I'm looking for a bit of advice or any shared experiences from people who have FIV+ cats.
Happy was a feral kitten that I found in a parking lot when she was about 6 months old. She tested positive for FIV. She has always had chronic eye issues. Her eyes were completely gummed shut when I found her, which is how I was able to grab her and get her to a vet. She has had to have all of her teeth removed, but has been spayed and vaccinated and is generally pretty healthy.
I've had her for about 6 years now. She was on a L-Lysine supplement for about a year, but it made no difference to her eye problems. Our vet prescribes an antibiotic eye ointment for daily use. Generally I clean her face with a damp wash cloth and use the eye ointment once a day, but if her eyes are very sticky I use it up to 4 or 5 times daily.
About a month ago she started bleeding from her left eye. This wasn't the brownish discharge you get with a herpes flair-up, this was thick, bright red blood. I took her to the vet. There was no sign of any injury to her eye, the blood seems to be coming out of her tear ducts. He prescribed a ten day course of antibiotics and two different types of eye cream. After that she seemed much better. I have been using her regular eye cream daily, but the discharge was clear/pale yellow and not as bad as it often is.
On Friday she started sneezing and sniffing. On Sunday she started bleeding from her left eye again, so we took her back to the vet. The vet has done a really good job of cleaning her up, prescribed a different kind of antibiotics and given me interferon eye drops, as well as the antibiotic eye drops she was prescribed last month.
The third eye lid is completely covering her eye. I don't think she can see out of it at all. Her right eye isn't affected at all.
Has anyone else experienced this with their cats before? I wonder if this is something FIV+ cats suffer from regularly or whether I can hope her eye will go back to normal.
Happy was a feral kitten that I found in a parking lot when she was about 6 months old. She tested positive for FIV. She has always had chronic eye issues. Her eyes were completely gummed shut when I found her, which is how I was able to grab her and get her to a vet. She has had to have all of her teeth removed, but has been spayed and vaccinated and is generally pretty healthy.
I've had her for about 6 years now. She was on a L-Lysine supplement for about a year, but it made no difference to her eye problems. Our vet prescribes an antibiotic eye ointment for daily use. Generally I clean her face with a damp wash cloth and use the eye ointment once a day, but if her eyes are very sticky I use it up to 4 or 5 times daily.
About a month ago she started bleeding from her left eye. This wasn't the brownish discharge you get with a herpes flair-up, this was thick, bright red blood. I took her to the vet. There was no sign of any injury to her eye, the blood seems to be coming out of her tear ducts. He prescribed a ten day course of antibiotics and two different types of eye cream. After that she seemed much better. I have been using her regular eye cream daily, but the discharge was clear/pale yellow and not as bad as it often is.
On Friday she started sneezing and sniffing. On Sunday she started bleeding from her left eye again, so we took her back to the vet. The vet has done a really good job of cleaning her up, prescribed a different kind of antibiotics and given me interferon eye drops, as well as the antibiotic eye drops she was prescribed last month.
The third eye lid is completely covering her eye. I don't think she can see out of it at all. Her right eye isn't affected at all.
Has anyone else experienced this with their cats before? I wonder if this is something FIV+ cats suffer from regularly or whether I can hope her eye will go back to normal.