BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

Hiya folks! Blimey it's been a while. I find myself here looking to see if anyone has encountered this medical issue before.

Rusty has a swollen eyeball on one side - looks like it's just the cornea, like a bubble/clear mass on top of the eye rather than the entire eyeball being enlarged. Initial thoughts were a corneal ulcer, but I'm not sure. He's been on a 7 day course of baytril for what vets thought might a resp. Infection (Noisy nose and occasionally croaking when breathing and a little bit of discharge, but this did go away on day 6 of the baytril course and has since come back). The course ended Friday and the eye bubble appeared on Saturday - not sure if that's linked at all.
Went back to vets and they've got me on another 7 day course of baytril and some meloxicam. Waiting to hear back from an exotics specialist that they've referred me to.

Thought I'd ask on here in the meantime if any of you have encountered anything like this before? I couldn't find anything that looked exactly the same in the old posts.

Taken him off his substrate for the time being (I did this before the eye problem showed up whilst he was dealing with the suspected RI) so unless he's rubbed his eye on one of the pieces of decor I don't think it's trauma-related?

Basking is 35°c, cold end is 23°c, humidity is around 55%. He's on dog food + greens and veg as staple (usually green beans, watercress, butternut squash, bell pepper, etc.) with the odd mince beef, turkey or chicken.

Keen to hear if any of you have thoughts. Ordered some reptile eye drops to try and keep his eye clean and lubricated until I can see the vet. I've never seen anything like this myself!

If you need better photos I can dig out the DSLR... Also, in case you're wondering on why the heck his scales looks so janky, he had a nasty parasitical infection when he was a baby that significantly damaged the scales on his head.

Best guess would be an infection in the mouth that could be causing swelling behind the eyeball? That is not a diagnosis, just a guess and I am not a vet. Best thing you could so would probably be taking the skink in to a specialist reptile vet. I wish you the best of luck!

Just to give an update on this mysterious illness...

He saw a vet last week and spent a week in the hospital whilst they kept an eye on him. The vet called it Keratoconus with a bit of Uveitis and a corneal ulcer was present as well. Throughout the week he was given two sets of antibiotic eyedrops as well as some general antibiotics and some metacam via injection.

This had no effect on the eye, except for clearing up some of the uveitis, so the vet put two stitches to sew the eyelids shut to protect the eyeball and put pressure on it to push some of the fluid back.

The plan is to give him the antibiotic injections for 2 weeks and then the vet will remove the stitches to inspect the eye. I was very lucky to get probably the only exotic vet surgeon in the country that has an interest in both reptiles and opthalmology!