From:
FurTulsa
Date: 2001-04-10 21:21:00 UTC
Subject: [Ferret-Health-list] Re: Cataracts?
Dr Williams... AGH! Technical! LOL Okay I assume all is well
then. Someone asked me to check the albino she was fostering
for the shelter because she thought she was having trouble
seeing.
Having never looked at an ALBINO for cataracts before, I was
slightly unsure. I ended up pulling out my own pet Apollo, who
is an albino, roughly same age and build as the foster,
knowing full well his eyes were fine.... then comparing the
two with the scope... and they looked the same.
Thanks
Susan
----- Original Message -----
From: Bruce Williams, DVM
To: Ferret-Health-list@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2001 11:05 PM
--- In Ferret-Health-list@y..., "FurTulsa" <FURTulsa@H...>
wrote:Okay... got a question. How do you look for cataracts
in an albino? Do the red eyes get a fog the same as dark
ones?
Susan
Dear Susan:
Cataracts appear as a whitish hazy area inside the pupil.
What you are actually looking at is the lens, which sits
behind the pupil - all light must pass through it before it
hits the retina - no matter how large the pupil it gets, the
lens covers the entire back side of the pupil.
The "red eye" that you are seeing is the retina (as opposed
to most ferrets which has a greenish reflection to the
retina due to the increased amount of pigment. In albinos,
the reddish sheen to the back of the eye is due to the
exaggeration of the vessels. (Actually, there are no more
vessels in the retina than in sables, but with the
diminished pigment, they stand out much more.)
With kindest regards,
Bruce Williams, DVM