Blog Archives
Before & After – Shelter Vet Removes Large Mass, Saves Dog’s Vision
I received a phone call from a veterinary technician at the San Jose Animal Care Center on the weekend informing me that a dog had just come in with a large ulcerated mass coming out of its eye. Without any photo or video to aid my imagination, I started to picture what the technician was describing and prescribed pain medication and antibiotics to keep the dog comfortable and to fight off infection before I could examine it in person on Monday.
When I came into work on Monday, I found what was clearly a very happy dog, albeit with a large mass on its head that seemed to arise from the left eye or the area around that eye. It was not possible to visualize any part of the left eye.
Dog with Eye Mass, Trichoblastoma – Before Surgery
Puppy Gets Eye Surgery for Distichia & Ectopic Cilia
An adolescent pit bull was noted by the shelter staff to be producing a lot of tears or discharge from one of its eyes. The veterinarians examined the dog closely and found tiny hairs growing out of abnormal areas of the dog’s eyelid and conjunctiva.
Ectopic cilia and distichia are terms used to describe abnormal eyelash or hair growth on the eyelid or conjunctiva of the eye.
This dog had three areas where there was abnormal hair growth around the eye, specifically around the lower eyelid. As you can see in the photo below, there is a hair that is sticking out from pink tissue (conjunctiva) to the right of the eye (around 3 o’clock), there are a few small hairs abnormally placed on the eyelid (around 6 o’clock), and there is an island of hairs arising from the junction of the eyelid and conjunctiva (around 8 o’clock).
Eye with Distichia and Ectopic Cilia
Tails of a Shelter Vet 