Beaver

[Constance67]

This is a continue from my other thread about my cat Beaver. I messaged Dr. Lee and told him I'd start a new thread with a picture of his eye as well as some background.


Beaver is an eight year old neutered male, I've had him since the day he was born. He's always been in great health, had shots and so on. He originally weighed around 18 lbs. but about 3 months ago I noticed he started acting differently... I can only describe it as looking the way I feel when I have a migraine. Also he had a slightly runny eye and then began losing a bit of weight.

I took him to the doctor and he said he looked good, but they weighed him and he was down to 13 lbs. He did some blood work for a thyroid test and gave me some eye ointment for his one runny eye. Said not to worry, it was probably just age... this was after the test came back and the thyroid was fine. He also did a fecal test and it was fine.

I used the eye stuff which he seemed to absolutely hate, but he kept acting like he felt bad. He would still eat, but not as much as usual. Normally when he wakes up the first thing he does is run to the trough to eat a few bites. At this time he had stopped doing that, though he did eat several times a day as well as drink water just as always.

When I didn't see any improvement in the weight and then I noticed his eyes, both of them, were looking cloudy, I took him to a new doctor. This doctor did a thorough exam, more blood work, more mashing around in his stomach and looking at his eyes and ears. He did have a temperature of right at 103, but his blood work showed nothing at all... again. He said he tested him for everything, not just thyroid and it was all fine. But his eyes were really bothersome. They were even too cloudy for him to get a look at the retinas, he gave us some amoxicillin to see if that would do anything for his fever.

That week went by, he took all the amoxi and did seem to act as though he was feeling better. His eyes were still messed up though. Behind the cloudy stuff in them you could tell his pupils were very large and he started acting like he had trouble seeing. He wouldn't follow my fingers until they got toward the side of his head then it was like he could see out of the corners of his eyes. He stayed in my bedroom, I assumed it was because it was darker and quieter in there with not much movement through the day.

After about 10 days and all the amoxi was gone I took him back to the doctor. He had been without the amoxi for about 3 days and his fever was back and it was like he was declining again. This time the doctor gave us two more bottles of amoxi and some eye drops called Neomycin and Polymyxin B Sulfates and Dexamethasone Opthalmic Suspension USP. He does the antibiotics every 12 hours and the eye drops every 8 hours.

Today will be the last dose of amoxi, he's been on it and the eye drops for twelve days this time. There has been progress! He acts like his old self, goes to eat first thing when he wakes up and is out and about more. He does act like he can see better, but there are times when his pupils are huge again and cover almost his entire eye area. Also, there's a spot on his right eye that doesn't look good. The cloudy stuff is gone though, so hopefully that's a good sign. He goes back to the doctor on Thursday and he's hoping he'll be able to see his retinas, and is going to try doing a pressure test on them. If he can't figure it out after this trip, he said I should take him to an opthamologist as the next step. I would have already done this but the closest one is several hours away and it seems as though the drops have done at least some good.

So Dr. Lee and anyone else... here's a picture I took of his eyes today. I mainly was focusing on the one with the spot on it and it came out better than I thought it would. Please tell me what you think....

[Dr Lee]

It appears that there is corneal edema which is improving with the drops. The corneal opacity could represent a couple of possibilities. First might be corneal scarring secondary to inflammation. Another possibility might be a sequestrum. While sequestra is typically dark in color, some can be lighter. While it is a very good picture, eye problems can be difficult to diagnose with a picture (or in person too!). Here is a link to sequestra information - you can read it and see if it may apply (it states breed predilection however any cat can acquire them)... http://www.animal-eye-specialists.com/sequestrum.htm

I do like your veterinarian's idea of an ophthalmologist referral. Some of these corneal opacities can benefit or require surgical debridement. I hope this helps.

[Constance67]

He's got an appointment with the doctor who prescribed the drops and antibiotics for tomorrow and then we'll see what we're going to do next.

Thanks for taking a look at it Dr. Lee.