Hi everyone, I'm new to the site and just hoping to get a few opinions...
A little over 2 months ago my husband and I adopted our first cat, a 7-month-old shorthair tabby, from the local shelter. She was sneezing a bit and had a little reddish-brownish discharge from her eyes. The lady at the shelter said that if it continued the vet should be able to give us something to clear it right up. When we went for the initial vet exam right after bringing her home, the doctor wasn't concerned and said we wouldn't need any meds unless she started having green or yellow discharge from her nose. During the next week or so she sneezed and slept a lot, but would eat canned food and use her box fine - no colored nasal discharge, though the discharge from her eyes never stopped...we would just wipe it with a clean cloth when it got bad. She seemed to get better after that, the sneezing stopped for the most part and she became a lot more active - but still the eye discharge didn't stop.
One day we came home from work and she was really squinting her left eye, and in addition to the "normal" discharge, she also had some yellow stuff coming from that eye. We promptly made an appointment with the vet (a different vet this time, who is now our primary and we like very much) - found out she had a corneal laceration in the left eye, and also he was pretty concerned with what seemed to be a lingering upper respiratory infection. Gave us some oral antibiotics and eye ointment.
One week later, went back to the vet - the cut in her left eye was completely healed, but not much progress otherwise. We continued the oral antibiotics but not the eye ointment for one more week (she always seemed worse off after the ointment), then went back again - I thought her eyes looked a lot better at this point, but the vet was still not satisfied. He switched us to another oral antibiotic and wanted to give her an anti-inflammatory for her eyes (apparently the tear ducts were swollen from the URI, and he suspected that might be causing the eye discharge) BUT it turns out she had a new cut on her left eye, so instead we got a different eye antibiotic (a drop this time), and made another appointment for one week later.
Later today we'll go back to the vet again, but this whole week with the new antibiotics she doesn't seem to have improved - if anything she's gone downhill. She eats fine, uses her litter box and is very active. But she still squints her eyes a lot and there's still the brown discharge. She doesn't sneeze much anymore but we can hear that she's still a little congested when she's sniffing heavily or breathing hard after playing, and she seems to have a clear, runny nose sometimes. Obviously we're doing everything we can by taking her to the vet and giving the meds, but she's had these problems for over two months and we just don't seem to be getting anywhere. She was a stray before she was at the shelter and she had only been there a short time when we adopted her, so this might have been going on even longer.
She's got the sweetest temperament and we love her dearly, but the vet bills are piling on and we're just not seeing any progress. I'm just wondering if anyone has had similar experiences or any advice?
A little over 2 months ago my husband and I adopted our first cat, a 7-month-old shorthair tabby, from the local shelter. She was sneezing a bit and had a little reddish-brownish discharge from her eyes. The lady at the shelter said that if it continued the vet should be able to give us something to clear it right up. When we went for the initial vet exam right after bringing her home, the doctor wasn't concerned and said we wouldn't need any meds unless she started having green or yellow discharge from her nose. During the next week or so she sneezed and slept a lot, but would eat canned food and use her box fine - no colored nasal discharge, though the discharge from her eyes never stopped...we would just wipe it with a clean cloth when it got bad. She seemed to get better after that, the sneezing stopped for the most part and she became a lot more active - but still the eye discharge didn't stop.
One day we came home from work and she was really squinting her left eye, and in addition to the "normal" discharge, she also had some yellow stuff coming from that eye. We promptly made an appointment with the vet (a different vet this time, who is now our primary and we like very much) - found out she had a corneal laceration in the left eye, and also he was pretty concerned with what seemed to be a lingering upper respiratory infection. Gave us some oral antibiotics and eye ointment.
One week later, went back to the vet - the cut in her left eye was completely healed, but not much progress otherwise. We continued the oral antibiotics but not the eye ointment for one more week (she always seemed worse off after the ointment), then went back again - I thought her eyes looked a lot better at this point, but the vet was still not satisfied. He switched us to another oral antibiotic and wanted to give her an anti-inflammatory for her eyes (apparently the tear ducts were swollen from the URI, and he suspected that might be causing the eye discharge) BUT it turns out she had a new cut on her left eye, so instead we got a different eye antibiotic (a drop this time), and made another appointment for one week later.
Later today we'll go back to the vet again, but this whole week with the new antibiotics she doesn't seem to have improved - if anything she's gone downhill. She eats fine, uses her litter box and is very active. But she still squints her eyes a lot and there's still the brown discharge. She doesn't sneeze much anymore but we can hear that she's still a little congested when she's sniffing heavily or breathing hard after playing, and she seems to have a clear, runny nose sometimes. Obviously we're doing everything we can by taking her to the vet and giving the meds, but she's had these problems for over two months and we just don't seem to be getting anywhere. She was a stray before she was at the shelter and she had only been there a short time when we adopted her, so this might have been going on even longer.
She's got the sweetest temperament and we love her dearly, but the vet bills are piling on and we're just not seeing any progress. I'm just wondering if anyone has had similar experiences or any advice?