Wild squirrel with eye injury?

[tmarie15]

My favorite squirrel who comes over daily for snacks seems to have an eye injury - it looks like a laceration. I believe he can no longer see out of the eye, but is trusting enough to face me with the blind eye. Is there anything that can be done for him or hope that his eyesight can come back? I have meloxicam and terramycin ointment, but as friendly as he is towards me, I’m not so sure he’d allow me to apply it. Any suggestions to help this little guy? Thanks!

[tmarie15]

https://i.imghippo.com/files/Ck0LV1706563986.jpg

[SamtheSquirrel2018]

My favorite squirrel who comes over daily for snacks seems to have an eye injury - it looks like a laceration. I believe he can no longer see out of the eye, but is trusting enough to face me with the blind eye. Is there anything that can be done for him or hope that his eyesight can come back? I have meloxicam and terramycin ointment, but as friendly as he is towards me, I’m not so sure he’d allow me to apply it. Any suggestions to help this little guy? Thanks!

Hi tmarie: I'm sorry that you have not yet had a response to you post! I am at work and will need to BUMP this back into view for others. You photo is of very good quality! Do you have others and can you post them as well? A couple of questions that may help others (I will get back to your post as time permits but not predictable); is the Squirrel's eye cloudy or clear? Can you actually see a definitive laceration on the eye or the eyelid? Is there any drainage? Is the any swelling? What is the strength of the Meloxicam and please verify that the Terramycin is OPHTHALMIC Ointment. I agree that it will probably be very difficult to get ointment and even drops into the eye. Meloxicam for pain can be delivered indirectly in some food item so it may be easier. Do you have any systemic antibiotics available and if so, please let us know what they are and their strengths.

How is your Squirrel doing today?

Regards,
SamtheSquirrel

[tmarie15]

Hi tmarie: I'm sorry that you have not yet had a response to you post! I am at work and will need to BUMP this back into view for others. You photo is of very good quality! Do you have others and can you post them as well? A couple of questions that may help others (I will get back to your post as time permits but not predictable); is the Squirrel's eye cloudy or clear? Can you actually see a definitive laceration on the eye or the eyelid? Is there any drainage? Is the any swelling? What is the strength of the Meloxicam and please verify that the Terramycin is OPHTHALMIC Ointment. I agree that it will probably be very difficult to get ointment and even drops into the eye. Meloxicam for pain can be delivered indirectly in some food item so it may be easier. Do you have any systemic antibiotics available and if so, please let us know what they are and their strengths.

How is your Squirrel doing today?

Regards,
SamtheSquirrel

Thank you so much for replying! I unfortunately don’t have any more photos of his eye, but I will try my best to take some more when I see him again today; I haven’t seen him yet! His eye is cloudy in the middle, I do believe it is also ulcerated there but I can’t be 100% certain on that. It does look irritated and pink around his eye though. I don’t believe he can see out of it, or it is very minimal. He doesn’t seem to respond to movement on that side. When he first came over with the injury his eye was watery, which I no longer notice. His eye is also retracted, which I know with Guinea pigs is a sign of pain and injury mostly from hay poke, so that makes me wonder if he poked it on something! I have 1.5 mg Meloxicam, the Terramycin is ophthalmic ointment and I also have Ofloxacin ophthalmic solution 0.3%. Unfortunately I do not have any systemic antibiotics available. I appreciate your help so much! ◡̈

[SamtheSquirrel2018]

Thank you so much for replying! I unfortunately don’t have any more photos of his eye, but I will try my best to take some more when I see him again today; I haven’t seen him yet! His eye is cloudy in the middle, I do believe it is also ulcerated there but I can’t be 100% certain on that. It does look irritated and pink around his eye though. I don’t believe he can see out of it, or it is very minimal. He doesn’t seem to respond to movement on that side. When he first came over with the injury his eye was watery, which I no longer notice. His eye is also retracted, which I know with Guinea pigs is a sign of pain and injury mostly from hay poke, so that makes me wonder if he poked it on something! I have 1.5 mg Meloxicam, the Terramycin is ophthalmic ointment and I also have Ofloxacin ophthalmic solution 0.3%. Unfortunately I do not have any systemic antibiotics available. I appreciate your help so much! ◡̈

Thanks for your reply, TMarie! I hope you can get more photos as it is difficult, even with the detail your photo contains to definitively see what is going on. I need to tell you as I have prefaced many posts on others threads; that I am not a Veterinarian and being more specific, I am not an ophthalmologist (a Vet or physician who specializes in eyes) but I will make some comments for what they may be worth. Eye injuries are very common in nature and with Squirrels bounding through the trees or being attacked by some predator makes these little creatures quite vulnerable to eye injuries.

