Cat with bulging left eye
 

We recently took our 9 year-old cat to the vets as we noticed her left eye was bulging (very noticeably) and looked a lot bigger than the other. I suspected something like glaucoma straight away as an eye which is sticking out more than usual may be caused by an increase in pressure within the eye

When we took her to the vets she was indeed diagnosed with glaucoma and we were given some eye drops and tablets to help with the pressure in her eye.

However, when we took her back a week later to check on her progress, we were then told that they now think she actually has a mass behind her eye causing her eye to bulge, and that the vets now think its a mass rather than glaucoma just because the eye looks normal apart from the bulging and isnt red or cloudy looking.

The eye fluctuates though, one minute it is bulging and the next it has gone down and looks more normal again. Surely if it was due to a mass behind her eye, it wouldnt fluctuate and would just constantly bulge? The fluctuations make me think its glaucoma, and that it is due to the fluctuating pressure in the eye caused by glaucoma.

Also, the eye is more buphthalmic (the eye itself actually becomes enlarged) which is a common sign of glaucoma rather than exophthalmic (where the size of the eye is the normal but the position of the eye has changed) which is characteristic of tumours and masses.

Or could it be both;glaucoma caused by a mass?

The vet has said apart from the enlarged eye, she seems perfectly healthy and is not in any pain yet.

P.S We are actually taking her to a different vets surgery to see a vet who specialises in eyes to see if he has more of an idea of what it is, as the vets we went to didnt seem sure at all as to what it was! But just wondering if anyone else has experienced this and gone through something similar with their cat.