bulging eye , anyone hear of this?

[SquirrelLove]

My non-releasable girl due to her teeth seems to have her left eye growing larger than her other eye. it's pretty and all but seems to be bulging out a bit, doesn't seem to bother her yet, and it doesn't look gross, just odd. anyone know what might be going on`? thanks, Joanne in Jax

[lilidukes]

I've got a boy with the same thing. Puff is maybe 12 weeks now. When he was brought to me he was blinking his left eye in a funny way so I checked it over couldn't find anything wrong. The eye wasn't seeping or oozing anything.
Two days later the eye ball just blew up. This was 6-7 weeks ago. Puff does see shadows and is not completely blind in his eye. The eye eventually turned almost white. Most of the swelling has since started to go down. The white is gone still a little blue but I can now see this normal eye color. He does still have some vision.

Puff eats really well, climbs and plays with his cage mate. Acts as normal as can be. jit and I discussed this at some length and never came up with a solution. Puff never acted like he was ever in any pain and showed no signs of infection so I never medicated him in any way.

I am very interested in hearing if anyone else knows anything about this.

Your girl might have an infection from her teeth pushing the eye ball.

[SquirrelLove]

thank you lil dukes. I just took her to the vet for her teeth and they are trimmed regularly. The vet didn't say anything about her eye but then I wasn't there for the eye so he might not of noticed.


If anyone knows what is going on two of us now would like to know :-)

Three if you include Pippa!

[SquirrelLove]

please, if anyone knows what to do please comment, her eye grows bigger each day!

[Scooterzmom]

I would definitely ask the vet about this. It could very well be some infection behind the eye and this could go to the brain - I had that happen to my cat and if we h ad not caught it in time the vet said he could have died of it. At best your little one would probably lose his vision in that eye (or most of it). I'm surprised the vet didn't say anything - maybe you forgot to ask while you were there?

Do check on it, for your baby's sake.

[island rehabber]

My guess would be either a bad infection behind the eyeball, or glaucoma. Never seen it in a squirrel but have a cat with glaucoma whose eye bulges alarmingly if we forget to put her medicine in daily. Either way meds are a must -- it won't go away by itself. Back to the vet, or to a more observant one if you can!

[momma2boo]

Boo's eye looked like he was going blind because of infection ... from an abscessed tooth. Could be a tooth problem. I also would encourage you to take her to the vet.

[SquirrelLove]

the vet is closed now, but tomorrow it's to the vet for sure. She is such a gentle soul `i can't see her suffer! I think I'll take Anne and chas some lasagna too - just in case your peeking Anne, hehe!

[SquirrelLove]

I took Pippa to the vet today and he looked at her eye but wasn't sure what was going on. He said he's only seen this in animals with a tumor behind the eye or glaucoma. He gave me some steroid cream and some drops to feed her once a day and said to come in for a recheck in 5 days if it doesn't get better. He also gave me the number to an animal ophthalmologist and I''m going to call them and see if they take squirrels. She's a little more laid back today, and was shivering but then Florida was freezing this morning and you have to get to this particular vet by 7am if you want to be seen within 5 hours as it is first come first served and everyone loves them due to their knowledge and low prices.

I'll update when I have more information in case anyone else has a similar problem later on.

Joanne in Jax where it's FREEZING COLD TODAY!!!

[island rehabber]

Definitely keep us updated, Joanne! Hope the treatment works, as it does for my kitty.:thumbsup