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We have two orange tabbies, a male and a female, both fixed. The male, who is about 12 years old has a chronic problem with his eyes. He gets crust around both eyes every day. It is worse on the corners. He lets us pick off the corners but nothing else. It seems he has had this problem all his life, or at least he’s had it since we got him from the shelter a while back.
His eyes have become red-rimmed and sometimes when he wakes up he can’t open one of his eyelids so we do it for him. We’ve taken him to the vet but to no avail. He won’t take pills, no way, no how, and creams haven’t done anything other than annoy him. He lets us gently wipe his eyes with a damp ball of cotton (probably feels good to him), but only once a day or so.
I’m wondering if there’s some other treatment that we’ve missed. We don’t mind doing his eyes several times a day, but it looks like they are getting worse.
What did the vet say/suggest? Was he tested for herpes?
My thought as well. He could have (or have had in the past) Herpes, and ended up with damaged tear ducts from infections. I had a cat that had that problem in one eye, but it wasn't quite as bad as OP described. Did your vet rule out an Upper Respiratory Infection? Eye infection? Are the eyelids normal?
Another possibility is severe allergies caused by something in his environment. You should try to find out if he had that problem prior to you adopting him.
Also, If your vet was "of no help", you might want to get a second opinion. Not getting answers for such a condition is unacceptable IMO.
Good luck finding the problem, & please keep us updated
Do you have access to an animal ophthalmologist anywhere near you? IMO vets have limited knowledge of eye troubles beyond the basics (infection, ulcer, etc.)
Our Benny has seen a specialist for most of his life (and he's 18) and they have done a great job of managing his issues (corneas, glaucoma, at one point inflammation).
It could not hurt to get an opinion, if only to make sure nothing more serious is going on.
I agree with Rene and Cat Dad's posts as well (second opinion, specialist, allergies) and I had another thought about the possibility of a dry eye syndrome (lack of tears)
This isn't common but does happen. I was reading about it when I was researching eye drops for one of my cats.
What did the vet say/suggest? Was he tested for herpes?
He (Yuri) loves his canned food. Yuri gets one can of Fancy Feast a day in two feedings interspersed with Temptations two or three times a day, and there is Meow Mix in a feeder all the time. He’s a big cat (17 lbs.) compared to the other cat, Jodi, who is about 8 lbs. Jodi is a grazer and eats very little, unlike Yuri, who is a gulper. Yuri was about the same size when we got him from the shelter, as was Jodi. Jodi eats the same diet as Yuri (but much less), and she is not overweight, and her fur is silky to the touch.
The vet suggested that herpes may have been a factor and gave us pills a while back, but Yuri would not take the pills. We tried a pill plunger, but he began squirming as soon as he’d see the plunger, and even when we would get a pill in he would spit it out. We tried rolling the pill in those food pockets, but he wouldn’t eat them. We tried crushing the pills into his food but then he wouldn’t eat the food. Eventually we gave up.
The vet also said that he has allergies, and I think that may actually be the case, as he wheezes occasionally, and he sneezes occasionally as well (sometimes in my face when he is sitting on my chest as I lay back on my recliner, which he loves to do).
We feel like he is a happy cat who loves his home. His fur is shiny and silky to the touch. He purrs easily, and he has several spots around the apartment where he likes to lie on his back with his belly exposed, and he doesn’t move or even wake up if we walk right by him. He freaks out totally when we take him to the vet and it seems to take him a couple of days to get over a visit, so we try to keep his excursions to the vet to a minimum.
My wife and I were volunteers at an animal shelter (in the cat loft) for about ten years, and we have some knowledgeable cat-friendly friends, but we just can’t seem to get a fix on his eyes. I am hoping that the collective wisdom of the good people here may be able to suggest something that we haven’t tried.
Another possibility is severe allergies caused by something in his environment. You should try to find out if he had that problem prior to you adopting him.
Also, If your vet was "of no help", you might want to get a second opinion. Not getting answers for such a condition is unacceptable IMO.
Good luck finding the problem, & please keep us updated
We adopted both Yuri (the cat being discussed) and his shelter-mate Jodi from the shelter were we volunteered. We took Yuri because he had been adopted out once before but was returned. We knew of his eye issue, but we decided to take him anyway because we felt like he might never get his own forever home, and we were ready for two more cats because we had been catless for a while, our previous felines having passed on. Besides, he is a big orange tabby, so what’s not to like? Jodi is also an orange tabby and she was in the cage next to Yuri, so we figured they knew each other and might be friendly to each other.
Ironically, it hasn’t worked out that way. They don’t actually fight, but they don’t much care for each other either. We live in a duplex apartment, so there is usually one cat downstairs and the other upstairs, although they do cohabitate on the same floor often enough. They like being around us, so when we settle down to watch TV, they tend to come around.
We weren’t sure about the allergies, but that was the first thing the vet said when we first brought Yuri in. We live in Brooklyn, right across the street from Prospect Park, which is one of the largest parks in NYC, so I would guess the problem is allergies. But we had no idea that they could be so severe.
Do you have access to an animal ophthalmologist anywhere near you? IMO vets have limited knowledge of eye troubles beyond the basics (infection, ulcer, etc.)
That is an intriguing idea, and it’s something we never thought of. Thank you for the suggestion.
I would get rid of the meow mix for both cats. Horrible diet. I would feed them both a wet only diet, feed foods with high meat content, avoiding grains and other sugary fillers.
I would recommend you focus on reducing him to a healthy weight. It must be done very slowly, no more than an ounce a week loss (1/4 pound a month)
Wheezing can be a sign of asthma or heart disease, which will be made worse by his obesity. It is just as bad for cats as it is for humans to be obese.
Herpes is a viral infection, not treated with pills (with the exception of when there is secondary bacterial infection). The way to treat feline herpes is to boost the immune system. L-lysine use to be the go to for that but further studies have shown that lactoferrin or spirulina are more effective. These are supplements that can be added to the food.
Read up on dry eye syndrome and see if this may apply. There are eye drops that can be used to make a cat more comfortable. Most cats don't like the vet, but that is never a reason to not take them.
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