How Much Is Canine Cataract Surgery?
Cataract surgery costs vary depending on whether your dog needs surgery on one or both eyes. Prices range from $1,500 per eye up to as much as $4,000 per eye. Other health issues could add to the cost … and where you live also makes a difference (look out for big city prices!).
So … if you have insurance for your dog, this surgery would be a good time time to use it!
But perhaps you can avoid surgery altogether.
Signs Your Dog Is Going Blind
Because cataract blindness can be gradual, you might not nice the milky layer forming on your dog’s eyes. But you might notice her behavior has changed.
If you notice any of these things … especially if you see cloudy eyeballs, it’s time for a vet visit.
Your vet will perform a thorough eye exam to confirm whether your dog has cataracts. He should assess …
He may refer you to an eye specialist for more advanced testing. This could include ultrasounds or electroretinography. (This test measures the electrical response of cells in the retina). They may do routine diagnostics like bloodwork to rule out other disease.
Veterinarians say there’s no known way to reverse or even slow the progression of cataracts. In immature cataracts, your vet may suggest eye drops until cataracts progress further. But generally, they’ll tell you cataract surgery is the only option. And they’ll recommend doing the surgery sooner, rather than later.
But is that really true? Studies have looked at medical management (vs surgery) of canine cataracts, without much success. However, there’s some encouraging research, for both people and dogs with cataracts. A 2015 University of California study found that treatment with lanosterol (a cholesterol-like molecule) can reduce cataract severity. In fact, there’s now at least one company offering lanesterol eye drops for dogs. However, this is a very new product and safety is questionable. They claim to treat all stages except hypermature cataracts. But the research says that drops alone aren’t effective without injected lanosterol as well. So you might want to ask your vet to find out more..
Other researchers have found a dipeptide called N-Acetylcarnosine may also reverse or improve age-related cataracts.
If these treatments become available, they could be life-changing for many … especially in developing countries where cataract surgery isn’t available.
But there are still natural steps you can take to slow the progression of cataracts. Nutrition to support the eyes is extremely important. And some herbs or supplements can help … so read on to learn about these.
First, what’s involved in cataract surgery?
Cataract surgery is an outpatient procedure. First they’ll give your dog a few days of medications to prepare the eyes.
Your dog will be under general anesthesia for about an hour. Here’s the procedure …
Your dog should be discharged 2-3 hours after surgery. They’ll give you topical medications to use at home for the post-operative period. Your dog may have stitches and might need a cone for a few days.
But what about complications? They do happen sometimes … even though success rates have improved a lot, thanks to recent microsurgical techniques.
There can be complications in 5% to 10% of patients, including …
Some of these complications are severe and can cause discomfort … even blindness. Others can be treated if they’re caught early. So surgery isn’t without some danger. Talk to your veterinary surgeon about the likely risks for your dog.
And of course, cataract surgery isn’t cheap.
Cloudy Eyes in Dogs: Is It Always a Cataract?
Be aware that cloudy eyes in dogs can have causes other than cataracts.
Sometimes, it’s the cornea (the front “window”) that’s cloudy and not the lens. This is why you should visit the vet — an eye ulcer or even glaucoma can cause this sort of bluing.
Even if you correctly spot a misty lens, this isn’t always a cataract. Another condition has a similar appearance when looking with the naked eye, the difference being that this condition is just old-age change and doesn’t interfere with vision.
Your vet can tell the two apart by using an ophthalmoscope. If they can see through the lens to the retina behind, then it’s just old-age change rather than a true cataract.
Can Cataracts in Dogs be Treated?
Cataracts are responsible for about 51% of blindness cases worldwide, making them the most common cause of blindness according to data from the World Health Organization.
Most of the time, people who have cataracts (protein clumps in the lens of the eye that blur vision) develop them with age, but inherited genetic mutations can also cause cataracts to form.
Currently, the only way to treat cataracts is to remove the cloudy lens and replace it with a clear artificial lens via eye surgery.
It may yet be a while before the eye drops are even tested in humans, but the specially formulated drops appeared to reduce the severity of cataracts in dogs, a team of scientists reported in Nature.
Ling Zhao of Sichuan University and colleagues were looking into why children were born with cataracts, and found some had a genetic mutation that meant they couldnt make a molecule called lanosterol, which is found in the lens.
To find out why not having this molecule around caused cataracts, the scientists tested what lanosterol did to the clumpy proteins that form cataracts. It turned out lanosterol broke the protein clumps apart in the lab.
When the scientists tested lanosterol eye drops on dogs with cataracts that had developed with age, they saw the eye drops made the dogs lenses significantly clearer, seemingly dissolving their cataracts over six weeks.
These results are very preliminary — its the first time anyone has tested lanosterol as a treatment for cataracts. Scientists are still uncertain on exactly how and why the eye drops seemed to work; if most people produce lanosterol normally, then why do we still get cataracts? There are many possible answers to this question, and the researchers will need more testing, eventually in humans, to see whether using lanosterol in this way is truly safe and effective.
But if further research continues to be promising, one day we could have a simple eye drop to treat a condition that now requires surgery.
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