The appearance of a sunken eye is extremely unlikely to actually be from a sunken eye although it is possible. This would ordinarily require fractures of the bones behind or surrounding the eye. Also, if the globe (the eyeball itself) is ruptured it can somewhat sunken but the usual cause for an eye to appear sunken is when the surrounding eyelids and skin are swollen! There may be significant swelling of this Little One's eyelids from injury! Do you see a definitive laceration somewhere? If there is cloudiness behind the pupil (the area that actually allows light to enter the eye, this may be a cloudiness of the lens which is called a cataract. It can be caused by trauma. Cloudiness of the entire cornea (the front clear part of the eye) can be caused by pus behind the cornea, a problem called uveitis which can result from trauma or other causes and can lead to increased pressure within the eye called glaucoma.

Ideally, this Squirrel should be seen ASAP by a Veterinary Ophthalmologist who can perform a proper exam and make appropriate diagnoses! I realize that this is a dream and it would of course require trapping the Squirrel which would likely be easier than than finding a Veterinary Ophthalmologist willing to see not just a Squirrel but a wild one at that! In reality, TMarie, anything you do out of concern and hope for this Squirrel will be more than nature offers and as I've always said, love is the rarest of all gifts a wild animal could ever receive!

Applying eyedrops or eye ointment to a wild Squirrel's eye will be a daunting task indeed but this will be nothing compared to the difficulty in giving the second dose! I believe that this will really be impossible unless this Squirrel is trapped, restrained, caged, and restrained again and again to facilitate dosing of medication! These would be severe and quite possibly life-threatening stressors for this Squirrel and only a little bit less for you! Pet Squirrels often will let medication be place in there eyes but they too, usually need to be restrained. All that being said, the Terramycin ointment will be present after application longer than will the Ofloxacin solution but I have not used Terramycin on a Squirrel. Others may have some experience with this. It contains a medication in the tetracycline family an polymixin B. It would probably be ok to use. I have some direct experience using Ofloxacin ophthalmic solution and it is in fact my favorite for corneal ulcers and for treating a cornea scratches to help prevent ulceration and even for a conjunctivitis. But once again, its just going to be very difficult to treat this Squirrel in the wild and the stress of a capture, caging, and repeated restraining; especially without sedation can take a serious toll on the Squirrel and on you!

Please post any new photos and keep on with the updates. I'm sorry about my pessimistic sounding comments (I just reread them)! I hope that a miracle can occur!
Regards,
SamtheSquirrel

[tmarie15]

Thanks for your reply, TMarie! I hope you can get more photos as it is difficult, even with the detail your photo contains to definitively see what is going on. I need to tell you as I have prefaced many posts on others threads; that I am not a Veterinarian and being more specific, I am not an ophthalmologist (a Vet or physician who specializes in eyes) but I will make some comments for what they may be worth. Eye injuries are very common in nature and with Squirrels bounding through the trees or being attacked by some predator makes these little creatures quite vulnerable to eye injuries.

The appearance of a sunken eye is extremely unlikely to actually be from a sunken eye although it is possible. This would ordinarily require fractures of the bones behind or surrounding the eye. Also, if the globe (the eyeball itself) is ruptured it can somewhat sunken but the usual cause for an eye to appear sunken is when the surrounding eyelids and skin are swollen! There may be significant swelling of this Little One's eyelids from injury! Do you see a definitive laceration somewhere? If there is cloudiness behind the pupil (the area that actually allows light to enter the eye, this may be a cloudiness of the lens which is called a cataract. It can be caused by trauma. Cloudiness of the entire cornea (the front clear part of the eye) can be caused by pus behind the cornea, a problem called uveitis which can result from trauma or other causes and can lead to increased pressure within the eye called glaucoma.

