Pannus? - Page 1

What is Chronic Superficial Keratitis, or Pannus??
What do you know about it?

From what I've heard and read, it's an inflamation of the cornea. I do also believe it causes a film to develop over the eye, similar a cataract. It's not curable but is treatable and sunlight worsens the condition.

It is believed to be an autoimmune condition. Along these same lines, it is suspected that there is an inherited component to it tho I know of no definitive study on that.

Take your dog to a good ophamologist to get a baseline on where the condition is. There are a number of  "levels" of medicine that can be used to treat it. The most common is 1% prednisolone drops or ointment. Others are blephamide and optimmune. Most come in ointment or drops. If you use both , use drops first then ointment for staying power. I think it's the optimunne which is a cephalaxin based and your vet should be able to make a suspension in olive oil. Just make sure the tech remembers to actually put in the medicine.

Usually does not interfere terribly with eyesight but if it does there is an operation that can peel back the film which forms on the eye. Watch out for redness in the white of the eye and also for the ulcers that can form on the eye when the condition flares. Dogs do seem to go thru flares when it is worse and you need a higher level and frequency of medicine.

I personally have found with Nemo that the addition of fish oil capsules to the diet seem to lower the level of inflammation but he also gets a number of other support supplements such as CoQ10 which may be playing a role also.

The sunlight comment was based on studies done in high altitutes where there is no "filter" from harsh sunlight so the jury is still out on that. I live in bright sunny california and my veterinary ophamalogist is not horribly worried about the sunlight component.  But like everything - it depends. Nemo is a couch cushion. If your dog is out more than in then you may want to look at buying him a pair of doggles.
 

hey brent,
are you suspecting one of yours?
it doesnt seem like the sunlight would be a factor at your place,seems you have alot of filtration.


btw did you get the pics i sent you.

Our old girl suffered from Pannus for several years.  It didn't seem to affect her eyesight at all.  When she was diagnosed we were given steroid pills and an eye cream.  They wanted us to dose her whenever it flared up.  I got to where I put the cream in her eyes once a day for the rest of her life and only gave her the steroids when she had flare ups and I could see ulcers trying to kick in.  The vet said that since it is an autoimmune issue and because we live in town and she was an indoor dog we didn't need to vaccinate her for rabies every year.  Her chances of being exposed were nill.  Apparently vaccinations can cause flare ups.  He just signed off on her papers as if she was being vaccinated and gave us her tags so we wouldn't be fined by the city.  He mentioned that he had never seen a case of Pannus so well controlled as in our girl.  If one of your dogs has developed it (and I sure hope not) see if your vet will skip any unecessary vaccinations and treat the eye(s) daily.  The laws have us over vaccinating our dogs when it comes to rabies.  Good luck!

Pannus is specific to GSDs and GSD crosses, therefore there MUST be an inherited component. My first GSD was partially blind with it when I adopted her. The vet kick-started the treatment with a steroid injection, and within 48 hours that dirty, brown film that was partially blocking the light from her pupils had receded to the bottom of the eye.

I kept it under control for the rest of her life with steroid eye drops given a couple of times a week.  Since she was indoors more than she was outside, and I live in the north (Canada) I never worried about sunlight making it flare up.

What I know of it comes from here,

www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp

Search words,
Pannus, and  Keratitis.

It is genetic autoimmune condition. I had one that lived a long life with it . It was controlled with steroid drops and cyclasporin drops. It is expensive to treat but very treatable. My dog was West German and Dutch bred.

It is a recessive gene that can cause blindness.  Keep your dog infected indoors or she/he may go blind.  It is the = to ebstein barr in humans which can effect many organs.

Justice

Justice - and your information comes from where?????