Swollen Eyes in Cat

Hey guys. Dr. Lara here today. I'm here with Patches. Patches is a 14 year old domestic, short hair. And the reason Patches is presenting today or that he's with us today is because he, he was having some really swollen eyes and conjunctiva about two days ago. And so Patches has a history of having allergies, seasonal allergies. That's something that can manifest in a number of different ways, such as skin issues as well as discharge from the eyes. He also has a history of getting discharged from his eyes, which could potentially be tied to herpes or chlamydia. Chlamydia and herpes are not the same as they are in humans and they are not what we call zoonotic, meaning they cannot be transmitted from the cats to the humans, nor from the humans to the cats. When Patches initially came in, we went ahead and did two things to go ahead and make him feel better. First thing we did was we gave him a short acting steroid injection to help reduce the inflammation in his body and hopefully on the ocular tissue. And then secondly, we started him on some topical eye ointment called erythromycin. Erythromycin is probably one of the first or second antibiotic treatments that we will use for the eyes. Compared to in dogs. We will use something called neopoly polymyxinibacitracin. That is something that we do not use in cats at all. The ophthalmologist will say neopoly, and that's because there's a large percentage of cats that will have an allergic reaction to that particular medication, which will then actually cause an irritation and make the cats worse instead of better. The other medication that we can use in the eyes is something called tobramycin and that is something that can help cats as well. If they're having these upper respiratory type infections. There is an antiviral drop that can be used. I think it's called cidofovir. And that is something that might help depending on what exactly you're treating, that may require some testing because that drug could potentially be more expensive. You know, the thing with Patches is that I anticipate that his symptoms are probably a combination of allergy related as well as potentially some sort of upper respiratory. And so I don't think that allergies in and of themselves are going to cause a conjunctivitis, that he was having conjunctivitis. Just in case you guys are wondering, is this tissue right here is the conjunctiva? And so it's when that tissue gets really really swollen sometimes. When this happened with Patches when we went to open up his eye to take a look that tissue was swollen was so swollen all I saw was pink in there. I wasn't able to see his eye. Normally when we're getting effective treatment it should be realistic for you to expect dramatic differences in the eye or the conjunctiva within about 48 to 72 hours which is why now you will actually see Patches eyes before he felt miserable and he definitely didn't want to open his eyes and let us even look. So if you guys found this video helpful give us a thumbs up. Thumbs up and or subscribe. Otherwise if you have comments about this video not specific to your pet but just general questions or concerns, leave it in the comment box. And if you know somebody who should watch this video because maybe their pet is going through something similar, please share it with them. Otherwise be safe and thanks for watching. Take care.