Ideally, this Squirrel should be seen ASAP by a Veterinary Ophthalmologist who can perform a proper exam and make appropriate diagnoses! I realize that this is a dream and it would of course require trapping the Squirrel which would likely be easier than than finding a Veterinary Ophthalmologist willing to see not just a Squirrel but a wild one at that! In reality, TMarie, anything you do out of concern and hope for this Squirrel will be more than nature offers and as I've always said, love is the rarest of all gifts a wild animal could ever receive!

Applying eyedrops or eye ointment to a wild Squirrel's eye will be a daunting task indeed but this will be nothing compared to the difficulty in giving the second dose! I believe that this will really be impossible unless this Squirrel is trapped, restrained, caged, and restrained again and again to facilitate dosing of medication! These would be severe and quite possibly life-threatening stressors for this Squirrel and only a little bit less for you! Pet Squirrels often will let medication be place in there eyes but they too, usually need to be restrained. All that being said, the Terramycin ointment will be present after application longer than will the Ofloxacin solution but I have not used Terramycin on a Squirrel. Others may have some experience with this. It contains a medication in the tetracycline family an polymixin B. It would probably be ok to use. I have some direct experience using Ofloxacin ophthalmic solution and it is in fact my favorite for corneal ulcers and for treating a cornea scratches to help prevent ulceration and even for a conjunctivitis. But once again, its just going to be very difficult to treat this Squirrel in the wild and the stress of a capture, caging, and repeated restraining; especially without sedation can take a serious toll on the Squirrel and on you!

Please post any new photos and keep on with the updates. I'm sorry about my pessimistic sounding comments (I just reread them)! I hope that a miracle can occur!
Regards,
SamtheSquirrel

Hello! I was able to give the squirrel a little bit of Meloxicam on a pecan. I didn’t see him for a couple of days after that, but he came back today all wet from the California rain and it seems as if his eye looks completely normal! I didn’t notice anymore swelling around the eye either, but I wasn’t able to snap a photo unfortunately. Do their eyes usually heal up quickly? I’m so glad his eye doesn’t visibly seem to be bothering him anymore!

[tmarie15]

Thanks for your reply, TMarie! I hope you can get more photos as it is difficult, even with the detail your photo contains to definitively see what is going on. I need to tell you as I have prefaced many posts on others threads; that I am not a Veterinarian and being more specific, I am not an ophthalmologist (a Vet or physician who specializes in eyes) but I will make some comments for what they may be worth. Eye injuries are very common in nature and with Squirrels bounding through the trees or being attacked by some predator makes these little creatures quite vulnerable to eye injuries.

The appearance of a sunken eye is extremely unlikely to actually be from a sunken eye although it is possible. This would ordinarily require fractures of the bones behind or surrounding the eye. Also, if the globe (the eyeball itself) is ruptured it can somewhat sunken but the usual cause for an eye to appear sunken is when the surrounding eyelids and skin are swollen! There may be significant swelling of this Little One's eyelids from injury! Do you see a definitive laceration somewhere? If there is cloudiness behind the pupil (the area that actually allows light to enter the eye, this may be a cloudiness of the lens which is called a cataract. It can be caused by trauma. Cloudiness of the entire cornea (the front clear part of the eye) can be caused by pus behind the cornea, a problem called uveitis which can result from trauma or other causes and can lead to increased pressure within the eye called glaucoma.

Ideally, this Squirrel should be seen ASAP by a Veterinary Ophthalmologist who can perform a proper exam and make appropriate diagnoses! I realize that this is a dream and it would of course require trapping the Squirrel which would likely be easier than than finding a Veterinary Ophthalmologist willing to see not just a Squirrel but a wild one at that! In reality, TMarie, anything you do out of concern and hope for this Squirrel will be more than nature offers and as I've always said, love is the rarest of all gifts a wild animal could ever receive!

