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Old December 13th, 2019, 01:23 AM
raptors raptors is offline
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Watery right eye from few months

We have 2 cats both 4 years old, the girl cat has been having trouble with her right eye. Her eye gets watery, sometimes even pinkish around the eye and smaller than the left eye. It's random in the sense that she gets it once all most every day for couple of hours and this has been happening for 3-4 months now. We took her to a vet who gave an eye ointment but it didn't help, took her to a 2nd vet who said all seems fine (she was fine when we took her to the vet) and asked to use the ointment if it happened again. Please suggest. Thanks.
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Old December 13th, 2019, 09:06 AM
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hazelrunpack hazelrunpack is offline
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Oh, she is such a cutie, raptors!

When you took her to the second vet, did you show him these pictures?

Has she been under any unusual stress in the past few months? I'm assuming that they checked for corneal problems or something stuck in the eye and came up with nothing?

It looks very similar to our cat's eye problem, but that probably isn't much help since we haven't found anything to fix it, either. JD has had occasional flares of what the vets are assuming is feline herpes virus--his eyes water, he squints and the lids puff up, and he might get some crusty matter that I have to clean off. Herpes in cats is apparently a funny thing--they can usually keep it suppressed, but in some cases, it becomes chronically symptomatic, like in JD.

L-lysine was suggested both by our vets and by people I know, but it didn't seem to do much for JD, and it upset his stomach, so we discontinued it. It does work for some cats, though, so it might be worth a try.

I've discovered some other things that have helped, but not totally eliminated the eye irritation. Once or twice a day, I'll wipe the affected eye(s) off with a bit of clean, cool damp cloth or paper towel. If there's matter buildup, I'll soak the gluck off the eyelid. Believe it or not, the eye treatment that works the best is tears--real, human tears. I discovered it after one of our dogs passed. I was cuddling with the cat and crying and his eye needed cleaning, so I used my tears to clean his eye. I just grabbed some liquid on a finger and used it to clean away the residue on his face. It worked great and the eye went back to normal for a few days! Weird, but it is what it is.

I don't know if it helped, but we switched him off kibble to a combination of high-quality canned and raw food, so that might be something to try, as well, if she's on a dry diet.

It seems better some times of the year--and I'm wondering if it has something to do with humidity. When his living area is less humid--in summer when the AC is on or in winter when the furnace is running--his eye seems better. So controlling the humidity may help...

But as I said, we really have no clue and just try to notice what things help and what things have no effect. The good news is that he got better as he got older and in better health. (He came as a very stressed stray 3+ years ago and it took him a while to get better.)

Good luck with your little girl! Please keep us posted. And we'd love to see pics of both your kitties!
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Old December 13th, 2019, 10:46 AM
raptors raptors is offline
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Hi hazelrunpack,

Thanks for such a detailed reply and good to know you've tried so many things for JD, hopefully some of it has helped him and great that he's better now.

No we didn't, we're planning to share the pictures with them now.

No stress, everything's been normal.. and it's been few months, but yes, now that you mentioned, I am guessing it could be seasonal... humidity related, though we do have a humidity and temperature meter and maintain it using humidifiers. But I have to use Bio-true/systane for hydration myself, so she might be needing it as well. I should also mention here that she was kind of addictive to watching TV (though for limited time in evening when we watch it) before we started training her to either watch it from a far away distance and also decrease her screen time. She has luckily lost interest in it now.

Sorry to hear about your dog, and thanks for sharing the human tear tip. I am wondering if any regular human eye lubricants/artificial tears could do the job!

Tried Lysine, both powder and she loves the Head to Tail Lysine treats... also my wife makes sure to wipe her eyes whenever she gets a chance.

We even went all out to change the regular litter with Wood pellets and sifting litter boxes which works amazing. Saves dollars and has far less dust and tracking. Did all of it guessing that it might help if the dust was causing any allergies. It did seem to help, though to some extent.

What is surprising is that it is not continuous, when it isn't there, then her both eyes look perfectly fine. So we keep trying to figure out what triggers it, we send her in to the bedroom while cooking etc but no clues. It's pretty random, sometimes it's fine for couple of days in a row, but then it returns. Remains for 2-3 hours only though.

Thanks again and do let me know any other tips or ideas you get after reading my reply. Sharing pic of the duo, Tyke is a dog cat and likes to be treated as a baby as you can see. Clover gets to play mom sometimes even though they're from the same litter and she is tinier than him!
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Old December 13th, 2019, 12:54 PM
raptors raptors is offline
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Also, we do primarily give them dry kibble diet but that's because Clover is too choosy and moody when it comes to food... whereas Tyke is a foody, and sometimes does get into her bowl of wet food when we occasionally give it to them every week... though he only does that if she gets moody and walks away from it when we give it to them, else if they both start off on the wet food and she finishes it off before Tyke is on his bowl, then she eats it.. but like I said, she's too moody. We can't keep wet food as their primary food as Tyke will finish it off and she might not get any... so we keep kibble available for them 24h, but occasionally give wet food. Though I know wet food is way far better than dry. Raw she doesn't even touch, but again Tyke would eat anything, and he is little on the heavier side, so we take precaution.
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Old December 13th, 2019, 07:02 PM
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hazelrunpack hazelrunpack is offline
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That's so weird that the episodes are so transient!

About the closest I've ever come to an explanation of why tears work is that tears actually have an immune component to them. Tear ducts are one of the inroads into the body for germs, so tears are just naturally set up to fight invasions. My thought is that something in my tears helps him fight the effects of the virus, however short-lived the effect might be. If that's the case, then artificial tears would probably not work.

That being said, though, I've had no way to test my 'theory', so artificial tears might be worth a try. If you try them, and it works, please post back--it's hard work producing enough sadness to keep JD's eyes clean when he's having an episode.

Your feline family is adorable! Thanks for sharing the pic!

I had to laugh at your description of their eating habits! JD and Dusty always eat like they're starving. Takes them 5 minutes to empty their dishes and lick them spotless! I can't imagine having any food left over for the other cat to steal, although I'm sure they both fantasize about getting everything!
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"It's not what you gather, but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived!"

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Old December 16th, 2019, 02:43 PM
raptors raptors is offline
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It is funny, Clover is full attention seeker and when we feed her, she believes that the best time to show some cattitude...

We reached out to the vet and asked him if we can share the pictures/videos and he said that won't help... he didn't wanted to have a look at the pictures, instead he said get her in when she gets the watery eye. To match the timing of when it happens and when we can take her in and he's available is a challenge for sure.. let's see how it goes. I'll update if there's a progress.
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