Corneal Ulcer

My puppy was diganosed with a corneal ulcer.  Initially, we just assumed it was a regular ulcer where she may have scratched her cornea somehow. Now, her eye has worsen and we have gone to a Veterinarian Eye Specialist. With the type of breed that she is, not producing enough tears, it is hard to get the eye back to 'normal'.  It is seen that she has blood vessels present to help heal the eye, but I'm not quite sure if I need to take the next step and get the third eye lid flap or surgery done.  Her eye has begun to bulge out. It is only seen in her right eye, her left eye is normal.  With her right eye, looking down on here, you can see that her eye is slightly bulging out.  It appears to be white in color, and round in shape. She is on medication serum/plasma drosp, tobramycin, ofloxacin, sodium chloride, and we steered away from clavamox since she was not eating well.. Lately, she  has had a LOT of energy in her, playing and being very alert, she has a very good appetite and she seems to not portray much pain. She rarely yelps or cries due ot her eye condition and she rarely scratches it was well.  Could this is signs that is has worsened or healing?

1) what steps can i take?
2) is she going to lose her eye?
3) is the process to heal just longer than normal?

[Jim Humphries, B.S., D.V.M.]

First off you did the right thing by taking her to an Eye care specialist.  A Veterinary Ophthalmologist is the right person to handle this.  Corneal ulcers themselves can be successfully treated and it sounds like you are on all the right medications.  However, the bulging you are seeing may mean a more wide spread inflammation and complications.  Eyes are so delicate that the general rule is you never wait!  Especially in a case where a breed of dog has even slightly protruding eyes and (as you correctly stated) they cannot keep those corneas moist enough.  That can really cause bad complications.  

Because of this swelling I would have her seen my your veterinary ophthalmologist again as soon as possible.  

In answer to your direct questions; get back to the specialist, 2) no one can predict if she will lose the eye, and it is everyone's goal to treat aggressively so she does not, 3) these type of cases can be very long in healing and I've had similar cases that were long term maintenance / management of the condition.