Cloudy patch on eye and redness

[BlueFluffball]

Hello everyone!
We noticed last night that one of our piggies ( Blue, nearly 3 year old female) has a cloudy patch partially covering her right eye and the corner nearest the cloudiness looked very red. I checked her over and couldn’t see anything in her eye and rinsed it well with saline, which seems to have helped as the redness has reduced. She doesn’t seem in any distress and is behaving normally, eating well, running around and is even tolerant of me examining and rinsing it. The eye is opening and closing as normal and she isn’t blinking and there is no weeping or discharge. It hasn’t worsened, and may even look slightly better, over night

I suspect that it must be a hay poke or similar and online people seem to be treating this with chloramphenicol ( optrex infected eye drops 5mg/ml chloramphenicol ) if they can’t see a vet ( unfortunately this isn’t an option until Monday as I don’t think this qualifies as an emergency. We actually have an unopened, in date tube of chloramphenicol in a Vaseline base in our fridge ( left over from our son’s eye injury last year) which I could use, but it is 10mg/g, so twice as strong as I have seen recommended . Would it be sensible to treat her with this? And if yes, how often? Any precautions?( I assume I would need to wipe off excess to stop ingestion etc). Or given that she seems to be in no distress currently, should I stick to saline rinses to keep it clean until we can hopefully see/speak to a vet on Monday? Also, is there anything else I can do or anything else it could be?

Many thanks!
Rebecca

[ItsaZoo]

I would continue saline rinses and see if there is a vet that you could talk to or send a picture to. For an eye injury, it really doesn’t have to be an exotic vet, so if there’s a small-animal clinic in your area that would be worth a try.

I don’t know anything about the chloramphenicol so I can’t give an opinion. I’ve only used Vetricyn antimicrobial eye wash and eye gel.

[Lynx]

We do prefer having a vet prescribe drugs vs. giving our opinion. ItsaZoo's advice to continue with saline rinses is a good idea.

If you have not read it, this page is valuable:
https://www.guinealynx.info/eyes.html

[Talishan]

Ditto the advice you have received. This sounds like a standard hay poke and if it isn't particularly bothering her, see if you can see a vet on Monday and keep irrigating it in the meantime.

Chloramphenicol is a pretty heavy-duty med and can be hard to come by. I'd hang on to it for possible future emergency use, but not in this particular case.

Good luck to her and to you!

[Sef]

Agree with all of the above advice. We had a guy present precisely as you describe a few months ago, and after our vet checked him out, she did find a tiny particle of hay that remained in the lower lid that needed to be flushed as it was causing chronic irritation. My poor old eyes had missed it. Saline flushes and Terramycin were all that was needed for it to completely clear up (I don't like suggesting a non-prescription medication, but will just mention that I always keep Terramycin on hand for very minor eye issues/irritation---with the caveat that a vet visit is always a good idea).