Maybe feline herpes virus, feline calicivirus.. or is it allergies?

[cataholic07]

My kitten I adopted months ago, well foster failed lol. Her and her sister had a really bad URI for literally a month. The vet said I had to keep doing lysene until she was a year old. I uh recently ran out and looking at what I can find online for her. But she's not sneezing really or coughing. No major discharge but she does have watery eyes and when I see her third eyelid out its a bit red. You can see the little white discharge on her left eye in the photo. The 2nd photo you can see the other eye a bit watery, and the squinting eye has the third eyelid a bit out which is pink. Her only other symptom is that she does scratch her neck or ears quite a bit which is why I was thinking maybe it was allergies. But it might be one of those viruses since she had watery eye discharge before.

 

[sivyaleah]

Cute babies.

Didn't the vet offer to test them for herpes etc.? You'd have a pretty definitive answer that way or could rule it out. Herpes is incredibly common in cats - our vet said something like up to 90% have been exposed to it at birth or thereafter. The test can come up false negative though if the cat isn't shedding the virus when tested - we had this happen but our vet is pretty sure our girl's weepy eyes were caused by it. We actually took her to a specialist because it was pretty chronic for a while. He concurred with the herpes diagnosis and gave us eye drops which helped a lot.

FYI there's no proof lysine works and if your cats aren't improving while using it most likely it's not doing anything for them. It won't harm them at least.

If your vet isn't being helpful enough perhaps think about a 2nd opinion. They could have conjunctivitis which an eye drop would be able to help with and they may even need a course of antibiotics at this point.

 

[stephanietx]

You can request the Real PCR URD test which will give you a herpes diagnosis. Since you're not seeing sneezing and congestion, I am leaning more towards airborne allergies. Also, stress can induce upper respiratory infections and herpes. If they're old enough, I would suggest a daily antihistamine to see if there's any improvement.

 

[cataholic07]

I am hoping it is allergies to, my boys get watery eyes too with the red or pinkish third eyelid. We have the windows open which helps (the vet said when I had both girls that opened windows help but it was still winter lol), cant vacuum as much as I want to though. The only vacuum I can use doesn't always work so its my mom who has to vacuum using the bigger heavier one. So yah my house isnt squeaky clean lol. So it could be a bit of dust allergies.. with 2 longhair cats, 1 longhaired kitten that's alot of hair, even with brushing every day.

I didnt do a test then because she was a foster so its up to the rescue on what they want to test.

 

[sivyaleah]

You can request the Real PCR URD test which will give you a herpes diagnosis. Since you're not seeing sneezing and congestion, I am leaning more towards airborne allergies. Also, stress can induce upper respiratory infections and herpes. If they're old enough, I would suggest a daily antihistamine to see if there's any improvement.

To the OP as a reminder, be sure to check with your vet before administering human medications to your cat. One does not know the correct dosage nor if a particular one is appropriate for felines.

 

[cataholic07]

I haven't given any acne medication or anything like that. Just lysene lol. I took some new photos recently. She has redness in her one upper lip.the chin looks like maybe hair loss and acne? But she's really grey in the face so I'm like uhhhh lol.

 

[MissClouseau]

In case it's allergies, google search "common house allergens" and treat it like they might be allergic to everything. Sorry to say "google" but each allergy prevention is a long list. Like for dust mite allergy alone there are a lot of different things to do.