation can ever replace a veterinary examination.