We have a 7 year old male pom, named Buddy. In February 2004, he was diagnosed with diabetes. By late April, he went blind in both eyes. It took us from February to mid-July to get his insulin reading stable.
At this point, our vet said if his retina is not damaged, we could try surgery to get sight back in one eye (two eyes would be too traumatic). So after an ERG* test, the surgeon said "it's a go". The operation went just fine. It's been a week, and Buddy is seeing things again, no longer bumping into things. He wears that cone-thing around his head to prevent him from causing self-trauma.
I can't tell you how happy we are for Buddy to be able to see again! I prayed so hard for this to happen and it came true. We could do the other eye down the road, but we don't know if we want to put him through that again. It cost just under $2,500 for the eye and 400+ for an overnight emergency/monitoring stay. Well worth the money to give our baby some sight back. Just wanted to share my story with others in the same situation.
FROM YOUR GUIDE:
*ERG = ElectroRetinoGram
This test is performed to test the retina and make sure that the eye is healthy enough to perform surgery.
Learn more about cataracts and eye surgery
From the Ophthalmology Service at the College of Veterinary Medicine University of Florida http://www.vetmed.ufl.edu/sacs/Ophtho/Cataracts/
(this site is a resource site listed by me, not a site submitted by the Viewer Viewpoint author)
