Cat Eye Changes Color, Size And Shape Randomly

Cat eye changes color, size and shape randomly

Hi everyone, i am new here. I have a 3 month old cat, recently the right eye but also sometimes both eyes change color to a milky glassy white, it just happened overnight, sometimes it goes back to its normal yellow/black color, other times it changes, once it changed while she was staring at me, as if she was focusing her eyes on me. But it never happened before, is this some sort of puberty change? Or is she blinded? She can see where she walks and doesn't seem disoriented. As fas I can tell there is no discomfort or infection in her eye. But there is definitely a change in her eye color. I live in the woods and there is not vet here. Thanks

I've never heard of anything like that. Is it just the iris (the colored part of the eye) or does the cloudy white cover her pupil (the black part in the center) as well? Cloudiness sounds like cataracts, but cataracts don't come and go that way, and they're actually in the lens, the part of the eye that focuses light on the back wall of the pupil. Given how huge a cat's pupils can grow in low-light conditions I'm not sure how far the lens extends in cats.

Can you get hold of a small, pocket-sized flashlight and keep it with you? I think the first thing to rule out would be changing light conditions causing an appearance of cloudiness that isn't really there. I know that my own eyes can look either blue or green, depending on the lighting and what I'm wearing.

You mention a change in size and shape as well; please describe.

And, by the way, welcome to The Cat Site! You've found the best community of cat lovers on the internet, and we're very glad to have you and your cat here. We hope you'll be members of our community for many years to come.

Margret

Well, it isn't a puberty thing, or not a thing I've every heard of, and I agree with Margret , it doesn't sound right for cataracts, as that wouldn't come and go. There are a good many things that can cause changes in the eye, most of them do require professional treatment. If you can manage a trip to the vet, please do. Your cat's vision may depend on this. I know it is rough, but it is necessary.

So glad to have you here at TCS, both you and your cat!

You know what does come and go in a cat's eye? The nictitating membrane. (Nictitating membrane - Wikipedia and Eye Structure and Function in Cats - Cat Owners - Merck Veterinary Manual - scroll down to see diagram) An infection of the third eyelid could explain this. But any kind of eye infection is a danger to your cat's vision; I think Mamanyt1953 is correct; your cat really does need to go to the vet, as soon as possible. You may have just lucked out here, and caught something that's potentially very dangerous at an early stage through your good observations.

You may want to also check out this site: Cat Eye Diagram They have a pop-up window that says you can talk to a vet, any time, 24/7, for free, though I've seen "free" morph into "How much are you willing to pay?" quite quickly on some sites.

Margret

Thank you so much everyone, i think the white opaque cloudiness covers almost her entire eye, it is quite big and that is why I noticed it because of its size, it is stronger in eye over the other, but it also disappears, once I saw it disappear within 3 seconds, in real-time, but it is usually there, about 90% of the time.

It may just be changes in lighting making it appear that it is coming and going or an optical illusion as you focus on it. Whatever is going on, I add another vote for a vet check. At the least it is some sort of possible infection at worse it could be something more serious.

The possibility that it's an artifact of the light is why I suggested a flash light, so you can check. However, I still think there's a strong likelihood that it's something wrong with the nictitating membrane.

When the nictitating membrane covers the eye, yes, it should be visible. But it shouldn't be engaging that often; when it is, according to the Wikipedia article, in the section on dogs and cats, it means that something is wrong. If it's more visible in one eye than the other that would presumably mean that the something that is wrong is a problem with the nictitating membrane itself.

I've had Jasmine for five years, and I've never seen her nictitating membranes closed! In five years! And that's normal. You've apparently seen it several times in just the past week or two! Something is wrong. You can't fix it yourself. We can't tell you how to fix it. Your kitten needs a vet, and she needs one soon. I know you don't live near a vet, and I'm sorry about that, but you have to find some way to get medical care for her, and the longer you wait the worse the problem will get.

Do you have any friends or relatives who could take her to the nearest city for you? How were you planning to get her vaccinations and spaying when you adopted her? Cats need health care just like all the rest of us, and this is something you have to think about when you adopt. If you didn't think about it before, this is your wake-up call; if you can't find a way to get necessary care for your kitten she is likely, at the very least, to suffer permanent eye damage; at the worst it could kill her, because you don't mess around with infections in kittens; no matter what they may think of themselves kittens are delicate, and an infection that goes systemic can very easily be fatal.

Margret

Thank you for your care, I will see if I can get her to a Vet. This area has lots of cows, and there are cow vets. Maybe they can help.

That's a possibility; even farmers like cats.

This is where a telephone comes in handy, asking whether a vet takes pets or just large mammals.

Margret

I am a human doctor, not a vet and I have been trained to treat only one sort of mammal. Vets, all vets, are trained to treat ALL mammals and even if they prefer to treat cows, they will have had training in feline ailments when they were students.
With regards,
Geoffrey

Vets who mostly treat cows in their day to day employment still have to go to veterinary college for MANY years and will have learned about how to treat popular pets such as cats and dogs for a lot of things - and will be able to refer you if it turns out your cat needs treatment that they cannot provide themselves. Also I expect the cow farmers have dogs and cats that the vet looks after their health from time to time (never seen a farm without dogs or cats!) Now if you had something exotic like reptiles or birds, that may require looking around for a specialist.

Very good replies, thank you everyone. I will post a picture of my kitty soon.

We will look forward to that! And I agree that the large-animal vets are trained in small-animal medicine, as well, AND, most farm vets will routinely see ALL animals on the farms they attend, including the occasional barn cat.

Ever read the James Herriot books (James Herriot)? He was a veterinarian in a small rural town in Great Britain, and he treated cows, horses, sheep, dogs, cats, birds, basically everything. (I highly recommend these books; they're wonderful.) I know of human doctors who dropped out of veterinary college because it was just too difficult, because of all the species they had to learn to treat; it was easier to concentrate on only one species.

Margret