Cat eye ulcer

[LittleK]

Hi everyone.

My little 1 year old has had an eye issue that started about 4 weeks ago. At first the skin looked puffy and red and she would squint looking at light. Other than that she has been behaving completely normal. Never any discharge or pawing at it. The vet said it’s probably an infection and put her on the eye gel Ilium Chloroint. It got better, but never completely because she was still squinting sometimes. Last week I started noticing the colour of her iris becoming red and the pupil a bit reflective. The vet said he couldn’t see it and to put her back on the gel.

Then yesterday it looked much worse. Really obviously cloudy and reddened iris and closed a lot of the time. Took her to the vet again and she could see a tiny ulcer. The previous vets had checked for this too, but maybe it wasn’t there before? Does that make sense? Anyway, now she’s on Ilium Opticin 3xday and Doxy 100 paste 1xday and to bring her back in 3 days. If it isn’t improving she’ll refer her to a specialist.

I can‘t stop worrying about it. This morning when I woke up it looked worse than yesterday. More cloudy, but could that be the residual gel coating her eye from 9 hours ago? Her eye stays shut now, the skin looks bothered and her third eyelid is now covering about a quarter of the eye. Could it just be from all the poking around yesterday (the vet looked under her third eyelid and also used lots of drops). Could it just be getting worse before it starts to get better? The receptionist at the vet said to just do what the vet said.

Could such a tiny ulcer make the eye look so bad? I’m worried something else is wrong or it’ll get worse before I see the vet again in 2 days

 

[posiepurrs]

I have limited experience with eye ulcers (thank heavens!) but having Persians there is a risk due to the large eyes. When one of my kittens developed one, a breeder friend suggested eye serum. I asked my vet about it since the slaves had not been effective. He told me that it was used in horses and dogs but he had never used it with a cat, but was willing to try. It requires taking blood from the affected animal and putting it into a centrifuge. After spinning down the resulting liquid is used in the eye to promote healing. We did this and Mimis eye healed with no scaring! I was worried about that because I wanted to show her. I continued to use the medicines the vet had prescribed but we added the eye serum. It worked for us, It may be something you could talk to your vet about (best thing is it was inexpensive to do too!).

 

[lmunsie1]

Hi there,

Just wishing you luck. I'm going through a hell of a time with an eye Ulcer, it hasn't resolved so wishing you luck. I will say that I do find my cats eye is much worse for 2-3 days following appointment (he is going to opthamologist consistently) as far as squinting and keeping it closed and hard to medicate and I think it's from the poking around, so I can at least confirm that,

Good luck and I'll be following.

 

[fionasmom]

My experience has always been that going to the specialist sooner than later, if that is possible, is usually a good move. As for the vet not spotting it the first time, I am not sure as I don't know enough about diagnosing ulcers in the eye.

 

[LittleK]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. It’s been a stressful time. Went to the ophthalmologist on Monday. He said he could see very small ulcers and that the redness is from the body sending blood to the eye to try to heal it. Started on a new med, but it’s not looking any better at all. It’s very red and cloudy. Does anyone know how long the cloudiness takes to clear? And if the ulcers clear completely does it just mean the rest of it (the discolouration) is ok and not harmful and just takes time to clear?