Kitten With Watery Swollen Eye

[kara701]

I'm fostering five kittens for a rescue and this little guy has a bad eye. I'm going to message the rescue in the morning. I'm curious though, what is this? URI? No sneezing though. Some virus? It has gotten worse the last few hours (it looked better earlier today) and this is what it looks like now. Another of the five also has watery eyes but they aren't as bad as this.

 

[Crabbycake]

It looks like a run of the mill eye infection to me. Kittens get them a lot. It could be the start of a URI so it may be a good idea to keep some Clavamox on hand if the rescue has some (most do) just in case. But it could just be a simple eye infection that'll probably clear up with terramycin.

 

[sydney]

Looks like what my kitten had, just an eye infection. Some drops should clear it up.

 

[kara701]

Thank you for the replies! I'm only used to fostering feral kittens and they never had eye infections or anything like that.

 

[kikilove]

Hey Kara, I'm going to suggest something else, only because it happened to my cat BB (how I miss him...). His eye was presenting just like this kitten, which appeared to be an eye infection. We went to the vet and treated the eye with that goopy stuff. It stayed swollen. About a week later I had to rush him to the emer vet- the swelling was alarming. Turns out he had an abscess in his cheek (do cats have cheeks??!) It was below the eye so the swelling was pushing into the eye area. They had to make an incision and insert a drain, which stuck out of his face for the next several days. Poor bug. Plus anti-biotics. Anyway, in your pictures of the kitten, I swear it looks like his right cheek is much larger than the left? But I might just be seeing this given my experience w BB. Sweet lil smokey kitten, btw.

 

[kara701]

Hey Kara, I'm going to suggest something else, only because it happened to my cat BB (how I miss him...). His eye was presenting just like this kitten, which appeared to be an eye infection. We went to the vet and treated the eye with that goopy stuff. It stayed swollen. About a week later I had to rush him to the emer vet- the swelling was alarming. Turns out he had an abscess in his cheek (do cats have cheeks??!) It was below the eye so the swelling was pushing into the eye area. They had to make an incision and insert a drain, which stuck out of his face for the next several days. Poor bug. Plus anti-biotics. Anyway, in your pictures of the kitten, I swear it looks like his right cheek is much larger than the left? But I might just be seeing this given my experience w BB. Sweet lil smokey kitten, btw.

I'm sorry your BB went through that!! Thank you for the heads up, it's nice to know more about what can happen, I don't have much experience with things like this. Thankfully, his eye has gotten better today. I think they have cheeks, haha. I think his cheek was a little swollen initially because of his eye but it isn't like that anymore so I'm hoping it stays that way, I will definitely keep a close eye on him. And I agree - I love his coloring, he's darling. <3