Need advice please! Cats eye is not getting better?

DB89014

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I need some advice on what to do next. My one year old little girl has been squinting her one eye for a couple of weeks now. I brought her to the vet and they said it may be herpes but didn't test for it specifically. She gave me an antibiotic to cover any bacterial infection and advised to add a lysine supplement which i have. The eye does not have discharge, she has no other symptoms, the vet said there was no abrasion, and her third eyelid is not showing nor does it look inflamed. She is just randomly squinting her one eye especially when she is tired. Sometimes it looks normal but it is slightly closed more often than not. Has anyone else had any experience with something like this? I'm not sure what else to do so any advice would be much appreciated.
 

Alldara

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Magnus does this since kittenhood. It's just a sign that he's tired. We call it Magnus getting "winky".

He also gets his own hairs in his eye which does cause redness and watery eye but clears up within an hour or two. You can see the hair on his eye so the vet has us use saline drops.
 
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DB89014

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Magnus does this since kittenhood. It's just a sign that he's tired. We call it Magnus getting "winky".

He also gets his own hairs in his eye which does cause redness and watery eye but clears up within an hour or two. You can see the hair on his eye so the vet has us use saline drops.
Is that something that just happens sometimes? That seems to be the case is it happens when she's tired. I wasn't sure if I should continue pursuing the vet to make sure nothing else was wrong
 

Alldara

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Is that something that just happens sometimes? That seems to be the case is it happens when she's tired. I wasn't sure if I should continue pursuing the vet to make sure nothing else was wrong
In our experience with Magnus, it happens every time he is tired but trying not keep himself awake for some reason (like wanting to keep playing despite fatigue).

If there's no redness and/or it goes away in 1-3 hours rather than gets worse, it's probably nothing.

When Nobel had his first eye infection, I went to the vet and the medication made it worse. Then I took him back and he said to boil a bit of water and take an orange pekoe tea bag (like Tetley) and put it in the boiling water, let it cool together and then quote your cat's eye with the tea bag, and then with a dry cloth. A trick from his former days of helping barn cats.

The above will NOT work if there is a scratch on their eye but it does help with conjunctivitis. I always call the vet if an eye infection gets worse over time but an infection usually will cause tears, redness and sometimes swelling. They will usually paw their face or rub their eyes on things. A winky eye for a couple of hours is usually nothing without those other symptoms.
 
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DB89014

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That is interesting and good to know i would definitely prefer to try something like that over the antibiotic. Today is the first day I didnt give her the antibiotic cream and her eye seems to look better so maybe that was irritating her eye as well. Thank you for your response!
 

Alldara

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That is interesting and good to know i would definitely prefer to try something like that over the antibiotic. Today is the first day I didnt give her the antibiotic cream and her eye seems to look better so maybe that was irritating her eye as well. Thank you for your response!
You can ask your vet about saline drops. We use human infant saline drops for Magnus. Not when winky, just if there's any first signs of redness or irritation. Usually that flushes the hair out or whatever's bothering him. The first time it happened we thought his eye had been scratched! The emergency vet was laughing and saying we have a dramatic cat.
 

WMM201

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If your kitty has some allergy to all the pollen right now, using some saline eye wash (just a few drops! Don't squirt!) could help. Also, you can order Optixcare from chewy or Petco and put a drop in that eye as a lubricant or protection.
 
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DB89014

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Thank you both I will definitely try that. I hope she is just being a little dramatic too lol
 
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