Veterinary Eye Examinations - What to expect

By Rosie Parks Uncategorized May 10, 2025

Depending on the patient and what the presenting problems are the following are examination techniques we use when examining the eyes.

Distance exam

Whilst we are often talking to the owner we are also obeserving the patient. What we’re observing is whether they are they looking around, if their eyes are open, and whether they’re bumping into things. We also look for any other signs of trouble or anything that could indicate something important for when we come to examine the patient.

Schirmer Tear Test

What this test measures, as you could guess from the name, is how well the eyes produce tears. These small pieces of paper are inserted into the lower eyelid conjunctival region and measure the amount of tear production over one minute, the tear flow shows up along the scale in blue. An avaerage tear flow should be 18-20mm / per minute. This is an important test when we are considering conditions such as dry eye. Although it can look uncomfortable for the patient, the pieces of paper are very light and thin, so often are tolerated well.

A hands on examination

Here the ophthalmologist will test the reflexes and responses of your animals eyes. By touching the areas around the eye and also shining the ophthalmoscope light in the eyes. This ensures your animal can respond to light / objects and perform the necessary job of blinking etc.

The Slit lamp – an ophthalmologists favourite tool 🙂

This lamp ophthalmoscope gives a close up view with 16x magnification of the structures of the eye. It can also omit a blue light that will show up any ulcers on the surface of the eye when we put in a special dye called fluroscein.

Intraocular pressure

The Tonovet is an instrument used to measure the pressure within the eye. The instrument is held just infront of your animals face and a small probe rapidly pushes air towards the globe of the eye and measures the pressure. It doesn’t touch the eyes surface and no local anaesthetic drops are required to use this instrument.

Finally..

Sometimes different eye drops are required to examine certain cases more accurately – drops that may dilate the pupil more or cause a response to locate a problem. Occasionally we may think there could be a foreign body within the eye and local anaesthetic drops are required to numb the surface of the eye so we can touch it safely without hurting the animal, as their eye surface contains hundreds of nerve endings as do yours – hence why its so annoying and painful when you get an eyelash in your eye!

Veterinary Eye Examinations – What to expect