Guinea Pigs Eye - Hay

Question
So yesterday I found one of my guinea pigs, with a small piece of hay in her inner corner of her eye, I gently removed it and kept her calm, and put her back in her cage and later went out and got Visine for red eyes. I got home, put a drop in her eye, and then later in the day put another drop in her eye, now, this morning, her eye looks aright, but, her eye is still like sunken in compared to her other eye. Should I take her to the vet? If I should, then can it wait til tomorrow?

Answer
What you are seeing is a normal response to any eye injury. Rather than putting Visine in her eye I would suggest getting some Teramycin eye ointment. Some pet stores carry it, but you may have to look around for it.

There's another breeder trick we've used for many years and that's Vitamin A capsules. Stick a pin or just cut off the end of the gelatin capsule and put one or two drops into the eye.
Because it's an oil based liquid it soothes the eye irritation. Its use is not for medicinal purposes but rather to help lubricate the eyeball while it heals itself.

Most eye injuries will heal on their own. The ointment is just to relieve dryness or any irritation in the eye. You can cleanse it gently with a cotton ball dipped in a saline solution. Saline is easily made by taking one cup of boiled water, add 1/4 tsp of salt. Stir it well until the salt is dissolved and allow it to cool to room temperature.

This gives you .9% Saline aka Sodium Chloride. The same saline that is used in the doctor's office and hospitals. Of course you cannot use this for intravenous use, but it is what we used in medicine as a topical wash for wounds, etc. T

he reason you don't want to use plain water is that the body is mostly salt, and water causes irritation to the tissues. You can keep the remainder of whatever saline you haven't used in your refrigerator for about a week. Just make sure it's warmed up a bit before you use it to cleanse her eye.

If there is no discharge from the eye I wouldn't clean it at all. But if you need to just wet a cotton ball and wipe from the inner corner of the eye, trying not to touch the eyeball itself.