My kittens eye is a little funny.?
My 13-14 week old kitten has had a rough go! I adopted him from the Animal Rescue League when he was about 8 weeks old, and since then we have had him to the vet for a check up, which was fine, a visit for meds when he had a respitory infection…and then for his 2nd shots…which there was also a check up included…and he was great! Then yesterday we noticed his eye was a little funny…it was squinty when he woke up, while the other one wasnt, and today i noticed the same thing…once he is awake and i wipe it clean a little bit, he is fine…it still looks a little different..(squinty) and he is playinglike crazy, chasing his toys around and his tail..doesnt seem to be in any distress…anyone have any options of what this could be? He also keeps sneezing!
I am going to call the vet tonight to get him in ASAP, but i just want to try and ease my mind in case i cant get him in quick for an appt!
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He’s getting another upper respiratory infection. He’s still kinda young and fragile, and URI’s can turn into pneumonia, so they should let you bring him in soon. Ask the vet if he could have some kind of underlying health problem that could be causing repeated infections.
Good luck to you. I hope he’s feeling better soon.
My kitten did the same thing…I forgot what the vet put him on but it cleared it right up. She said alot of kittens have this problem.
Sounds like the beginning of an eye infection. Is there any discharge (eye boogers)? Perfectly normal in his circumstances. Easily treated. Nothing you can really do about his comfort level.
If there is green, yellow or brown gunk coming out of the eye, it could be a secondary infection caused by the upper respiratory infection he just had (and if he’s still sneezing, probably still has). Our local feral colony is notorious for that, so we’ve treated a lot of kittens for it. Your vet will most likely give you antibiotic eye drops or salve; used correctly, this should clear him up over a couple of weeks. If it doesn’t, call the vet before you use the treatment longer than originally specified, because some of those salves and drops can cause fungal infections if they are used too long. However, stopping the treatment too soon can leave cloudy scars on the kitten’s cornea, so you and your vet will need to play it by ear.
Before you treat the eye(s), clean them with a soft, lint-free cloth or soft paper towel and warm water, or, if the discharge gets crusty, you can use sterile saline solution (not contact solution, but the plain saline with no additives). You can get it at the drugstore or at Target for about $3 a bottle, and it dissolves the gunk a little better than water and with less irritation to the eye.
One thing about the salves and drops: He should start to improve within a couple of days of starting treatment. If he does not, or if he seems to be having more trouble, he could have a sensitivity to some of the ingredients in the treatment. If you suspect this is happening, call your vet and ask if he has an alternative treatment. It isn’t a common problem, but we have seen it a couple of times.
While you’re at your vet, ask if he knows which virus caused the infection. Often, when the eyes are affected, the culprit is feline herpes virus. If that’s the case, you can get some L-lysine powder to sprinkle over your kitten’s food, and it will help his immune system fight on any remaining virus. I would advise against getting the gel lysine, since that can have artificial sweetner in it and we’ve had one kitten have a skin reaction to that (he’s off it now and doing much better). The powder is supposed to taste like meat, so it doesn’t cause the same problem.