Runny eyes

[monster]

Hi there, another eye post. My cat's eye is running a bit today, it looked mostly watery but there was also a little "sleepy" stuff, just normal coloured. She's blinking a bit more than usual too. She doesn't seem to distressed by it though I just noticed her rubbing / cleaning it a bit. Obviously the vets aren't open until monday.....Is there anything I could / should do to help meanwhile? I was wondering about cleaning it with some warm water but I know she'll hate it!

[MarkB]

It sounds like a bit of conjunctivitis. One of the vet treatments is chloramphenicol which is identical to Optrex infected eyes, which can be bought in pharmacists (kept in the fridge) - however, there can be issues with it, so unless it is bothering her, I would wait until Monday. The vet will probably prescribe Fucithalmic, which is safer to use, but unfortunately can't be bought over the counter in the UK -although I read somewhere that it can in Ireland.

[Janey]

It does sound like conjunctivitis or maybe your cat’s poked her eye. When my cats have shown a bit of this I’ve just bathed with warm water on some cotton wool straight away, and within a few days it’s cleared. It could just be that the cat’s poked the eye and that’s why it’s cleared. So you could try that, no problem, there’s nothing on it to harm, and it may sort it too. If not your vet will. Good luck.

[monster]

I took her in last week, my vet said that as she had had a similar infection before that it may be herpes and could recur. He gave me fucithalmic eye drops to be given twice a day for at least 5 days (and beyond the period it appeared the eye had healed). He also gave her an anti inflammatory jab to make her more comfortable as she had started to look like she was feeling a it rough. The drops could be used if it recurred he said. The right eye appears to be doing much better now, it's probably completely better, but I noticed yesterday that the other one had started running slightly and she had started blinking that one. I guess the infection has spread across to that one and have just started putting drops in both eyes - does that make sense? I wonder whether to call the vet and just check as I am going away on holiday on Sunday and don't want to leave my housemate with the horrible task of vets or more eye drops...!