Ointment Application Help

Misty hurt her eye the other day and she went to the vet yesterday.

They checked for scratches and pokes and said her eye is fine but she must have gotten something in it and now there is a secondary infection starting and I need to put antibiotic ointment in the eye 2x a day for 10 days. No biggie right?

Well, everytime I put the ointment in she goes just out of reach and cleans her eye for at least 15 minutes. Is she getting the benefit of the ointment? Will it hurt her if she eats it? It is Neomycin. I just want to make sure she is ok and that she'll get better...

Help! I feel so bad for her, I know it's bothering my Misty baby!

Do you try to hold her in place for a little while after you've applied the ointment, to give the ointment time to be absorbed (not sure if that's the right word in this case)?

When my wife and I adopted one of our cats a couple of months ago, he had a URI. The vet showed us how to apply the eye ointment. He just held the cat for maybe 10 seconds after the application and said that would be sufficient. The URI and the eye discharge went away (with help from Clavamox) within a normal amount of time so I'm assuming the vet was right. Lots of cats start to squirm when they're held for too long (by their definition) so you might not realistically be able to restrain her for more than say a minute. And it's only natural for the cat to try to clean the eye afterwards. Since my cat is still alive and well I would imagine that ingesting a small amount of the oitment would not be a problem, and if it were I would hope that the vet would have mentioned it. But I'm not sure exactly what medication I was given so please don't rely solely on my experience.

You can always call the vet to voice your concerns and get reassurance.

I've had to use the ointment a couple of times on Zoe and I hate it....she closes her eyes so it mostly only got around her eye and when she went to rubbing it, I could only hope she rubbed some in. I don't think they ingest enough to be a problem. The last time I had to use it, I got soooo frustrated with it and called and asked them if there were drops I could use instead. So I went and picked them up and while she still didn't love being held still to do it, at least they actually went IN and it was a lot easier and quicker.
I hope some people here can give you some good tips on using it as I too would like to hear how it's done better than the experiences I've had with it!

Thanks everyone! I did call the vet after I posted and they said it would be fine as long as I hold her for a few seconds after the application. It won't hurt her if she's cleaning and eats some either!

Thanks so much for your help, I was kinda worried this morning!!