Applying eyedrops or eye ointment to a wild Squirrel's eye will be a daunting task indeed but this will be nothing compared to the difficulty in giving the second dose! I believe that this will really be impossible unless this Squirrel is trapped, restrained, caged, and restrained again and again to facilitate dosing of medication! These would be severe and quite possibly life-threatening stressors for this Squirrel and only a little bit less for you! Pet Squirrels often will let medication be place in there eyes but they too, usually need to be restrained. All that being said, the Terramycin ointment will be present after application longer than will the Ofloxacin solution but I have not used Terramycin on a Squirrel. Others may have some experience with this. It contains a medication in the tetracycline family an polymixin B. It would probably be ok to use. I have some direct experience using Ofloxacin ophthalmic solution and it is in fact my favorite for corneal ulcers and for treating a cornea scratches to help prevent ulceration and even for a conjunctivitis. But once again, its just going to be very difficult to treat this Squirrel in the wild and the stress of a capture, caging, and repeated restraining; especially without sedation can take a serious toll on the Squirrel and on you!

Please post any new photos and keep on with the updates. I'm sorry about my pessimistic sounding comments (I just reread them)! I hope that a miracle can occur!
Regards,
SamtheSquirrel

Please disregard my last message, there have been new squirrels coming over who look identical, it unfortunately wasn’t him. He just came back and his eye looks a little worse. I have attached some photos. He did take a little more meloxicam on some pecans! I also tried to drop some Ofloxicin in, since he can’t see out of that eye it actually worked and a little bit got in!

https://i.imghippo.com/files/0go1L1706826249.png

https://i.imghippo.com/files/oKdEJ1706826628.png

https://i.imghippo.com/files/DsBog1706826420.png

[tmarie15]

https://i.imghippo.com/files/iG6Gv1706835367.png

[SamtheSquirrel2018]

Please disregard my last message, there have been new squirrels coming over who look identical, it unfortunately wasn’t him. He just came back and his eye looks a little worse. I have attached some photos. He did take a little more meloxicam on some pecans! I also tried to drop some Ofloxicin in, since he can’t see out of that eye it actually worked and a little bit got in!

Oh no! This looks terrible! The quality of your photos is exceptional and I am able to enlarge them considerably without them becoming pixelated! This sadly appears to me to be an ocular disaster as this does seem to be an actual "sunken" eye from a corneal laceration or rupture! I had said in an earlier post this was a relatively rare situation compared with swelling of the eyelids and surrounding skin of the eye leading to the appearance but not the actuality of a sunken eye. Studying your photos, there appears to me to be a vertically oriented laceration or linear rupture of the cornea (the clear part of the eye overlying what is called the anterior chamber) of the left eye. This defect in the cornea would tend to lead to drainage of the fluid behind the cornea called the Aqueous Humor which normally fills the anterior chamber and this loss of that fluid resulted in a flattening effect of the cornea. If this appearance is truly what is going on is not artifactual from shadows or reflections, it is a tragic diagnosis!

Ideally, this little Squirrel should be seen by a Veterinary Ophthalmologist for an evaluation and what would probably (in my opinion) be a surgical enucleation (removal) of the eye to potentially help minimize the likelihood of infection and ongoing discomfort but I know that there is virtually no chance of this this occurring and there is probably no chance of saving the eye anyway; even if an ophthalmologist would miraculously show up in the Squirrels nest!

In emergencies with all variables being ideal (which is far from the case here!); there are potential treatments for defects through the anterior chamber of the eye but I certainly could not say what an ophthalmologist would recommend in this case. In "ideal" emergency cases there are things that can be done for a perforation into the anterior chamber (behind the cornea) such as giving Doxycycline which may actually help with restoration the collagen component of the defect and also potentially help with infection prevention and medications such a Timolol can also be given which helps decrease the aqueous humor. But again, in practicality; my own humble opinion is that there are no realistic options for intervention in this case!

Thank you for your concern for this little Squirrel. The Meloxicam can certainly help with pain! The Ofloxacin may help prevent infection! I wish the best for this Squirrel and for you too, TMarie! Please keep on with the updates!
Regards,
SamtheSquirrel