LET me tell you about Peppi, an eight year old shih tzu that I saw at the practice.

Peppi was brought in by his owners because he had sore and mucky eyes. It transpired that Peppi’s eyes were often mucky and his owner had to regularly clean them to avoid a build up of goo.

On examination Peppi definitely had conjunctivitis but I was sure that this was secondary to something underlying. With this suspicion in mind I carried out a test called a Schirmer tear test. This test involves putting a test strip of special paper in each eye for a minute to see what volume of tears is produced in that time.

Peppi is very well behaved so he sat beautifully while both eyes were tested. Sure enough both test strips revealed that Peppi had an abnormally low level of tear production.

Tears are one of our eyes’ main defence mechanisms against infection and damage. If that tear production is reduced then eyes can be prone to infection and that is why Peppi was getting recurrent mucky eyes and low grade problems. This condition is known as keratoconjunctivitis sicca or dry eye and if left untreated can go on to cause vision damage and even blindness.

I sent Peppi home with two types of eye cream, the first to clear up the current infection and the second to treat the underlying dry eye.

I will let you know how he got on next week.